tzlee.com/blog

  • Rest in peace

    Rest in peace

    People come and go. That’s life. But everyone of us came into this world with a purpose. Grandma was no big shot, she is neither famous nor rich. She was, to most people, just another parent/grandparent. She was a simple person, very down to earth, and didn’t really cared much about material wealth. She cared for me and my siblings during our primary and secondary school days, and watched over us while our parents were busy at work. There’s usually only these things on her mind: food, sweets (yes, she loves Hacks and Ricola), shower, prayers, sleep.

    Grandma started having mild dementia, and as a young ignorant kid I found it annoying that she asked the same questions over and over again. It was only that when I grew up that I learnt that it is an irreversible medical condition that affects many older people.

    Grandma spent many years in Singapore with us, but since she was getting older and gotten physically weaker, she returned to her hometown in Kuching, Sarawark. Several years later, she moved in with my uncle in Kota Kinabalu.

    I visited grandma a few years ago. I think I haven’t seen her for close to 10 years as I was busy studying in poly, then went to the army, then to work. She was still strong, and at the age of 80+ (close to 90), she was still able to walk up and down stairs. I believed it was her simple way of life, the simple food that she ate, and her active lifestyle that kept her physically strong. It is unfortunate that her dementia had gotten worse. She would forget if she had eaten, and often mistook me for “ah beng” — my elder cousin, and she still thinks I’m studying although I was already married.

    I heard about grandma’s detrioriating condition and visited her earlier this year. Most times she would be asleep in the nursing home, but one day she was awake, and her eyes were wide open. My mum tried speaking to her, but she didn’t seem to respond, or was basically unable to respond. My mum thought she couldn’t see or hear anymore. I took my phone, dug out some photos of me and my wife and I crawled up on the bed and placed my phone in front of her. I said to her in chinese: “Do you remember me? I am TZ. I am married now. This is my wife. I’m no longer studying and I’m working now. Do you remember me?” She nodded.

    But it was hard for me to see grandma in such a condition — she was in pain and had tubes in her nose and was not able to move or speak. She had an operation on her leg, and because she couldn’t move her leg, her leg muscles had stiffened up so much that she was always in a foetal position. I wished I could do something to help her.

    As part of her dementia, grandma would often have negative thoughts: She would say things like somebody stole her money, or somebody scold her, and she would also often say (in Chinese) that she wants God to take her away. Of course we would tell her to stop talking nonsense.

    But now, I hope God has really taken her to a better place. She would turn 94 next year, and her journey has been a long one. She didn’t give us (kids) gifts, money or other things. She left behind nothing material. But what is most important is that she gave us her love and left behind fond memories of her. For all that she has done, I am eternally grateful.

    May you rest in peace. We all miss you.

  • 2016 COE trend and illogical used car prices

    2016 COE trend and illogical used car prices

    Why are used car prices so ridiculously high when COE prices are down? It does not make sense, or does it?

    New cars are actually cheaper (in depreciation) now

    A brand new VW Golf (Mk7) 1.2 TSI was going for $98.8K over the weekend. This translates to a depreciation of approximately $9.5K/yr. If you do a search for VW Golfs on the second hand market now, there’s nothing below $11K/yr, and most are averaging $12K/yr — even the Mk6 1.2 TSI ones.

    A brand new Subaru Forester 2.0 (non-turbo) was also going for $116.8K. This translates to a depreciation of only $11K/yr for a brand new feature packed car. If you look at the second hand market, there’s nothing below $12K/yr for a Forester.

    So what has caused used car prices to go topsy-turvy?

    Here’s what I think is happening:

    1. The loan curbs (min. 5 years + 40% downpayment) priced many people out of the market. The high downpayment meant that people with less cash could only buy older cars. 5 year old cars seem to be in a sweet spot.
    2. People are adopting a wait-and-see attitude in hopes of further COE drops, so they are buying used cars with short lifespan to hold out for another year or two before they get a new car in 2017-2018, the predicted the “COE tsunami” years.
    3. Rising interest rates and weakening global economy in general deters people from spending on cars or luxury items.
    4. Old cars with 1-2 years left are being bought by rental companies turning them into private Uber fleets.

    The Uber-iztaion of Singapore

    In mid-2013 — when COE was some $60-70K — I bought a Subaru Impreza 1.6A with slightly over a year left of life at just below $5K/yr. If you look at the second hand market now, Imprezas are going for around $10K/yr. That’s a whopping two-fold increase. There’s practically no automatic Japanese sedans below $7K/yr right now.

    This whole Uber thing took off in the last 1 year or so, i.e. some time around mid/late 2014 till present. I strongly believe this is what wiped a lot of 8-9 year old cars off the market. These old cars were the best targets for rental because the risks are low — if the car is problematic or destroyed in an accident, just scrap it.

    Uber, renew or buy?

    I’m being asked quite often: Should I sell my car and go public transport/Uber, or renew COE, or buy a new car now?

    If you can live with public transport or Uber, why not? It will be cheaper than any form of car ownership. I’ve done my math and any basic car ownership right now would cost you somewhere between $14K-16K/yr for the car, road tax, insurance, fuel, parking, etc. If you have a $1K/mth budget for Uber, I’m sure you’ll be going places comfortably.

    But if you really need the convenience of a car, and — here’s the important part — you have the cash to spare, you can either renew 10 years provided your car is in good mechanical condition, or buy a brand new car with better technology, fuel economy, warranty, etc. Used cars are just so ridiculously priced right now that it doesn’t make much sense.

    If you are thinking of selling your 5-year old car and going Uber till COE drops, IMHO, now is the time.

    Where will COE be headed?

    I think COE will still continue to fall a little bit over the next 1-2 years, but I think it should bottom out at around $40K+. There’s a general resistance around that point, because at $40K+ the entry level Japanese / Korean cars could be going for around $70-80K and that seems comfortable for most people (and spells trouble for a lot of used car dealers).

  • Carculator App for Depreciation, Loan, Scrap and Rule 78

    Carculator App for Depreciation, Loan, Scrap and Rule 78

    I just wanted to put this out there. This little app I built was finally approved by the Apple for the App Store last night. I am making it FREE until the end of this year. It will be on sale for S$1.28 starting 2016.

    https://itunes.apple…ro/id1035354237

    There are two other similar apps on the App Store going for S$1.28 but neither have as complete a feature set as this, which is a reason why I found it compelling to build the app myself. It’s difficult to be calculating depreciation especially when walking around at a dealer, so the ability to save the calculation and back-reference is very important.

    You can also enter your current vehicle into it and see your scrap and loan redemption values over time. This is very valuable if you want to know how much you still owe the bank during a trade-in.

    I will probably release a “Lite” version with advertising and less features in 2016, so do grab this Pro version while you can because I will likely drop the loan redemption and save functionalities in the Lite version.

    All suggestions/feedbacks are welcome.

    P.S. Sorry, no Android version yet.

  • Life changing experience

    People tell me that parenthood is a life-changing experience. I don’t think I doubted that, but it did not exactly change my life the way I thought it would have — at least not yet.

    It is certainly tough caring for a newborn since the usual sleep/eat/poop cycle is approximately bi-hourly. I am not the type who can nap; I will wake up from a short nap feeling terrible. I cover night duties, so as a result I do not sleep until day break. If I am lucky, I get to sleep at 5 a.m.

    I end up sleeping very little each day. But just being tired is not what I would call life-changing. I have certainly been through times where I slept very little. Like going to Army/BMT, the time comes and you suck it up.

    Before the baby, most of my nights were spent working late, having dinner with friends, watching TV, busybody-ing on social media, etc. The arrival of baby meant I had to be home early and stay home for most parts of the evening. There’s only so much TV and social media I can feed on before I get bored, so I decided to spend my waking moments learning new things.

    During my army days, I spent free time reading books/online articles or creating stuff — software, music scores, etc. I learned a lot.

    So over the past month I started making a list of things I wanted to try/learn, and attempted them one by one. Baby time is great for reading or watching training videos because my hands are usually busy carrying or feeding the baby.

    Some of these action items actually required money, i.e. I had to buy/pay for stuff, and that was the biggest difference from my army days when I was broke.

    Money probably made some of those things easier/faster; but irregardless, I believe progress can still be made.

    Social time can really dilute you. I probably learned more (apart from parenting) in the last month than I have in the entire of last year.

  • The greatest gift to life

    The greatest gift to life is a new life.

    Born May 25, 2015 at 9.06am.

    printf(“Hello, world!\n”);

  • The coin toss

    There are always two sides to a coin. In a debate or discussion, the narrow minded will only try to reinforce a single-sided discussion. Pay attention to those who see both sides of every coin and have an opinion on both. Such people are usually razor sharp in their thoughts and observations. Learn from them, because these people go far.