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7 First World Problems only S’poreans setting up a new home for the first time will understand

The wife and I recently moved in to our own place. As newly-weds in Singapore, this Build-to-Order (BTO) flat represents our first home. In the process of moving and setting in, we encountered some peculiar first world problems.

 

1. Too many of the same things in the supermarket

It was roughly a couple of days after moving in when we realised we should probably do our own grocery shopping. When we got to the rice section of the supermarket, we were bombarded with an immense selection of rice. Thai Premium, New Moon and a whole load of other choices were available.

We stood there thinking hard for a full three minutes before we realised they all looked the same and went for the NTUC house brand, which was significantly cheaper. I am not sure if the tai-tais lurking around us silently laughed at our amateurish selection, but I am sure my taste buds will not be able to discern between the rice brands.

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More tough decisions followed. I was assigned to pick prawns for that night’s dinner. I quickly huddled around a group of veteran “shopping aunties” who were all busy scrutinising every inch of the prawns. I was ready for my own “inspection” but I just stood there peering at the crustacean with absolutely no idea what to look out for.

 

2. No Internet connection

internet-connection
internet-connection

 

The next day, I was about to log on to my favourite site, and then Safari casually informed me I didn’t have internet connection.

In today’s context, not having an Internet connection is like having no gas supply in the house. And the telecommunication company I went to knew that as well, and was in no hurry to serve us, which resulted in the worst ever experience I ever had queuing up for a broadband contract. Feel free to guess which telco served us.

 

3. The purchase of a weapon of mass destruction (Baygon)

baygongecko
baygongecko

Source

In certain places in the US, keeping a gun in the house is important for self-protection purposes. In Singapore, that comes in the form of Baygon. Almost every household has something similar to ward off lizards, ants, cockroaches.

Again, there were numerous choices to select from. We bought the most trusted Protector Multi Insect Killer.

 

4. Having too many IT gadgets

grumpy-cat
grumpy-cat

When I was growing up as a kid, IT gadgets at home amounted to nothing more than having an analog TV set, and perhaps a DVD player, if we were lucky.

Today, we are talking about connecting a SMART TV (which I have to admit, I am still struggling to learn how to use) with a bluetooth sound bar (which is actually pretty awesome once you figured it out), an Apple TV (which is actually not really a TV but still pretty handy) and a Playstation 4 (which is pretty cool except for some network problems).

Learning how to operate all these gadgets was way harder than I expected.

 

5. Too many warranties

Some of you may disagree but you should always say “no”, when asked if you would like to extend your warranty. The only time you should buy an extended warranty is when not buying one will cause you many sleepless nights. But sleep waits for no one, I assure you that.

For now, having just dropped close to 400 grand to set up a home, my immediate concern was to not waste money on extending warranties. My experience is that you are never going to receive your warranties for about 80% of the gadgets that you make a claim for. Too much paperwork, I tell you.

 

6. Too much unpacking

About a week into living at our new home, we found that we still had about half our stuff to unpack. Just on clothes alone: office wear, gym gear, clubbing clothes, dress-down-Fridays and special occasion garb.

 

7. Buying online can be way cheaper

shopping
shopping

We purchased some items such as a Playstation 4, a juice blender, a coffee maker, an iron and an electric shaver on e-commerce websites Rakuten and Lazada.

Let’s just say based on our comparison of the price we saw online and what we saw in the retail stores, e-commerce websites are the future of shopping.

But shopping online does lead to another problem, and that is the problem of overspending on other items that you actually do not really need. You have to be extremely disciplined when shopping online. There are just too many cool, handy, potentially useful, so-quirky-that-you-have-to-buy-it items.

Have you encountered other first world difficulties? Share it with us today!

 

DollarsAndSense.sg is a website that aims to provide interesting, bite-sized financial articles which is relevant to the average Singaporean.

Top photo from here.

This article was written for and first appeared on Mothership.sg.