Stocking up on essentials

Yesterday I had lunch out with a former colleague who is also a friend of mine (despite she's retired at her 50s), we talked a lot about the strikes going on in the city, and our family members who hold different views. I told her I'm sourly disappointed with the people around me who seemed to be in support of the strikes, now I don't think it's wrong to voice out opinions, but a fine line has to be drawn when it comes to the consequences. The collateral damage incurred in the "supposedly innocent" strikes here we're talking about are: bus drivers, minibus drivers and taxi drivers driven out of work because the major roads are blocked, routes are cut (until god knows when), no surprise to believe that some are told to take days off. We're also dealing with shopkeepers and merchants who have to close their stores due to the riots and possible chaos of the strikes, the insurance companies DO NOT insure / reimburse damages due to political riots / instability. We're also talking about numerous working adults who had to "fight their way" (me included) when commuting to work each day, students who cannot attend schools because of the chaos and lack of transport. A resident of the strike area complained that he has to walk 2 hours to a nearby place where he can get there in a little bit more than 30 mins. I told my mom to stock up on some fresh food in case the trucks aren't coming in on time to replenish the supermarket stores...I've been so turned off by these people causing all the troubles.

Then we went to a grocery store and I happened to see the cotton puffs I plow through monthly is back in stock. PJ being PJ, jumped at the opportunity and stocked some - well, a lot - boxes up. I gave 1 box to the colleague. They'll be enough to run for entire year without the need to replenish, this quantity will cover both my mom's and my usage.

Then I headed to a "beauty samples spree" after work, paid NOTHING but got a handful of tubes, jars and sachets, gotta love beauty memberships, YAY! Also had a bowl of my favorite noodles and it was a hearty meal. I deliberately went home a bit later than the usual peak hours to avoid the rush hour crowd and traffic, and it was way easier to manage than returning home straight away. 

For the whole life insurance thing, I decided to sleep on it a bit, still on the fence. Term life insurance is an option but one that I'd like to forget - term life insurance here insures up to age 75 only, which is nothing but a gamble whether I'll die before 75 or after 75. If it's the latter, nobody will be able to get a cent out of the payments. One could say that the money I put away monthly for whole life insurance might do better if put into a mutual fund or something, I don't know if it's true (yet), and I'm too new to the field of investing. Speaking of which, I have a plan to get into investment next year...we'll see. My former colleague suggested I buy some gold because its prices are dropping, but I'll have to rent a safe deposit box at the bank and pay rent for it (!), plus it's not like they have tons of safe deposit boxes at the banks for rent, so one has to queue for god knows how long.

I'll probably have a trim at the hair sometime this month - it's looking awful in photos since August. The shampoo stockpile is running out so there will be a chance that I'll do an online order for shampoos in November. My online liquid soap order arrived yesterday and it was splendid. I'm also hoping to get a few hyper-pigmentation spots on the face removed come winter when I sweat less and see the light less.

About a week ago I've sent documents to the Tax people and am waiting to hear from them. Stupid me, I forgot to fill in some information 3 years ago and hence they did not factor that the retirement contribution I paid when calculating my taxes back then. The good thing is that the person on the other hand of the phone said they could do a re-assessment to see if there'll be tax dollars returned to me. :-)