adulting: age is just a number?

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almost a month ago, I turned 35. There I said it.

to be honest, it feels weird to say that I am 35. I often joke to my younger friends that I feel older. But then again, I..don’t really feel 35. I do feel younger (denial much..haha). Donald is older than me..so maybe that’s why I always feel younger, so yay!

Then heck..I have 3 of these and they remind me every day that I am old.

my jazz band

Not verbally, but the aches and pains that I feel. To think about it..I have been babywearing my kids full on for the past..5 years or so. My knees are going to give out soon man. I get frequent backaches and I see a chiropractor for my neck and lower back pain. Donald is in a better shape than me, err aches and pains wise. Not figure =P

Big shoutout to my chiropractor, Dr Richard Kissun at Kissun Chiropractic! You can contact them at 6243 2191 for a consult.

Just put Sarah to bed..and the thoughts that ran through my mind were..

should I fold the laundry now? about 4 loads on the laundry chair now.
i should go clear the stuff outside now. drats, the dining table looks horribly messy again. let’s see what I can clear.
oh hang on, empty the tub, then clear the dining table.
i’m so sleepy tho. maybe I should sleep early. but Sarah’s asleep now..if I don’t do this now, I won’t get any done tomorrow. dammit.
..
oh drats, we haven’t helped Quentin with his school project. And it’s almost the end of the school term.
…homework, remind me to ask Oliver about his homework tomorrow.
…accounts, I think I’ll start tomorrow. I need sleep.
oh CRAP. I still haven’t booked Sarah’s 9 mth appointment at the polyclinic. 

Deciding to sleep..doesn’t end my train of thought. It goes on, as though I needed constant reminders to myself before I commit them to memory. My memory is the shits now. I have notes written everywhere..just in case.

Cos you know..my brain is trying to remember many things sequentially and my husband tells me to stop multi-tasking. Riiiight. I thought I might try and write down what exactly that I’m reminding myself and I gave up. I don’t even know where or how to begin hahaha.

So..Donald and I spent this arvo..adulting. Latest buzzword leh, adulting. I’m no millenial (or am I? dammit, 1982, counted anot ah?). We decided to be good parents, and good husband and wife, and tidy up some admin work for the 5 lives in this household.

A few years back, Donald and I did our wills at my insistence. We are parents, and I felt that we needed to be prepared for the worst at any time. It is a morbid and emotional process, but it had to be done. It made us sit down and think about the people around us, and who we could really depend on. We needed to pick the right people who believed in our values and would act in our interest, to be the guardians for the children. Moments like this, you truly realise who are the ones you can depend on.

The will is but just one tool to protect the kids. We had to write down a list of everything we owned, the details and the access. I was about to get Donald to write down a simple list and I would type it out. Surprisingly, he said that we should write it by hand.

eh? 

A digital copy leaves room for hacking and amendments, making it vulnerable. Unless there is gonna be someone who can imitate Donald’s chicken scratchy handwriting, I think having it handwritten makes it safer.

The lengths we go to to make things easier to process in the event we pass away. Make me feel…so grown up and responsible. Wah lao.

Then I tidied up our insurance policies and did up a payment schedule so that we could see how poor we’d get at certain months. It’s like really damn poor lah!! But argh..coverage..and protection so that we don’t burden anyone around us. T_T so much expenses.

Btw, if you are looking for an NTUC Income agent, please look for Kenneth Han. I swear by him cos if not for him, I would not have ever learnt about using my child’s Medisave for hospitalisation plan premiums! I also wouldn’t have learnt about the new Maternity 360 standalone plan for pregnancy too but wah lao, it like came too late lor. People give birth liao, then come up with this policy. Previously they had a Ladies Rider for hospitalisation plan but I wasn’t with them for my hospitalisation. Oh wells..wasted. But yes, he is my go-to guy when I got any insurance related questions, even plans not by Income. Hahaha I think he very boh eng when I keep asking him about maternity or kids related stuff. #notasponsoredadhor #realtruth

After done with insurance..then I had to check my poor bank balance. I’m a low risk taker, so means I would rather keep my money in the bank. I would keep the money under my mattress lar, but no interest, so next is to put it in the bank lor. I know nuts about investments and don’t think I am willing to do so. Had to start thinking about saving for the kids’ education!

T_T As the kids grow older..that’s where the expenses really start racking up man.

Been trying to squeeze as much out of ah kong as possible, being in the sandwiched class. You know..not poor enough to get more subsidies (ie. CHAS), but at the bottom of the next benchmark. Kua kua. But hey, we cool okay. Just manage within our means lor.

So what we’ve squeezed so far is from CDA and Medisave grants. Quentin’s racked up quite a bit of medical bills which we used his CDA to pay for (when we didn’t know about the Medisave grant yet), so there isn’t much left to pay for school fees..until jeng jeng jeng jeng! Can tap into Sarah’s CDA to pay for school fees too! Phew. That is effectively give us 50% discount on school feels liao. Thankyouberrymuch, ah kong! I only knew that we could use sibling’s CDA to pay for medical fees, didn’t know it applied to school fees too. Err, thank you Sarah hor.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I made the husband relook at his tax submission cos I realised that there was so much we could claim as a tax deductible. Parenthood tax rebate, insurance tax rebate, Qualifying Child Relief, Working Mother’s Child Relief (er, not me lah..not yet but one day!). Can claim quite a fair bit leh. Sure as hell bring me back to the days where I would scrutinise my tax and try as reduce my taxes cos I was a poor student in Australia. Very painful to pay AUD$8k in taxes. So very very thankful for low tax rates in SG.

Man..we are only 5.5 years into being parents..I think the real deal is starting soon. Next year, we’ll say hello to textbooks, uniforms and stationery.

Category: Daily, Kids, Parenting
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