Upgrade our income but not our expenses: AK's expenses.

When I learned from a member of the audience on Monday evening that OCBC 360 is going to reduce their bonus interest by half for online payments and credit card spending, I was saddened. I have to say that it wasn't as if it was unexpected but, I guess, I didn't expect it to happen quite so soon.

Well, it has been a good one year. Yes, it has been one year since I started my OCBC 360 account. Time does fly, doesn't it?

It is also because of the OCBC 360 account that I have an OCBC credit card again after many years of not having one. Well, got to have one to get some bonus interest, right?

Only last night, oddly, I found out that OCBC's ibanking has a bar chart which shows how I have been using my credit card and since I have diverted all my credit card spending to my OCBC Frank card with the exception of petrol purchases for my car, this gives a good snapshot of my monthly spending.

Dining. I guess I don't visit restaurants very often. I think this was clocked from a couple of visits to Curry Times by Old Chang Kee.

Groceries. I go to NTUC Fairprice supermarkets once or twice a week.

Medical and personal care. I think this must have been from a visit to NTUC Unity (Pharmacy).

Other financial services and charges. I did auto top ups to my OCBC Frank Card's NETS Flashpay function (for parking and ERP charges) six times in March to help hit the $500 monthly spending required to get the higher cash rebate for card spending. I didn't use all the $300 stored in the card for parking and ERP charges which usually add up to not more than $30 a month.

I use the money stored in the card to pay telco and utility bills. I also use the money stored in the card to pay for groceries by using the NETS Flashpay function. So, actually, my monthly groceries bill should be higher and not just $148 which makes sense as I like my ice cream and chocolates.

Government services. This was for passport renewal. Won't happen again for another 5 years.

Of course, this is just a regular month's snapshot. It shows roughly how I spend my money on a monthly basis using my OCBC Frank Card. There are big ticket items like insurance premiums and car servicing which are not reflected here.

I don't keep a record of my monthly expenses but I think I am pretty careful with how I spend money. Yes, I know. This is just an excuse. AK is lazy.

As our income gets upgraded, make sure our expenses are not upgraded and we will naturally have more savings over time, all else remaining equal. Unless severely disadvantaged, anyone can do this.

Related posts:
1. Get paid more while waiting for opportunities.
2. An easy way to improve cash flow: My Frank Card.
3. How to have a comfortable retirement?

$2.00 Burger King's Fish N Crisp Burger: A Failure.

When Burger King announced their $2.00 Fish N Crisp Burger, McDonald's responded by lowering the price of their Fillet O Fish Burger to $2.00.

I have always been a fan of the Fillet O Fish and would order the $5.00 Extra Value Meal whenever I visited McDonald's in the past. When they dropped the price of Fillet O Fish to $2.00, I was overjoyed.

Then, I would order two Fillet O Fish for $4.00 instead of spending $5.00 on the Extra Value Meal. I am not crazy about the fries and soft drink. Just that when the Fillet O Fish was priced at $3.95 each, it was kind of silly not to take the fries and soft drink for only another $1.05.

Anyway, Burger King's claim that their Fish N Crisp Burger offers better value for money with one slice of cheese, not half, and 40% more fish got me curious enough to give it a try. Yes, AK is a sucker for value for money deals.

Poster outside the restaurant. Looks good, right?

So, I tried.

Hmmmm... Doesn't look quite the same.

Opened it up to add some ketchup. The bun felt stale.
The piece of fish looks to be the same size as the Fillet O Fish's.

Alamak!
AK is not a practitioner of Shaolin Temple's Da Li Jing Gang Zi!
The bread is definitely stale. This was from lifting the top earlier.

The fish is sooo salty! Why so salty?

Very disappointing.

Staying with McDonald's Fillet O Fish.

Burger King's Fish N Crisp Burger gets a resounding "C.M.I." from AK.

Related posts:
1. $3.30 Fillet O Fish meal.
2. 1 for 1 Fillet O Fish.