Random Musing of the Week

Personal Expenses

I did a post a few days back on my monthly expenses of the month to date. Safe to say, I will definitely overspend the 4k limit that I set for myself prior to the start of my mini retirement, sabbatical, however you want to call it. The car repair cost will be around 400 dollars including changing out of the faulty oil sensor, the battery and misc cost for servicing. So I will most likely fail my budgeting stress test. Though, if we strip out the cost and allocate it according to which bucket it should go, perhaps i will be way below 4k as alot of cost that ive incurred should be charged to the joint account that i have with my wife. Basically i am doubting counting the joint cost as my personal expenses. Let's see what the numbers are like end of July. 

Car Woes

I have never been so frustrated in sending my car for servicing. I always go to the cycle and carriage at UBI since I stay in the North East. This time around, I had to go for an earlier slot since there's the oil sensor warning. The earliest I can find is at Ulu Pandan . To be fair, the registration for the appointment was much more efficient than Ubi, but that's where it ends in terms of customer service.  I was extremely specific about the issue and I told them most likely its the oil sensor fault since engine oil level has stayed at the same level for the past 5 days and temperature didnt go past 90 deg.  In all my previous experience at UBI, the consultant will always call around noon time/lunch time to provide feedback on when the car will be ready or what other problems are there. 

I requested the consultant to give me a call and let me know if the car will be ready for collection on the same day so that I am not in a dilemma on what to do/where to go. It's a long way home, and i dont want to go home to find out that I can collect the car on the same day. Long story short, no calls came, and I've tried calling the number provided throughout the day, plus the reception number. No one picked up the call. So I decided to head back to ulu pandan at around 330pm since i was still outside as i have scheduled a meet up with a friend . Just when I arrived at the gate, i received a call to say the car will not be ready today. I am like, dude I've been calling you the whole day and he told me the number provided may not be updated. The problem of the car is an faulty oil sensor, as per what I told him in the morning. I have never been so disappointed with the service of C&C and I was told the one at UBI is not directly under C&C, and C&C is taking over the operations from fulco @ ubi. This doesnt bode very well. 

Retiree Life

The friend of mine wanted to drive to ulu pandan to pick me up but i told him we will just meet in town. I took a bus to go from ulu pandan to get to my destination. It was alittle bit like reconnecting with my past. When i was in school, i love going on long bus rides. I always remember this bus ride on bus 65 with the same exact friend who i met yesterday. We went took it from terminal to terminal as we had so much time to spare while waiting for our next activity. It's been a quarter of a century since that bus ride and we were still talking about it. When i told my wife that i am taking a bus, she told me to just take a grab as my time is more expensive than the cab fare which i then corrected her to say i am unemployed, i am on negative rates per day. She laughed. The friend commented that this is exactly what his retired relatives say to him.  The truth is, i had no where to go, and i didnt want to go back home to come back to ulu pandan again. If i was told the car will only be ready the next day, i would have taken a cab and go straight home. 

Alibaba

So alibaba got fined again and the shares tanked more than 10% within the week. Is it a bad thing for the company to be fined? To me, it is good that now there is a "conclusion" to it, when it comes to anti monopoly. Alibaba was fined for 5 cases of it. Maximum fine for each case is 75k USD.  It is not really a big deal isnt it?  Less than a million USD, peanut compared to the 2.8b fine imposed on Alibaba back in 2021


ok, gotta head out to meet up with fellow "retirees" now and hopefully the car will really be ready by noon time!

Comments

  1. On the hind side, if you give up driving, your expenses will be way below your budget, so the retirement is very feasible imo. For the C&C part, you should get hold of the SE contact, so that you have a go to person to call. Lastly, you have a lovely and caring wife, really, I hope I have the same support should I jumped too (btw I was the guy supposed to resign this week, but I chicken out at last minute, I am still hesitating 不要一时冲动, and continued stalking your blog to build up my courage again :))

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    1. Haha I remember! U delayed by a week because you wanted to enjoy the PH. Did you discuss it with your partner on your intent to stop working? I like the convenience of the car too much to give up on it. Haha, guessed I should write positive things everyday about being jobless to help u along.

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    2. Anyway I do have the number of the SE. He never picked up the phone yesterday and he was on MC today. Went down to bang table and car was ready in 1 hr . Really appalling service. I think it is just this guy.

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