$3.30 Fillet-O-Fish meal and $8.00 QB House haircut.

In fact, you could get a Fillet-O-Fish or a Big Mac or a 6 piece McNugget value meal for S$3.30 each! Where in Singapore?

Unfortunately, not in Singapore but in Hong Kong.

Cheap!

When QB House increased their price from S$10 to S$12 here, I was taken aback. That was a 20% increase in price! Anyway, I soon got over it until I saw this:

Cheap!

HK$50 which is about S$8 only!

What did I do? Got myself a haircut and felt quite smug about it. Used the S$4 saved to buy myself a Fillet-O-Fish value meal and I still had 70c left over! Smug City!

Yummy!

We really have to travel to feel how strong the S$ is now and how expensive things have become in our country.

With the S$ so strong, is there more that can be done to reduce the cost of living in Singapore? I wonder.

Related posts:
1. Hong Kong: Ibis Hotel revisited.
2. Save money with low prices and free shipping.

Gold as an insurance against inflation

Why buy gold? For me, gold is just another form of insurance against inflation. Real assets such as crude oil, Asian real estate and commodities are also used to hedge against inflation.

Gold will hit US$2.5k eventually and, probably, go higher in the years to come. The current inflation adjusted value of gold compared to the high achieved in 1980 should be about US$2.4k now. We are about halfway there. If we believe that inflation is going to be a big issue in the coming years, it's a no brainer that gold is on a long term uptrend. Real value of gold

However, I'm not overzealous about gold because I am not living in the USA or HK, making US$ or HK$. I am living in Singapore and making S$ which will appreciate against US$ and HK$ in time. This makes gold investment less compelling for me.

Frankly, I still prefer trading in the stockmarket and buying undervalued and/or strong dividend paying stocks for now. My gains in the stockmarket so far this year have outperformed gold or silver. Cashflow is also something I get from my stockmarket investments that I do not get from gold. However, all parties will come to an end. Will have to know when to exit the stockmarket.