Carousell experience

笨mummy has been using Carousell for a while now and thought that she could share some of her personal experience on using the platform. 

1) People do not always read the descriptions 

After selling items on Carousell for close to 3 months now, 笨mummy realised that a lot of people do not bother to read. There was one instance where the buyer complained about the condition of an item sold despite 笨mummy had very clearly detailed the condition of the item. As pre-caution and to avoid unhappiness from buyers, she always take time to re-state on the condition of the item in the description during her chat with the buyers. 

2) There are still people in Singapore in need of help / financial assistance 

Singapore is a developed country, however, there are still some group of people who need help and less well-off So before you throw away anything that is still useable, try blessing away on Carousell to someone who needed it. Try listing anything that you want to throw away for 3 - 5 days once Carousell under the word "BLESS", if there is no buyer by them, you can go ahead and throw it away. If there is a buyer, you end up doing a good deed. 

There are baby clothes that had milk stain (which she intended to throw away) and 笨mummy still managed to bless them out. A lot of us would throw stuff away that are still usable but aesthetically unpleasing. But to those some people, it is more importance to have something that they could use and save the money to buy a new one.   

3) Dealing with lost post or mail

笨mummy had encountered one lost mail where the buyer informed that she did not receive the parcel sent out to her after one week. This is totally surprising for 笨mummy as she has never encounter a lost mail or parcel since the day one of her online shopping journey. Being a SAHM with pocket of time when Child 1 is in school, she tried to tracing the location of this so called missing parcel and 皇天不负责任苦心人, 笨mummy managed to locate the parcel with some efforts and she still has a zero missing mail record. 

笨mummy decided to share with you all on what she learnt from this whole experience so that it could be benefit some of you that regularly purchase stuff online or sell stuff online and you do not need to go through what she did.  

As a general tip: 

For a seller 

• Always take a photo of the parcel before you mail out the item so that the buyer can used the photo to show to the post office staff in the event no delivery advice is received.

• Always put the returned address so that the item can be returned to you if it failed to reach the buyer.

For a buyer 

• If you did not receive your parcel via normal postage after a week, you can proceed to your designated post office (normally the one where your undelivered mail or registered mail is returned to) to check if the post office has your item. Why one week you may ask, this is because, delivery time for bigger items via normal post is 3-5 working days instead of the next working day as normal mail. 

• You can collect the undelivered item without a delivery advice - NRIC showing the address and a picture of the parcel /item would allow you to collect the item. You may wonder why the delivery advice took so long to arrive. As understand from the post office staff and Singpost customer care, for normal postage that are too big to put into the mailbox, the postman would go to your place and if nobody at home, the item would be return to the designated post office (may not be the nearest one) and no delivery advice would be left at door. The delivery advice is prepared by the designated post office and mailed out to the buyer address and this would take another few working days. This is unlike a registered mail where a delivery advice is available and attached to a mail for the recipient to sign or to be left at the door in the event of non-delivery. 

Updates for Aug 2017

A number of stocks paying out dividends in August, 笨mummy received a whooping S$2.7k for this month. No action taken this month for stocks but she looking to offload the 5K units of M1 shares purchased in July when the price pick up. 

The paperwork for the refinancing from UOB to OCBC is more or less done. Lawyer had served the notice to UOB, valuation report received (valuation actually drop compared to one and half year ago) and would be visiting the lawyer in early Sep to sign the documents. Hopefully everything done before end of the year as the UOB rate is going to move from 1.58% to 1.78% on Feb 2018. OCBC rate of 1.30% for first three years is the best rate 笨mummy has seen so far for an outstanding balance of 240K. It also comes with a cash back of $1,600 which fully covered the legal fee and a $100 takashimaya voucher. in total, 笨mummy only need to fork out $250 for the valuation report for the refinancing. 

She had subscribed for her first Singapore Saving Bond (the one for the month of Sep 17) using some of her fund in the eSaver account as currently the interest from eSaver that she is getting is around 1.05% (for balance less than $50,000) and the Sep Singapore Saving Bond is offering 1.15% for the first year. The great thing about this Singapore Saving Bond is that you could cash out any time at a cost of $2 and the interest would be Pro-rated. Going forward, if the interest rate from the eSaver pick up significantly, she may consider to switch back. If the interest rate of the Oct Singapore Saving Bond is higher than the Sep one, she may move another batch of her fund in eSaver to subscribe for the bond. 

These past weeks were tiring as both Child 1 & 2 are sick (still not recovered yet) and it is so hard to get a good night sleep and also getting anything done as Child 2 is especially whinny when she is sick. Ironically saying, 笨mummy had reaped the benefits of a SAHM. She can focus to take care of her children when they are sick, does not have the guilt of going to work while the children are sick and also no need to see boss' black face when applying for leave to take care of children or colleagues' black face for cover her work when she is on leave. 

Dividend / interest for month of Aug 17:  
M1 - S$ 780
Keppel Corp - S$ 240
OCBC - S$ 195.48
CDL H Trust - S$ 434.60
Suntec REIT - S$ 249.30
Ascott Trust - S$ 369.16
Asprial Bond - S$ 52.07
Capital Mall Bond (3.08%) - S$ 76.37
ST Engineering - S$ 300
ComfortDelgro - S$ 43.50

Dividend received in Year 2014	$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Aug 2017	$ 2,740.48
Dividend received in Year 2017 to date	$ 9,238.28

Saving on childcare expenses - applying for childcare subsidy

As mentioned in an earlier post, 笨mummy received a call from a childcare centre that there is an infant care vacancy for Child 2. She visited the childcare centre and had a rather positive vibe on the environment as well as the teachers. 笨mummy went ahead to register for a two week trial that would commerce in Sept.

笨mummy is quite shocked by:

(1) how expensive infant care fees are in Singapore

The one which she registered was quoting a monthly infant care school fee in the range of S$1,364.25. She also did a check with the other big names and noted that the fees are also within the same range.

(2) the big difference between the government subsidy amount for a working mother and a non working mother.

Being Singapore citizen, there is government subsidy available depending on the working status of the mother:

• For working mothers - $600
• For non-working mothers - $150

The difference in the subsidy between the two is S$450, which is quite substantial.

In her attempt to find ways to reduce the childcare expenses, 笨mummy did some research on the subsidy and these are what she found out:

• All parents with Singapore Citizen children enrolled in child care centres licensed by ECDA will continue to be eligible for a Basic Subsidy (either S$150 for families with non-working mother or S$600 for infant care and S$300 for families with working mother )
• To be eligible for the basic subsidy as a working mother, one need to be working at least 56 hours per month (i.e 1.86 hours/day)
• For a freelance or self-employed, one's income will be based on the monthly income derived from the last available net trade income assessed by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) in the latest Notice of Assessment. If the Notice of Assessment is not available, a Statutory Declaration on the working hours and monthly income will be needed to supplement the application for subsidies.

Though 笨mummy is a SAHM, she spends time at home to generate income, such as selling stuff on Carsouell, as well as some freelance assignments that she could find. Given that the requirement is a minimum of 56 hours per month, which is something that 笨mummy could easily meet since she already spent a 1 to 2 hours a day to sort out the pre-loved/used items, taking photos, listing them on carousell, communicating with buyers and arranging to mail out the items. 笨mummy decided to give ECDA helpline a call to check if she could qualify for working mother subsidy for childcare as an online seller on carousell. 

To her surprise, the officer from ECDA informed her as an online seller she could qualify for the working mother subsidy and she needs to make a statutory declaration with the Commissioner of Oath that she has met the required working hours of 56 hours per month. It also does not matter whether her online business is registered with ACRA.

笨mummy arranged for Child 1 to her in-law in the afternoon while she made a trip with Child 2 to the Commissior of Oath located at the level 3M of Supreme Court Building. Details of the Commissior of Oath as follows:

Level 3M

Supreme Court Building

1 Supremel Court Lane

Singapore 178879

The whole process was fast and took less than 10 minutes:

• Once arrived at the office, inform the person at the counter that you are here to make a statutory declaration for working hours for childcare subsidy.
• Request for the declaration form from the person, fill it up accordingly
• Make payment via NETs of S$25 at the counter
• You would be call into one of the rooms available and the Commissior of Oath (i.e. The officer in the room) would instruct you to read a paragraph to make the statutory declaration. 
• The Commissior of Oath would then sign and stamp the declaration form and pass the copy to you once it is done. 

The original declaration form needs to be submitted to the childcare for the subsidy application.

CDL H Trust Right issue result update

As mentioned in her earlier post, 笨mummy has subscribed to the right issue of CDL H Trust - her full entitlement of 1,600 units as well as excess rights of 6,400 units. She received a total of 2,600 consisting of 1,600 of her entitlement and excess of 1,000. 

 After the right issue, 笨mummy now has a total of 10,600 units of CDL H Trust.

Updates for Jul 2017

笨mummy was expecting July to be a quiet month like in the past since it is not a period where much cash inflow is expected from any of her stock holding. But things turn out rather differently, 笨mummy had:  

• Divested Ascendas REIT shares that she bought in Dec 2016 at S$2.30 at S$2.60. She gained a decent profit. The cash free up from this sales were used to fund the Netlink Trust IPO and CDL H Trust right issue. 
• Purchased 5,000 units of M1 at S$1.86 and this average down the buying price of her M1 holding which now totalled to 15,000 units. 
• Subscribed to the right issue of CDL H Trust. She had subscribed to her full entitlement of 1,600 units as well as excess rights of 6,400 units. 
• Subscribed to IPO of Netlink Trust and managed to be allocated 3,000 units of the new shares
• Managed to secure a letter of offer for refinancing from OCBC for her HDB housing loan. Currently she is enjoying a fixed rate of 1.58% from UOB till Feb 2018 and thereafter the rate would move to 1.78% and the offer from OCBC is a fixed rate 1.30% for the first two years. 

On personal matters, 笨mummy had been busy this month. She was approached by two recruitment firms and attended two interviews arranged by the firms respectively. She also received update from a childcare centre that there is a vacancy for infant care and she could enrol Child 2 if she needs to go back to work. 

While she enjoys her time being a stay at home mum, she still yearn for the recognition and financial benefits from working. She shall see how things work out in the next few weeks. Maybe things would remain status quo if no favorable response from both interviews.  

Dividend received in Year 2014	$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Jul 2017	$ 0
Dividend received in Year 2017 to date	$ 6,497.80