Won The Lotto

I said maybe I should buy lotto since it seems to be the only way we can potentially have the money needed to get our own place. That's exactly what we did. After all the bank hopping yesterday, I told hubs on a whim to try our luck. I picked the cheapest on the chart which is $8.50 for slikpik 12 for the Saturday lotto.

I'm sure everyone knows the rules. The money must be down to the last cent when splitting a ticket. So I gave him $5 for my share & watched as he scrambled to pay me back 75 cents.

Hubs just checked the results online & confirmed that we won the lotto. Now, before anyone gets excited, we won $21.95. We got back the price of the ticket plus extra. So thank you for the little joys in life.

Practicality Has My Vote

1st of all, some good news (to me) that I successfully lost 1 kg. It's slow going but I truly feel slow & steady will get me there this time. Every other time, I've been impatient, wanting rapid results but failing becoz I restricted myself so much that I just couldn't carry on. So hopefully, this will be the 1st of many kilos to go.

Naturally, our subject of conversation today revolves around houses. Hubs is worried that I'll be swayed by friends' negative opinions. He said that most Singaporeans have this problem that they want a big house & it's not becoz they need it but becoz they want to feel superior (feed the ego). He's very sure that people will tell us that this house we so love is too small & start pointing out reasons why we shouldn't get it. Here's my view on it.

I can't say this frequently enough. I'm a practical person. If I don't need it, then I don't want it. Since we're not having kids, 2x1 is plenty big for us. Even if by accident we do have 1 (which is not likely), we've got another bedroom. This house have no lawn & it's great since I don't need to spend time, effort & money caring for it. It has sufficient garden beds for me to grow whatever herbs I want. Flowers? No thank you. I can't do anything with it. At least with herbs, I can use them in my cooking. House work will be a breeze in a house of this size. If I'm working 5 days a week already, the last thing I want is to spend time "working" at home on the weekends. I very much rather enjoy myself on a day out or just chilling at home. Even if we miss out this time, I'll still be looking for something exactly the same in the future when our finances permit.

Yes, I know a big lot & a 4x2 will fetch a good price when you sell it in the future. But we're not looking to sell. We're looking for something we'll stay in permanently. I don't care that I won't make much profit out of it becoz I want it to be forever home. I use the word home becoz if you're always thinking of it in monetary terms, it'll forever be just a house.

A small place with a smaller price tag means smaller monthly repayments. Why must we stretch ourselves to the limit just so we can stoke our ego? At the end of it, I'm much more likely to have saved up a huge sum of money & can retire comfortably instead of just depending on my super. We're not young. A 30 year loan means I'll be in my 60s & hubs nearing 70s. Do we really want to still be working beyond that age becoz we've got no money?

Perhaps it's becoz we grew up with little. So financial freedom means so much to us. We're not asking for the sky. We're contented with just a small place. What is perfect for you may not be perfect for us. The reverse holds true too. So nobody can change my mind on what I envision to be a "perfect" home. I firmly believe that if I set my mind to it with a strong ichinen, my prayers will be answered without a doubt.

Failed Otah

I received a bag of chilli from P&J's garden. As you know, I don't eat chilli in their original form. So the only way is to make chilli paste from them. I spent quite a while last evening working on it, staining my fingers orange from the tumeric. I made 2 batches, 1 from the fresh chilli & 1 from dried chilli. 

This is the fresh chilli version. It turned out yellow so I added smoked paprika powder to enhance the colour.

This is made with dried chilli & the colour is more reddish. But I think I added too much dried chilli & it was too spicy.

The otah on the left is made with the dried chilli paste & the 1 on the right is made with fresh chilli paste. But alas, the dried chilli paste was too spicy. While I love my spicy fix, some food are best spicy in moderation. The chilli had overpowered the taste of all other ingredients. It gave me gastric pain as well. 

I remember the only time I ordered a level 10 Bepu raman in Tiong Bahru Plaza. While I managed to finish it, I suffered severe gastric pain for several hours after that. Not a pleasant feeling at all. I walked bent over the entire time, hugging my tummy, unable to straighten my back. I won't have a chance to do it again coz they closed down & was replaced by MOF. Not that I'll want to experience that kind of discomfort again. I had a level 10 buffalo wing at Sunset Grill (if I didn't remember the name wrongly) in an ulu airbase. Just 1 bite (I haven't even started chewing) & I felt the heat spread up my face & down my neck. I couldn't talk for a few minutes & it was a miracle I finished the whole wing. Needless to say, that was the only piece I tried. Subsequent pieces I ate were level 6s. The buffalo wings didn't give me gastric pain. I can never work out why some spicy stuff gives me gastric pain & some doesn't.

Anyway, I declared both otahs as failed. The texture & taste is wrong. Edible but not good enough to give away. I was going to give some to P&J but sorry, I guess next time. The shallots here are much bigger than the ones we get in Sg & they cost $10 per kg. Tumeric costs $25 per kg but I only need a little. The only thing I couldn't get was blue ginger & banana leaves. I tried looking up otah recipes online but they basically use the same ingredients as I do. Hubs suggested adding 1 more egg. I'll just keep experimenting until I get it right. Or if anyone has a recipe that you've tried & deemed pass, please share with me.

Home Loans - The Very Basics

I found the perfect home for us. It's a very new (1.5 year old) 2x1 with double garage. No lawn, the back of the house is paved. The owner is selling as they're migrating & asking for $339k to $349k. I've done the calculations before & any loan above $350k is beyond our means. Becoz it's a small place, the water rates & council rates are lower than the other houses in the same suburb. To build a house of the same size in the same suburb now is $379k. Established houses of the same size in the same suburb (further up north in fact) are asking more than $349k. It's only becoz they're in a hurry to sell that they reduced the price. So you can see why I think this is a good deal.

I've gone to the banks & none of them are willing to drop the required deposit to 5% for us. So it doesn't matter how much we're eligible to loan. If we don't have 10%, everything else is moot. If I have another 6 months, I would have made the 10%. But the house isn't going to wait 6 months. I even called Keystart as they require only a 3% deposit & you don't even have to pay for mortgage insurance. Unfortunately, becoz I have a property in Sg, I'm not eligible. I have 1 more bank to go to as my appointment is at 3.30 pm. But I'm not hopeful coz I'm sure all banks work pretty much the same way. Nevertheless, we'll still go for the home open tomorrow even though I'm sure it'll tug at our heartstrings to view something we know we don't have a chance with. Unless of course, we somehow win the lottery & I don't even buy. Maybe I should, huh?

So here's what I've learnt. 

1. When working out the loan amount, the banks will consider casual employment. But you must have worked in that position for a minimum of 2 years. 

2. For permanent employment, be it full time or part time, you need to have worked in the same company for 6 months to be eligible for a loan.

3. Anything below the minimum of 20% deposit will incur a mortgage insurance, which in my opinion isn't a bad thing as your mortgage will be paid for should you lose your income due to loss of job or death or disability. Based on $350k loan, minus $35k deposit, my mortgage insurance with ANZ comes to $6627. My fortnightly repayments will be $877 which is basically the same amount I'm paying for rent now ($860).

4. Even if you don't qualify, you can still try your luck & put in an application subjected to approval. But if you get rejected, it affects your credit rating & decreases subsequent chances of getting a loan approved. Bottom line I get from the bankers: don't try unless you meet all their criteria.

5. If you have a credit card or loan & make regular repayments, the bank will consider loaning you 95% of the purchase price. According to D&J, it will have a big effect on your loan amount as well. D & his colleague in the same job, with the same pay went to the same bank for assessment. D was allowed to loan $100k more becoz he had taken up loans before & didn't miss the payments.

Weekly Check In

I gradually began to notice the delay in breaking of dawn over the course of 1 week. For the past few days, I would wake up at 5 am & have to switch on the lights in the bathroom. At it's peak early last month, it was already quite bright by 4.30 am. Realisation of the fact that we're at the end of January & summer is 2/3 over hit me then. Though not a full year yet, we've experienced all seasons in Perth already. How time flies. I'm ever craning my neck for the return of cool autumn.

It's been a happening week. I was on my way home on Wednesday, just about 100m away from my turn when I notice an ambulance in my rear mirror. They didn't switch on the siren but their lights were flashing. So I pulled as far left as I could (single lane) & slowed down for them to go ahead. They overtook me from the oncoming lane & turned in. I made the turn after them & saw that they went straight while I had to turn left. My immediate thoughts were that maybe someone's suffering from a heart attack. I read later on FB that it was a hit & run. Apparently,  the driver hit a motorcyclist so hard that his bull bar fell off. The motorcyclist didn't make it. In a residential area, to have hit someone so hard your bull bar came off, you've got to be driving way too fast isn't it?

On that same night, hubs told me that he was in the carport between our 2 cars, about to wheel the bin out (today's bin day) when he notice a man walk up the drive way. He initially wanted to stay in the shadows & see what the guy was up to. But the spotlight with motion sensor was triggered & his cover was blown. So he attempted to approach the man. Immediately, he turned & quickly walked away. It was a man with a bald spot on his head, wearing a light coloured short sleeved shirt & berms. I suspected that he might have wanted to try his luck robbing our cars coz we don't keep the lights on outside & the carport is completely in the dark. Anyway, I don't have any valuable items in the car so he would have been wasting his efforts had he tried. 

Hub's been giving a lot of thought about buying our own place. I feel that it's not impossible, just that we'll be quite stretched. Based on the mortgage calculator, a $400k loan will require a repayment of $2.1k per month. Add the $1k I have to send back to Sg every month, add the bills, water rates (about $200+ bi-monthly), home insurance & putting aside some for property tax, we're looking at a potential of $3k per month. Some months I don't even bring home $4k. So I told him to speak to his boss about the possibility of granting him a permenent position. This way, not only will it help us secure a higher loan amount, there's the security of guaranteed income. Let's see how it goes.

Baked Aubergine With Lemon Infused Couscous

Blog has taken on a depressive tone & what better way to add some cheer than everybody's favourite? Food. I've recently ordered from Book Depository a vegan cookbook, Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin. I've got lots of cookbook in Sg & hubs always complain that I buy them but never cook from them. Over the years, I've learnt how to choose cookbooks that I know I'll cook from. Most importantly, an ingredients list that isn't super long & many of which you'll only need a little & never use again. Since I ordered this book online, I didn't know what it is like inside, whether it fulfills my requirement. Thankfully, when I flipped through it when it finally came in the mail, I noted the repeated ingredients in multiple recipes, which means I can safely buy them & not having to worry about wastage. She uses a lot of smoked paprika powder, agave nectar, maple syrup, Dijon mustard & balsamic vinegar (which I already have).

I chose baked aubergine with lemon infused couscous as I had 2 boxes of couscous which I bought when they were on half price at Coles 2 or 3 months back & it's about time for clearance. While the aubergine will probably be cheaper in the asian supermarket than Coles, it seemed unwise to drive 18 km to Altone Park when Coles is just 1 km away. The nearest to parsley would have been coriander which unfortunately due to my un-green thumb, didn't survive. So I substituted the parsley for basil & oregano from my pots. The most expensive ingredient has got to be the pine nuts ($12+ for 200g), followed by the aubergine which was going for $3 per piece. The recipe called for 1 aubergine to be split in half but I thought, "Sure won't be full lah!" so I bought 2 instead. Boy, was I wrong. After eating half an aubergine, I was so stuffed that the remaining 2 halves went into the fridge to be served at dinner.

So here's what I've whipped up for lunch today. Oh yeah, not forgetting that this is it for dinner too. I'm looking forward to trying out other recipes from my new cookbook.

上火

I feel this picture most accurately depicts ying & yang. Ying is associated with the moon, cold & traditionally women while yang is the sun, heat & men. There's a bit of ying in the yang & a bit of yang in the ying. Together, they represent the balance of the body. Well, I was educated with the knowledge of western medicine but brought up with the knowledge of chinese medicine. There're some things I don't believe. For example, the heaty cough & the cold cough, supposedly represented by yellow phlegm & green phlegm respectively. I still believe what I was taught, that URTI is brought about by a virus & can be infected secondarily by bacteria. But what I do believe is that when your body is out of balance, it makes you susceptible to falling sick.

From young, I know I have a yang body constituency. I can take lots of "cooling" stuff without ever falling sick. I tolerate cold much better than anybody else I know. Supposedly, people with ying constituency frequently suffers from cold hands & feet & do poorly in cold weather. But people with yang body constituency are more susceptible to getting hypertension.

Since last evening, I began to develop a pounding headache. My mouth & eyes were constantly dry & I guzzled at least 2L of water today (I can hardly finish a 500 ml bottle of water on a normal day). I hated taking medicine & prefer the natural way so I didn't take anything for my headache. I slept quite a fair bit throughout the day too. These are just symptoms but I know I 上火了 mostly due to the way I feel. I can feel that I'm on the mend. But ask anyone with a weak body constituency like my mom & they'll tell you falling sick is unavoidably imminent.

Regardless, I spent 1.5 hours outside raking the ground so I can sow grass seeds. It had been a hot day & by the time I went out at 6.30 pm, the entire lawn was crispy. Note the crunchy sound as I stepped on it. So contrary to what my landlords says, watering only on reticulation days, even if it is for 30 mins is not enough. Raking the soil took quite a lot of effort & in some areas, the soil comes off in an entire piece, evident of beetle infestation. So I had to resort to stabbing these areas to loosen the soil instead.

By the time I was done racking the front & back, sowing the seeds & watering the lawn, it was already 8 pm. I swear if I'm paid by my hourly rates, I'll be super rich since I only have time to work on the lawn on weekends & holidays & penalty rates apply. The pulpy flesh directly opposite my knuckles on my right hand was swollen & red from the work. Haha. 没有做过苦工的人就是这样的啦。Hopefully my effort will pay off & the grass will grow. 

I'm just making an entry of what I'm doing for the lawn, just in case, like my friend who had to go to court, I'll have evidence proving that the state of the lawn is not due to my neglect & that I'll be given a fair trial. Not that I hope it'll come to that. Just preparing for the worst.