Tankless Heaters

One thing I like about our new place is that the hot water was installed before we moved in. This avoided the problem of having to install outside hot water heater units which can look a little cumbersome. However, I recently read about a new product called tankless water heater which you can install easily into your bathroom without ugly tanks sticking out of your wall. Maybe I should find out more about it and install it into my new place when I take it back from the tenant.

Cold Weather

I used to think that living in cold weather and being able to change in and out of lots of jackets and warm volcom clothing was good fun. However, when I was staying abroad while studying and on holidays in winter abroad, I realised how troublesome it was to have to put on thick and heavy jackets before going outdoors and the terrible cold against your face which is unprotected. I guess we're never happy with what we have, whether hot or cold!

High Premiums

I've recently paid my insurance for the year and was shocked to see how high the premium was. I guess I had forgotten about it when I signed up for it a year ago. As such, I forgot to make allowances for it in my monthly budgetting and ended up having to draw from my savings to pay for it. This is the last time I'm listening to term life insurance quotes whenever any agent approaches me. I think I have enough insurance policies for now.

Payday Debt

My previous company used to sometimes offer its employees payday cash advance or payday loans especially around the festive season. Many of them used to take advantage of it and opt to have their salary reduced as payment for the advance. One of my friends used to take it although he didn’t need it as to him, it was available money at a low interest rate! Everyone has their own personal view of money and to me, I would try to stay out of debt as much as possible. So aside from my big loans such as my housing and car loans, I would try as much as possible to avoid taking further debt and try to live within my means. While that sounds good, it really isn’t as easy as it sounds especially since the cost of living in the city is increasing everyday and the prices of goods keep going up. Our inflation rate has shot through the roof and while single people like me can survive, I guess those with families may have no choice but to take a payday loan to help them bridge their expenses over the month. Whatever form of cash aid you decide to take on, it is important that you do not become overly dependent on it.

Perfornance Evaluations

I had it rather easy in my previous company as we didn't have fixed performance evaluations. However, this has changed in my new company. Being a multinational, they have very detailed employee performance evaluations carried out every year which will actually determine what your bonus payout, increment or promotion will be. I'm sitting down with my boss tomorrow to discuss what my tasks are for the year. Hopefully I'll be able to meet them at the end of the year.

Snorkel Gone

The other day, I was driving out of our condo unit when I noticed a big truck which was parked outside was missing its snorkel! I guess this is what happens when you buy lots of swanky truck accessories for your monster truck and park it outside. It's simply tempting thieves and vandals who sometimes steal these stuff simply for fun. Poor guy though! I hope the snorkel didn't cost him too much!

Credit Card Debt

I got a shock when I received my credit card statement this month. I did not realize that I had put so many transactions on it last month. One huge transaction was the deposit for the design and tailoring of my gown which I thought would only hit the following month. Now, I’m not sure how to pay it off! This is the reason why I can’t understand why some people are so happy to be offered credit cards. Sometimes, they do not realize that credit cards could actually pull them deeper into debt. This is the reason why it’s always good to compare the credit cards you’re offered on a good Online Credit Card site. That way you’ll be able to choose the best deal.

Net-less

I've never felt so net-deprived before :( Granted I can at least access my Gmail and the occasional blogs but gone are my blog-hopping days. Plus the open cubicles don't really give much privacy. Now, my surfing times are limited to what I can do at the end of the working day in the comfort of my own home. I do miss some elements in my old company.

One Month Old

I'm officially one month old in my new place. How do I like it? Well, it's very different from my old office. I no longer have the privacy of a room and we have to use shared cubicles here. Plus, parking is really difficult which results in me having to come in the wee hours of the morning at 7am simply to secure a parking lot which is in the open and apparently not very safe to walk to in the evenings or early mornings. Food is also a bit of a problem as there aren't that many choices around. It's especially obvious for me where my previous office was right in a mall with designated parking lots and dozens of food choices! Oh well...we all have to make adjustments and choices. Hopefully this was for the better.

Playing Rugby

I have never been much of a sports fan so I could never quite understand the fever that gripped my friends whenever rugby season rolled around. They would be waking up at the wee hours of the morning to watch their favourite rugby games, complete with their team’s colours and headscarves! It was actually quite an amusing scene to watch especially when their teams were winning. They also used to go online on their favourite RBS 6 nations website to track their winning teams’ statistics on the Europe premier international rugby tournament. It is a great site they used to find out more about the tournament news, results and podcasts. What they loved was also the interactive games they could play while it was not rugby season! They were really quite an amusing bunch and I found it quite funny to see how excited and passionate people could be about their favourite sport! I guess it’s to each their own!

Playing the Market

The stock market here has been on an upward climb and several people have actually encouraged us to try our hand in option trading. It’s rather interesting but being a bit of a non-risk taker, I would rather find out more about it before jumping into it with my hard earned money. This is especially since the options market here isn’t as widely developed as it is in the West where specialized programmes such as PowerOptions are even available for your ease in researching and obtaining the essential data you require to make the most money from your options. If there were such programmes here, I’m sure we will all be able to benefit greatly from options too!

Hone Your Skills

I used to work with a construction company and sometimes it was scary knowing how unqualified immigrant workers who were literally fresh off the boat were responsible for building your home! I used to wonder how these new workers will know what to do and was told that they were usually taught by a previous employee who had been on the job for some time already. In fact, my colleague told me that in some cases, the site foreman had proved to be even better at reading the plans and planning the construction compared to the trained engineers! As good as experience is, it is equally important to have proper ConstructionSkills. There are lots of avenues for obtaining the right construction skills from engineering school to even online sites such as Cskills. It provides comprehensive information on the construction sector right down to health and safety rules which are often neglected in some courses. So if you’re in the construction line, be sure to ensure your employees are well-trained to avoid unnecessary accidents.

Four Eyes

Nowadays glasses are no longer something that's really ugly. I remember how people used to call me four eyes when I first wore glasses. But today, a Great Discovery: $ 8 Zenni Optical Rx Eyeglassess provides a fantastic array of swanky glasses for every face shape and fashion style. Best of all, you can buy the glasses from them at a cheap price as they sell it straight to consumers without the middle man, hence saving customers lots of money. So remember where to head the next time you're looking for fashionable glasses!

Protect Your Home

I just received our annual invoice for our home owners insurance policy. We didn’t use to invest in home owners insurance. However, after reading up more about it and doing more research, we found that it was worthwhile investing in it as the premiums weren’t very high but it provided sufficient coverage over our home and possessions. In fact, it comes highly recommended nowadays especially as people become more affluent and own more possessions.

Effective Communication

I recently changed jobs and am just a month old in my new company. I do miss several things about my old company such as the traveling we used to do and my internet flexibility and independence. I guess the nature of our work then involved more face to face meetings and I had a tremendous amount of exposure to some of the most important people in those countries. However, here, in my present company, I notice that they tend to rely on conference calls between their various subsidiaries instead of physical meetings. This is the way the world seems to be going especially for multinational companies which have offices all over the world. From a cost point of view, it’s definitely cheaper to make calls than to fly halfway around the world just for a meeting.

As a result, it is very important to have a good and reliable telephone system such as the Talkswitch telephone system sold by Neobits.com which my company uses. It’s a marvelously compact all-in-one telephone system with all kinds of sophisticated call handling features such as VOIP. Its reception is very clear and good which makes our conference calls almost as good as physical meetings. Plus it comes with easy installation and a free PC configuration software so setting it up is really simple. It’s a great phone and I’ll recommend it to any company seeking to reduce their communication and travel costs.

Betting on Football

Summer if just a few more months away and soon it will be football season again! I remember how excited everyone was during the last World Cup. I actually went out to the local stalls to join everyone in the excitement of watching the matches till the wee hours of the morning which was definitely something new for me as I have never been a football fan. The town was also full of people who were making all kinds of bets about which football team was likely to win and in some cases, the stakes were pretty high! In our small town, the people don’t really have much access to the Internet otherwise I’m sure they’ll be really interested in the online football betting available at Bet365.com during the football season. There, they can put in their online bets, not just against the people of the town but with practically anyone and everyone who is playing in the Bet365.com online betting facilities! Perhaps it is lucky that they don’t know about this online facility! They might end up losing more money if they bet on the wrong team!