Time passes really quickly.
Rainie is turning 1 month old tomorrow.
Her baby shower will be much more managed this time, not as over-the-top as what we previously did for Ryan.
It isn't about whether we love Ryan more so his baby shower was a much bigger event. Nor is it that we are tired and just want the easy way out.
With the first child, our world revolved about Ryan. If there are choices to be made, we will always choose to pay the premium for supposedly "better stuff". This ranged from diapers to milk powder to the size of his baby shower and 1 year old birthday party.
Was it absolutely necessary to do that?
The politically answer was: I want the best for my kid, and I can afford it.
Taking a step back, looking at the stuff that we had done.
Elaborate baby showers/birthday parties looked good and felt good. For the parents and grandparents.
Does the kid know or appreciate that he had an elaborate party?
Probably no, and didn't matter that much.
So the question will go back to the point, whether it is necessary to throw a huge party for the baby?
My Answer now? It really depends on your POV.
We have to get more pragmatic in life, and prioritize the really important stuff.
Throwing a baby shower is still a significant event, as it is an important milestone for baby.
Saving the resources in holding a smaller event, and spending it on the more important stuff for baby, that's what really matters.
When the kids grow up, and start to better understand human relationships/ interactions, then it will be the correct time to place a bigger emphasis on such events. It doesn't mean that it is ok to go over-the-top then. It's the quality that matters.
And how the quality is defined? It is really up to the parents' upbringing for the kids.
Hmmmmm.
Suddenly getting philosophical tonight when I was going to write something else...
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Important milestones for Dear and Me:
As of 3 Feb 2015, we are made our final payment for our HDB-CPF loan.
So technically speaking, we are finally debt-free (not taking into account the internal processing time for HDB to clear this up)
Looking back, it was a good decision for both of us to take up the BTO flat back in 2008, just when the property prices were heating up.
We got our HDB apartment at a relatively low price (compared to my peers who bought later), so naturally the loan that we took is much lower.
Of course our CPF OA were emptied back in 2008/09 when we signed the documents, so the loan that we eventually took up was around 60% of the total price for our flat.
It took us about 4 years from TOP to clear our loan, which is relatively fast in this era.
I insisted on making consistent partial payments every year to bring down the loan size as quickly as possible, since the loan interest was higher (0.1% is still higher!) than the CPF OA interest, so it wouldn't make sense to let the OA balance grow and waste away.
Having a peace of mind now that we are technically debt-free is priceless.
With a secured base of a debt-free home, the next mission is to grow our retirement funds.
I'll need to pad up my OA & SA quickly so that I can use it to invest in a second property.
OA + SA have to be >50% of prevailing Minimum Sum before it can be used for payment on 2nd property
Still some distance to go.
Good thing I realized last year (better late than never!) the Minimum Sum Top Up scheme was going to help with income tax relief, and started to pump some cash in then. And just did the same for this year as well.
Getting income tax relief and bringing up my SA balance quickly so that I can use CPF OA for 2nd property installment payment? Sounds like a good deal to me!
I see it as my duty as a father and husband to do proper financial planning, so that the family doesn't have to worry that much about finances as we grow up/old.
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