Goodbye, Tiny house

I moved into this really small apartment, 950 sq ft, with my two kids back when I just became a single mom, when my youngest daughter was still 4 or 5 months old. I felt like that tiny house was the perfect size for a small family like ours, the space was small enough for me to manage on my own, and big enough for toddlers to play in while I monitored from the kitchen. We didn’t have much, but we were happy. And back in Chapter 8, I talked about how I redecorated my eldest daughter’s room when she got older. And that was 2 years ago.

I wasn’t expecting to have to move out so soon. I’d bought this new property and haven’t received the keys for it yet. I had saved up money in 2 places: 1) a savings account in a bank that has limited branches and 2) in a unit trust cash fund. The first one has enough funds to pay for a kitchen renovation, and the second one was supposed to help fund the rental payments for the tiny house when reno starts on the new house. But then suddenly, at the end of Jan this year, my landlord tells me she wants to move back in. I hadn’t planned for this extra expense of having to move into another temporary home while waiting for my new house to get completed. Yes, I had money saved up, but no, I didn’t want to mess with those savings, cos I had saved up just enough to pay for the kitchen reno. And of course I’d need more money to pay for the renovation of the other parts of the house, too.

Landlord gave me 2 months to move out. At this point, I was surprised I didn’t spiral into a state of panic. I applaud myself for staying level-headed. And thanking my lucky stars that covid happened when it did and I was able to save money during lockdown (no concerts, no travelling, no excessive expenditure on merch). I searched listings for property rentals around the area, and no surprise to find that everywhere the rent was higher, some places more than double. I was willing to pay only MYR 500 more than what I was currently paying (which would be the same price as my new home loan installment). I contacted all these realtors and asked them if they had any listings within my budget, and only 3 of them responded positively. Some didn’t even bother to reply me. I viewed 5 units within 2 weeks.

I suck at making decisions alone. Even for stuff like “which baju raya to buy”, I mull over it a long time, sometimes giving up and not buying anything. I narrowed it down to 2 units. First, there was this unfurnished unit 10 mins away in another postcode. The moment I stepped inside, it gave me a good feeling. I told the realtor immediately that I wanted to make a second appointment to view it with my kids cos “the real boss is my eldest daughter.” He laughed at that and I think he understood what I meant by that exactly, as if he also had an eldest child that made all the important decisions.

The second place was 10 mins away but within the same postcode range (same township, only single digit difference in postcode). This time I went with my youngest to the viewing and we both liked it. It was a walk-up, and it was quiet and there was a breeze, and the unit had a newly renovated kitchen, but ugly furniture which the owner did not want to remove. I told the realtor that we may need a second viewing.

Got back home and asked my eldest to come view the second one I just talked about, and she said no. She already knew she wouldn’t like it. But then I insisted that she go see the first one I mentioned. She agreed to go reluctantly. So off we went, one day afterschool. She walked around the place like she really was the boss in the family lol. The realtor was greatly amused and watched her every step, looking for signs of whether she approved or not. We finished the viewing in 10 minutes but she didn’t want to say anything in front of the guy. When we got to the car and I asked her if she liked it, she said, “Ya. Just choose this one.” I texted him immediately and paid the initial deposit the same day. We agreed to move in last week of Feb and start the lease tenure on 1 Mar.

I had never ever in my life expected to make decisions that fast, so I am really grateful to have a reliable eldest daughter to help me decide. The rent was only MYR 300 more than the tiny house. And thanks to recommendations from a friend, I booked an affordable moving company and bought packing boxes at warehouse prices on Shopee. I spent a little more than MYR 2000 on moving expenses. And just like that, 12 years in the tiny house came to an end. The place where I achieved so many adulting and parenting milestones. It was the end of an era.

And throughout the whole process I kept feeling surprised at myself. How level-headed I was, and how pragmatic. E.g. ‘this new house has no wardrobes or storage, but wth we’ll just improvise.’ Luckily, I got a spot bonus from work in Feb that helped pay for most of the stuff related to the move. It felt like everything just fell into place. If this had been 5 years ago, I would have procrastinated until I had no choice but to ask the landlord to let us stay til I get the keys to the new property OR move into my parents house an hour away, jeopardizing our entire life as we know it. I really am an adult now. Like this is it. This is what it feels like to be reliable and financially stable. This is a brand new realization for me. I mean yes, I’ve always thought I was okay financially, but I haven’t truly felt like the statement “financially stable” applied to me until last month. All the other times I’ve had to fork out a big expense in short notice, I’ve either had to scrape every cent from all my savings to pay for it, or had to take up a loan. I am so happy and thankful that I didn’t have to do either.

I did all of this, and I had time to watch Harry’s concert. What a great month this has been! Not to mention another thing that happened this month, but I’ll save that story for another day….

So this is what it feels like…

If you’ve followed me on this journey from the beginning until now, thank you for reading!

2023 just began and already an era of my life has ended. But before that, let’s talk about yesterday.

In terms of my concert bucket list, I managed to cross 2 out of 3 in the span of 4 months. From my 20s to my 40s, the top 3 artists in my “must watch perform live at least once in my life” list are:

1. Bob Dylan
2. Epik High
3. pH-1

Of course there were countless other artists/bands on that list that I managed to cross off already, and some that I had to take off entirely because the group disbanded or they died or whatever. I almost didn’t even get to see Epik High in KL last year in Dec because I missed the ticketing day and the seated section had sold out. Then I was attacked by that anti-social languishing bug I talked about in chapter 10, and I forgot about the concert until 5 days before the show, when I decided to search the #WTS tag on twitter and found someone wanting to sell their seated ticket. The seat was second row from the back, but then I thought, “wth it’s now or never, let’s just get it.” Bought the ticket off of someone who didn’t even know what khh was… which was totally weird because they like Epik High, just never knew what genre of music they’re in?? OK whatever. Was thankful that the person sold it at a discount (sort of). And it was my first time in Zepp! And as far as hiphop concerts go, it is an excellent sized venue.

Then later on that month, I went to the DPR concert in KL, also at the same venue, and it was the most fantastic staged-art-disguised-as-a-concert that I’ve ever been to. Like for real, it was art. It was a visual experience, as well as audio. I wasn’t even a big fan of DPR IAN, but I loved it, the whole thing.

And honestly, thank God for Zepp in KL, cos after KL Live closed down, Zepp really is the best venue and it’s what allowed Harry (pH-1) to come here! I think if it weren’t for Zepp, Harry wouldn’t have even have booked a show in KL. I was so so thankful that he even considered KL as a tour stop. I also thank Jay for always coming to KL in the past to do shows. I think that put us on the map as far as aomg-h1ghr are concerned. But really, ever since pH-1 got signed to H1GHR Music, I’ve always wanted to go see him perform live. And not just in a label concert, but his own solo show. And that show was last night.

What can I say? It was great. He had so much energy, his live performance was so stable, and he even harmonized to his own voice singing in the MR. I couldn’t see it from where I was sitting at the Cat 1 seats (front row, mind you), but from my friend Sue’s fancam, he smiled throughout the show because the audience sang along to every song. The crowd may not have been jumping like they did at DPR, but thank goodness they sang loud and clear. Thank you, KL, for coming through for Harry! I was so proud of everyone. I even kinda regret not getting VIP tickets, but I am old and I do have a bad back, and I couldn’t have survived 2 hours standing up… but it would have been nice to have seen him smile up close.

He has some other new stops just announced in SEA, but i checked the venues and none of them are as good as Zepp, so I don’t think it’s worth flying over. I kinda want to see how he’s like at other stops, but nevermind, let’s just be content at seeing him on home ground. If I were still 35 maybe I’d fly to more than 1 stop. Maybe even go to 3 stops. But we have got more important things to focus on, and there’s inflation and other priorities and stuff. For one, I’m saving up to renovate the new house I just bought (haven’t got the keys yet, but soon!). And two, we just need to cut out unnecessary expenses because everything is just more expensive, especially food.

That is probably the biggest change in my fangirl mindset. Letting myself be content with attending just one show. Whereas previously, I felt like I needed to consume as much content as I possibly could. I flew to Singapore for the AOMG concert in Jan of this year, but I think that’s my limit at this age. I didn’t even spend the night there; I flew right back the same night right after the show. And this whole thing of me foregoing other shows to focus on other priorities is the most adult thing I’ve done in terms of fangirling. Cos let’s face it: I am a huge fan of pH-1, and have been from the very first moment Jay brought him onto the scene. I’ve been hyping him up since day 1, trying to convert my friends into fans. And now that he’s on tour, I’m just going to one show?? Me?? Damn… So this is what being an adult feels like…. I find myself saying again and again, “So this is what it feels like…”

Which brings me to the topic of my next stage in adulthood: Finally moving out of our tiny house!

ps. Also I did just wear “lounge wear” to Harry’s concert. I mean who the fuck cares what you wear. It’s gonna be dark in there anyway.

Rising inflation, aging gracefully and what to do about my fangirl life

Sitting at my desk in a newly-renovated floor space at the office post-covid (well not quite post-covid, more like post-lockdown), with a brand new 34-inch curved monitor, a table with adjustable height, everything ergonomic as we switched to a hybrid schedule of 60-40 WFH. After two years of on-and-off covid lockdowns, our whole perception of life and socialising has changed. The entire fandom culture has changed too with more offers of online concerts and fanmeetings. No more spending thousands of dollars on flights, accommodation and concert tickets. We can now watch the concert comfortably in UHD from our living room sofa, albeit with a 20 second delay. I’ve gotten used to this life and I don’t even order albums anymore unless I really need to, because shipping times have gotten longer due to covid restrictions, it became a hassle ordering stuff from overseas.

On top of that, exchange rates are at an all-time high. Inflation is on the rise due to this stupid Russian invasion of the Ukraine, which triggered an energy shortage worldwide. Inflation is so bad, I’m spending twice as much on food as I did the same time last year. Who has money to travel? Certainly I don’t. Even with a salary increase, bad inflation makes it feel like I have even less money to spend.

Covid has also created this new form of anxiety/depression that they’re calling “languishing”. It’s not quite anxiety or depression, it’s feeling somewhere between being joyless and aimless, a sense of stagnation that stemmed from being at home and cut off from human interaction for too long. This languishing has made me fangirl less to be honest. Covid has made me more antisocial with strangers than I was before, so the thought of having to mingle with other fans that I don’t know at a concert or event sort of turns me off. DPR has a concert in KL in Dec, and even though I managed to score a ticket, I already don’t feel like going.

Another reason for that is age. Not only am I suffering from this aimless languishing state, I have also grown older, considerably older. Now in my 40s, I even question whether I should be mingling with these young people at an event. And right now, most young fans have this abhorrence to old people for some reason. I’m not even old but I get thrown into the old-people bucket. Covid has also made me less stylish. I now prefer wearing “lounge-wear”. I don’t even know if I have something appropriate to wear to a concert. I stopped wearing jeans so t-shirt and jeans is not even an option. I have t-shirt and sweats. Which is absurd. T-shirt and skirt maybe.

The thing that I have done noticeably is I’ve cut down on the number of groups/artists I stan. I now focus on mainly just one. And even then, it feels like I have to use up so much energy. I know that this is an effect of covid-languishing and age. Like I really can’t be bothered to do anything anymore? So have I become just a casual fan? Not quite either. Not sure what I am anymore. Just age gracefully by retiring, I tell myself.

But overall, I do find myself feeling antisocial more and more. I rather devote time to close friends than to “acquaintance friends”, you know what I mean? It takes effort even to ask out my close friends, so how much harder would it be to ask out fandom friends? The level of intimacy has changed, in a way. Or… i have no idea. I actually spent more time online chatting to fandom friends than I did irl close friends during covid. At least on daily terms. But yet, why was I not able to make myself go out and meet fandom friends? strange mystery.

Languishing stopped me from cleaning the house. Whenever I stop doing a normal routine, I know that is a sign of depression. But is this really a depression? Maybe “pre-depression.” I have bags of old clothes to drop off for recycling, but they’re still on the floor at home. I just need to get that done and then I know a huge chunk of anxiety will disappear. When will I do it? I seem to procrastinate the most simplest of tasks. It’s so ridiculous.

Mino will be enlisting. Part of me feels anxious at losing the one person that has brought me joy during covid. I will be so bored right?

Turning 40

2020 came and went and I don’t even remember how I celebrated my birthday that year when I turned 40. I remember feeling this sort of anxiety before turning 40, but covid happened and then I think turning 40 just became unimportant in comparison to the horror that was taking place everywhere else. Now that I’m turing 42 this year, turning 40 is really not that big of a deal.

I remember when Eun Jiwon was so scared to turn 40. When he was turning 40 in korean age, he kept telling everyone he was still 39 in international age. But seriously, turning 40 is nothing. I still feel like an overgrown child. Part of me still feels like I’m not yet fully an adult. I think only when I’m living in my own house that I bought myself will I feel like a real adult. (Or so I tell myself, because I haven’t got the keys to my new house yet).

Turning 40 also made me tone down a lot of fangirling. But of course covid helped in that sense. I stopped buying albums because they stopped shipping goods from korea into malaysia in 2020 cos of covid, so i couldn’t really buy any anyway. Mino and Yoon had a collaboration with some clothing brand and there was a tshirt Mino designed based on his weather icon tattoos that I wanted, and I emailed the store and asked if they can ship overseas, but they said no. I didn’t buy any merch even though there were some stuff that I really wanted! And in not doing so, I saved a lot of money. I can safely say that prior to 2019, I spent probably more than 1k on albums, merch and their shipping fees.

Even though they resumed international shipping in 2021, I don’t have the urge to buy any merch anymore ever since covid happened. It’s like it took one year to remove that urge to collect fandom related stuff from my life. Now I collect plants. But collecting plants is comparatively much cheaper than buying merch, and I feel like collecting and growing plants is also more rewarding. So weird that I have moved onto this phase now! I never thought I would.

Do I feel more responsibility now that I’ve turned 40? Yes, sort of. I feel like I should focus more on family, but again covid made me feel that way. Covid really spelled the importance of spending time with your family before it’s too late. You never know when it might be your turn. And I think it was the same way with our artists too. I think they really appreciated fans more now that they couldn’t see us face-to-face. It’s not the same having concerts online or fansigns online. And we, in turn, appreciate that fandom experience even more now. Like I feel grateful that I was able to go to concerts before covid, and I feel grateful that I did spend so much time and money travelling to fansigns and shows, meeting other fans and doing events with them. Those were the highlights of my youth. YOLO. If you have the chance to do stuff that makes you happy, don’t stop yourself from doing it. Yes, you should be a responsible adult, but you can also fangirl responsibly. I remember a time in college when I hopped on a bus to go to a Jamiroquai concert in Singapore without even knowing where I’d sleep that night, but that was a thing of the past. I no longer do irresponsible stuff like that anymore, and the kids today are lucky to have apps to help them find budget accommodation. We didn’t have apps like that when I was in college. Back then we had to queue up to buy concert tickets, there wasn’t even an online website. (I’m talking about early 2000s) How times have changed.

There’s this meme that said the year 2000 to 2020 is what 1970 is to 1990. That puts things into perspective doesn’t it? And it’s crazy to think that kids born in 2000 are now the optimal age for debuting as an idol. 91 liners are now seniors. Jay Park is now retiring and Simon Dominic is considered an OG. So much has changed. I also don’t feel the need to multifandom. I just concentrate on a few and don’t even feel guilty not fully supporting former faves. The most I’ve done during 2020-2021 was buy digital albums on itunes, stream on Bugs, attended 3-4 (paid) online concerts, donated funds for birthday ad events and smtm10 graynoma team food support. And honestly I think Mino and Yoon and aomg-h1ghr ppl weren’t too concerned about charting either. Mino did say he didn’t expect to win on any music show but just wanted to put out music he liked and put on a show for us and that’s what he did.

And you know it felt good not to be checking the charts all the time to see how they were doing right after a release. It felt good not to be streaming on multiple platforms on multiple devices. It’s crazy to think that doing that was normal 5-6 years ago. Did the energy and drive to do that dissipate after turning 40? Possibly, but it could also be due to the fact that everyone else in the fandom, including the artist themselves, have aged right along with me so their priorities have also changed.

I’m just going to wait and see what happens when Winner finally has a comeback with all 4 members this year (Yoon said they would). Will they really be able to have a cb before Mino enlists? Somehow I doubt it but we shall see…

Family related Adulting milestones

(7) Purchased household appliances and computer stuff

So Covid again changed the way lived. And with home schooling, there was a big need to get each child their own mobile device for online school. And I don’t know what it was but in late 2019, during the 11.11 sale in Nov, I went and bought myself a microwave and a printer. And this was before they announced WFH and home schooling. But it was such good luck because we used that microwave so much while staying at home during lockdown. I even got a microwave and printer for my parents’ house, too! That was a big thing cos you know, I never had to buy them stuff like that before. And it felt really good to be able to do that for my parents.

Now a huge part of my fangirling life had been spent translating and creating subtitles for videos as part of a subbing team. I would download 1-3 gb 1080p HD videos (sometimes bigger) and then sub and encode it and upload it on some video streaming site all on my trusty Lenovo laptop. When covid struck, and they announced kids would need to do online school, I knew I had to retire from subbing completely and give my laptop to my eldest to use for school. And it really was a big effort to move all my files into external disk drives and reformat the whole computer for my daughter to use. And then I was suprised at how once I moved everything into an external HDD, I never looked back. Like I literally never even once wanted to watch a video that I’d previously downloaded. Or I never even once felt like I needed to download and install aegisubs on another device. It really felt like an era of my life had ended. But nowadays loads of shows are already subbed on viu and netflix, so my subbing phase ended with no regrets.

I was also incredibly lucky in that I could claim for my electronic purchases. So while I bought my second child a new ipad (we already had one ipad, so now we have 2) for online school in 2020, I was then able to get her a chromebook in 2021 and claimed for that, too. I claimed the cost of my printer, too. I used my company’s benefits to the max during covid, I must say. This was a big thing for me cos I rarely make many big purchases (other than for concerts), but I spent quite a lot of money on appliances during covid, and I felt like that was the responsible thing to do. I feel really bad for the kids whose parents couldn’t afford to buy them a cheap computer. The chromebook is really not expensive (cheaper than an ipad) and yet there were some parents that felt like a mobile phone was enough for a child to do home schooling on. I am not gonna judge those parents, but I felt proud of myself for being able to elevate my child’s home schooling experience by getting them new, bigger devices, you know what I mean?

(8) Treated my daughter to a shopping-spree type birthday party

I was in a good place financially towards the end of 2020 due to the loan moratorium and having paid off my student loan, so that during the short period where lockdown was removed in Q4 of 2020, I told my eldest she could take 4 friends out for lunch and shopping for her 12th birthday. It’s always been a dream of mine to have her do something “grown-up” for her birthday and 2020 was that year!

We had lunch at our fave korean chicken place, they tried on clothes in Forever 21 and H&M, and they even had “coffee” at Starbucks (I think they all mostly ordered chocolate frap). For a 12 year old it’s a big thing to hang out at a cafe. And I also was respectful of my daughter’s insecurities about my fangirling and refrained from putting on any kpop music in the car! Good job on me! haha. It didn’t matter that her friends also listened to kpop, I just had to pretend that I didn’t. Whatever makes my child happy.

Doing this shopping birthday party was such a milestone for me because just being able to have enough money to spend spontaneously on whatever her and her friends wanted was such a big deal to me. It also meant my daughter had grown up and needs to be treated more like a teen. I am so so so happy and proud of myself to reach this milestone when I did because it’s like a coming of age for both me and her. She’s 13 going onto 14 now and she really has changed. It’s parenting on a different level I tell you. I am a little scared even at the thought of being a parent to 2 teens…. the youngest is still 10 so still a couple of years to go but we’re getting there.

(9) Hired an interior decorator to restyle my daughter’s room

Covid makes people depressed. Being stuck at home makes people depressed. Unless your home is pretty that is. So that was the rationale. 2020 passed and we were depressed. I was depressed being stuck at home. Imagine how my daughter felt with her ugly room. I have an ugly room but I’m a Type B personality so I can sort of overlook that as long as I have other things that make me happy. But I could tell my daughter was happier staying at her grandma’s house than at home. We had a few lockdowns take place during 2020 – 2021, and one of those lockdowns was spent at my parents house instead of my own because it took place right after Eid. We visited them for Eid and were stuck there and couldn’t go home until the lockdown was over 5 months later. This was now 2021.

I had a lot of time to think about how to make my daughter happier at home, and the first thing that came to mind was I had to redecorate her room. Get rid of all the old stuff in there (like the double decker bed, the old bookshelves and desk etc etc) and make it a brighter, happier place for her so that she’d actually want to come back home instead of staying at my parents’ place. For one, I can’t stand my mom so couldn’t wait to go back home. And second, school was going to restart so she’d need to come home eventually, and I really wanted her to come back feeling good and not shitty.

That’s when I decided I should test out an interior decorater (ID) to redo this 1 room so that I’d know what to expect when I renovate my entire house when the new property is finally completed. I watched a great deal of home makeover shows on HGTV and you know what, just trust your instincts! If you think it’s cheaper and better to do it yourself, just do it yourself. Jeez, I learned that the hard way. The ID I chose was a female-run company that was small-ish, so I thought they’d be a safe choice, but no, there were actually more cons than pros. I don’t want to go into this whole rant, but I recommend you buying all the furniture yourself, have it shipped yourself, and then just get the contractor to help you assemble it. What was annoying with the ID were the delays. The bed that they ordered arrived late. The wallpaper they ordered did not even arrive so we ended up scrapping it. The peg board they ordered also did not arrive on time, so they cancelled it. I ended up having to go to Spotlight on the last day to buy a wooden wall art to make up for the lost wallpaper. My favorite part of the whole thing was styling her bed. And just like in those HGTV shows, I bought the big fluffy pillows, 3 different cushions, matching sheets and quilt cover, matching throw blanket, matching rugs… all from Spotlight lmao. Spotlight is great for that kinda stuff. Restyling a room can do wonders in lifting your spirits!

Now that I know all these things, for the new home renovation, I am going to do most of the furniture and kitchen appliances shopping myself. I might even paint the walls myself. It’s probably cheaper to also get the wallpaper installed by the wallpaper vendor than getting the ID/contractor to install it. Bedroom wardrobes will be from ikea (cos cheapest and nicest and still have a 10 year guarantee) and I’ll probably only order the kitchen cabinets from whichever kitchen reno specialist. Like honestly, if you can do it yourself, just do it yourself. All the furniture the ID sourced were from places I already knew, so really I could have done it myself for cheaper. And if you feel like you don’t know how to style a room, just look at different home interior magazines (I subscribed to an online magazine portal just so I can do this, also claimable from my company as “magazine subscriptions”). Stuff like color templates and color combinations, Nippon paint has a site that helps you decide matching color combinations, so really, you can do it yourself.

But all in all, the room redecoration was a success! Because it’s nice and bright in there now, and she never leaves her room. She even brings her meals into her room. Which is not a very good thing, but whatever, as long as she eats. She now hates eating with us, but whatever, as long as she eats. We communicate mostly by text now. It must be some teenage thing, but again, whatever makes her happy. I am okay as long as she’s happy and healthy and not depressed. Which I don’t think she is.

Hiring a professional to redecorate was the most Adult thing I did in 2021. So even though there were mishaps, I still consider this a milestone because I now know what to expect. This experience taught me that I’m more competent than I give myself credit for. I really should just trust myself more. Patting myself on the back right now for handling 2020 & 2021 as well as I did.

Wow, more than 2 years have passed (2 yrs and 4 mths to be exact) since the last blog post! So many achievements unlocked in my fangirl adulting journey! Let’s cover those now.

Covid happened

We cannot ignore the elephant in the room that changed my fangirl experience these past 2 years. There were no more physical concerts, only online untact concerts, which were kinda a godsend because it allowed us to tune into the concert no matter where we lived, and we didn’t have to spend thousands on concert tix+airplane tickets! I think the most I spent on an online concert was MYR 280 or something like that for Mino and Yoon’s solo concerts.

Anyway, I digress. What did I achieve during this covid period as an adult?

1. Banks offered moratoriums on loans in 2020 to help the nation cope with covid so I was able to:
2. Pay off my credit card debts (!!)
3. Pay off my student loan (!!)
4. Property prices fell so I bought a house (sort of)
5. Invested my retirement savings (EPF) in mutual funds
6. Invested my cash savings in mutual funds to save more for home renovation
7. Bought a heck of a lot of household appliances and computer & IT related stuff for home schooling (!)
8. Treated my eldest daughter & four friends to a shopping spree type birthday party
9. Hired an interior decorator to redecorate my eldest daughter’s bedroom (!)

I don’t remember what came first in that list, but in general, those were the adulting milestones achieved in 2020 – 2021.

We’ll break this up into 2 general sections: the financially related stuff, and the more family related stuff.

Financially related Adulting milestones

First of all, covid affected my company adversely. Demand for oil fell causing oil prices to fall, causing my company to revamp their entire strategy and we are now known as an Integrated Energy Company instead of an International Oil and Gas Company. They cut 10,000 jobs, had a massive reorg, and announced employees would not get a bonus for 1 or 2 years. I was lucky enough to keep my job, but it meant losing 6 team members and increasing my workload. We also worked from home (WFH) from March of 2020 and have not gone back into the office since then (it’s now Jan 2022).

(1) & (2) Loan moaratorium & paying off credit card debts

I was lucky in that my country offerred loan moratoriums for 6 months starting Apr 2020 (which was extended to Dec 2020 for some banks), which meant you didn’t have to pay your monthly loan installments up til Dec 2020. I immediately took that opportunity to use the funds that I would normally set aside for my car and student loan to pay my credit card debt instead. But the way I actually did it was thru my bank’s own “interest free” cash loan. So here’s the gist of it:

1. My bank’s credit card offers a 0% interest-free 6 month cash loan (that has an upfront fee you pay instead of interest, but it is affordable)
2. I took up this cash loan to pay the entirety of my credit card debt, so that my credit card balance is zero, save for the monthly repayments of the cash loan
3. I used the funds that I would’ve used to pay my car and student loan to pay off the cash loan repayment

It was a win-win situation. For the first time in a long time, I now have a manageable credit card debt balance. The loan moratorium is over but my debt repayment is not a nightmare anymore, and all those fangirl expenses that I amortized back in Chapter Four are now fully paid off. Woohoo! I achieved it some time in Aug/Sep 2020. It felt so good to finally achieve that! I no longer feel any fangirl related guilt of having spent too much on concerts cos I paid it all off! And since physical concerts were out of the question during covid, there is no more guilt to be felt all around!

(3) & (4) Buying a house and paying off my student loan

During covid, property prices also fell. Property developers were throwing all sorts of promotions and the govt was giving out all sorts of incentives to encourage people to buy property in 2020. And while I was paying off my credit card debts, my credit rating improved and I was able to buy a house! Well, technically it is a rent-to-own scheme offered by my bank, but whatever, it is my own home. I will be able to “purchase” it from the bank after a year of leasing it from them. The property itself is not completed yet, but it felt really grown-up to go to the property showroom and view all the units with my kids and actually sit down and decide with them which unit we liked best and which one I should buy.

My tip to you if you are a single parent, get your kids involved in this decision making process. Talk to them about what price you can afford to pay. So back in June 2020, on a Saturday afternoon, I took my kids to view this new property development a few kilometers away from our current apartment. I didn’t know what to expect actually going in there. Even though it wasn’t the first time visiting a property showroom, it was the first time I went there as a single parent (without a spouse) and as an adult with an intent to purchase. At first I thought I’d test the waters, so to speak, and see how my kids reacted to the property. What we wanted was an apartment unit that was more than 1000 sq ft with at least 3-4 bedrooms. We got there and was just blown away by what the developer offerred. We found a unit that we liked with the square footage that I wanted. There were so many facilities that would be nice to have with that new property (it’s a condo). It’s just a few kilometers away so the kids would be able to attend the same school, but technically this condo is situated in a different city.

Then we sat down with the salesperson and he told us that I can own this property without making a downpayment and without having to pay any SPA/legal fees by signing up for this rent-to-own scheme offerred by my own bank! Also, to make a long story short, I found out that my credit rating was so good that I didn’t even need a guarantor for this scheme! (I practially wasted my time calling up various family members to ask them to be my guarantor — not required! Hooray for paying off credit card debts). I sat my kids down and told them how much I’m paying monthly now to rent our home and how much more I’m willing to pay monthly to own one, and we decided to go for it because the monthly payment for the new unit was within my new budget, after having paid off my credit card debts (and student loan, but more on that in a bit). I also found out that my eldest daughter is like the boss of the family. I only feel comfortable making the final decision on big family stuff if she was okay with it, and she was the one who chose which type of unit to buy and which floor to live on. So yeah.

So in the process of applying for this rent-to-own scheme, I found out that I had arrears in my student loan. It was due to be paid off that year in 2020 anyway, but what I didn’tknow was that I had about 20k in arrears. And in order to get the housing thing approved, I needed to pay off the arrears first. Good news was that because of all the govt incentives for covid, the govt also allowed people to withdraw a portion of their EPF (retirement fund) to pay off their student loan. And since 20k was not that huge of an amount, I decided to withdraw from my EPF and pay that amount off. So in buying my house, I managed to pay off my student loan too! Win-win.

(5) & (6) Investing EPF and savings in mutual funds

Right, so the reason why I wasn’t too worried about withdrawing 20k from my EPF to pay off my student loan was because I just started investing some of my EPF in mutual funds back in 2020. And my fund manager already projected earnings for the next 10 years and I know I’ll be able to make up for that 20k and then some. I don’t know why I didn’t start investing sooner. I mean really. If you haven’t done so already, go and read up on the funds you’re allowed to invest in and just invest. It’s for your future. The fees you pay is smaller compared to what you can earn in divendend profits. In Chapter Four, I also talked about how I have an account in a second bank that I use as a savings account. I took 80% of the savings from that account and invested it in a mutual fund. So far so good, and I’ve already made 18% gain. I decided to invest all the extra cash to fund my future home renovation. I hope I can make enough to pay for at least 60% of the renovation. Not sure how much it will actually cost, and might be a topic for a future blog post!

The Parenting part. There is no real guidebook to parenting. I find myself reading lots of articles on parenting teenagers nowadays. Like the biggest challenge for me right now is how to parent a soon-to-be-teenager while maintaining my fangirling lifestyle. It is so hard, okay. Really. At least for me, it is.

Cos first of all, not only am I a single mom, but I am a single mom that has to feed, clothe and provide shelter for 2 daughters. That, in itself, is not easy, but, my main goal as a mom, is to:

1. Maintain and improve my child’s self-esteem
2. Maintain and improve my child’s self-esteem while fangirling

Let’s talk about #1 first of all. Maybe it’s just my personality, and maybe because I grew up changing schools very often as a diplomat’s kid, but I feel like being liked and popular in school is important for kids. Being the outcast brings sadness, and although good grades are important, I feel like I will be more happy knowing my kids are well liked by their peers and teachers at school. I have 2 girls, and the eldest is an introvert and the second is an extrovert. I don’t worry all that much about the extrovert. She seems to do well in social situations. It’s the introvert that I spend more time and effort on as a mom. And since the introverted one is going through puberty, I feel like my whole momhood has gotten 3 times more difficult. 

To achieve #1, I have basically spent a lot of time, effort and money on making my children look good. I started this mindset from when the kids were still babies going to preschool. I was largely influenced by a BBC documentary that I watched in my 20s about immigrant families new to the UK, and how the children coped with the British school system. And they compared 2 girls (both emigrated from Pakistan), one girl where the mom took extra care in doing her hair nicely each day, and another girl, whose mom just combed her hair and never tied it. They both wore school uniforms, but the girl with the unkempt hair had fewer friends than the girl with hair tied in braids. Why? Cos the clean hair made the girl look cuter than the other girl with unkempt hair. That was a revelation to me! Young children are influenced by appearances and first impressions, too, just like adults!

When my kid started pre-school, I was able to observe this behavior in children in person. The toddler that was dressed in pajamas all day had fewer playmates than the toddler that dressed in daytime playclothes (ie. my own child). I made it a point, to dress my baby up in stylish comfortable clothes from 6 months up. I was that mom that waited for US/UK brands to go on sale and buy cute playsuits. I would ask my friends if any were interested to order, and we’d share the shipping. I’d save up money so that I can buy in bulk clothes for the entire upcoming year during the sale. Usually it’s the Christmas or Spring sale, and I’d stock up clothes for next year. I still do this for my kids even now. Anyway, the goal was to build my child’s confidence in her appearance from a very early age. 

And ever since they started primary school, I blow-dry their hair every morning. I overheard a comment a teacher made on wet hair, and I made up my mind, my girls’ hairs will be blown dry and tied every morning by me. I spend about 25-30 mins every morning blowdrying their hair. We have to start at 6.30 am. I feel good when my kids tell me that their friends think their hair is nice. When other moms ask me what is the secret to my kids’ beautiful hair, I tell them it’s “Mommy hair salon.”

So #1 objective is done, ticked. No problems there. 

The difficult part is #2. Back when she hadn’t started puberty, my eldest didn’t care about what kind of music I listened to, or which concerts I bring her to. She just wanted to do fun stuff with her mom. And that was great for me, cos I could listen to whatever in the car, and she’d be OK with it. Then now suddenly, she tells me, she doesn’t like hiphop. She said she’s never liked AOMG, she just put up with it cos I controlled the music in the car. I WAS SHOCKED YO, OKAY. Suddenly she has an opinion. And suddenly, she doesn’t want to tell me who her one pick is from Produce X 101. Suddenly she doesn’t want to go anywere with me. She doesn’t want to be seen with me when I squeal at a concert. She thinks I’m embarrassing. She’s become a teen!

This entire new phase has just completely stunned me. Cos now, I don’t even know if she thinks it’s ‘right’ to like the same group as her mom. You know what I mean? Just like how we were once embarrassed by our parents’ actions, she is now getting embarrassed by mine. And she probably (who knows) doesn’t want to be seen liking the same stuff as me. So now I feel like I have to fangirl in caution. I can’t do it in front of her. I have caught her rolling her eyes at me a couple of times, and let me tell you, it made me want to slap her face.

#2 makes me lose my self-esteem. Cos my entire life since I was 10 focused a lot on fangirling and being able to fangirl openly. At the office, I even have a transparent photocard of JBJ stuck to the corner of my desktop monitor. And when we upgraded our monitors, my boss was like, “Eh, don’t forget your picture.” lol.  Not being able to fangirl openly at home is really crushing. But I cannot make myself be a burdensome parent to her. I want her to be a confident teen, but I want her to be confident with the view that other people with different viewpoints can still be cool. You know what I mean? I want to teach her that people who are different from her, are still okay. To accept differences. That part of parenting is hard. And I haven’t discovered the right way to do this yet.

The reason why I’m harping about be an adult be an adult is because I feel like I’m still not one. For instance, I don’t own my own home. Owning your own home is the epitome of adultness.

My aim now is to own my own home.

To be honest, a few years ago, my main aim in life was to attend one Shinhwa event per year. Really. And then the horror of my accumulated expenses made me scrap that life goal.

I then changed it to: attend a Shinhwa event in SEA per year. But that rarely happens, so it doesn’t get achieved.

Then when JBJ debuted, I made my aim: attend as many JBJ events in SEA as I possibly can during their short lifetime. Which I think I achieved well. Then JBJ disbanded. This goal got scrapped.

I have not gone to a concert outside of my own country in awhile now, and I see this as a sort of achievement. It takes a lot of perserverance to sever your usual fangirl ways. So YAY for me.

So what in the actual blazes am I writing all this for? I meant to create a sort of guide on how to fangirl responsibly as an adult. Which mainly revolves around spending wisely. So in order to be able to do the stuff I like as a fan, I would need to set aside money for actual life expenses, and then set aside another portion for fangirl expenses. To help me save and spend, I made a point to open accounts in multiple banks. One main bank, where my salary gets banked in, and another bank, Bank 2, purely for savings. I chose a bank with few branches and few atms as my Bank 2, so that I won’t be inclined to withdraw cash and spend from that savings account. I set my debit card limit to the lowest amount possible so that I won’t paywave everything from that account, too. If possible, I transfer 200-500 a month into my savings account in Bank 2. Bank 2 is my rainy day savings account. 

In my Main Bank, I opened 2 accounts, one savings and one checking. My salary gets banked into the savings account. I use the checking account as my expense account. So every month, I calculate all my bills, and transfer that amount into my checking account from my savings account to pay for my bills. If there are extra expenses that I need to account for that month, then this gets transferred to my expense account also. I try to make it a point to spend only the allocated amount in my expense account. This is how I budget my monthly expenses. Most of my bills get paid via direct debit from my checking account on the 1st of every month. So usually I just transfer 1 big sum and then the bank does the rest. 

So what about those fangirling expenses? Most of the time I charge the really costly ones to my credit card. And if my credit card company is able to split the payment into installments, then I take that up. But usually, the bank doesn’t offer installments, so then I create my own monthly amortization schedule. I have my own rules on how much to allocate per month to repay my credit card. Usually it’s:

1. anything below 100 gets paid in full the same or next month 
2. anything between 100 – 500 is split into 2-4 monthly repayments
3. anything between 500 – 1000 is split into 6 monthly repayments
4. anything above 1000 is split into 12 or more monthly repayments

So for example, say I travelled abroad in Jan to attend a concert and attend a second concert locally in April in the same year, I would try to split the repayments like this:

I would bank in that underlined Total amount into my expense account too, and use that amount to pay my credit card. Of course, the credit card statement will have a minimum payment amount, but usually that Total amount in my amortization schedule is larger than the minium payment, so we’re okay. I will add new lines for every big fan-related expense incurred to my existing schedule. The schedule above is a very simple one to show how it would look in one year, but the one I actually have spans about 2 years.  

What actually made me want to “retire” from fangirling was that my amortization schedule got too big. The Total payment amount at the bottom of each month got so huge that I had to stop spending so that I could repay everything. There was a time when I went to 3-4 concert trips per year, and that was just nuts. Plus all the albums and merch I bought, all that overseas shipping incurred just made it bigger. It just had to stop so that I could manage better. And be a responsible adult. 

Being in a kpop fandom is like a competition. What non-fans don’t get is that we’re in it not to get our bias’s attention; no, we do it to compete with other fandoms. Getting your group to no.1 on the chart and getting them to stay at no.1 for the entire promotional period is the goal. If your fandom is huge, then you won’t have any problems achieving it. But if your fandom is small or medium sized, then you’ve got to put in a lot more money and effort to get the job done. It’s all about fandom pride. 

It’s not unusual to have people save up many months before comeback just so they can buy albums in bulk and multiple streaming passes. That’s just the norm. But what I learned from having an amortization schedule like the one above is that seeing the cost tabulated helps me to estimate for future comebacks. If you’ve only got one main fandom, then doing this is easy. If you take my schedule as an example, then you could see that roughly, I’d need to save up about MYR 200-450 a month in one year to fund my fangirl expenses for the next year. 

That should be the plan, but I haven’t got that far yet. I’m still trying to clear off all my past year’s debts before I can proceed to save for next year’s fandom activities. For now, I’ve stopped buying albums, and stopped going to fanmeets and concerts. I’ve allowed myself only 1 monthly-renewable streaming pass on Bugs which costs me about MYR33.90/mth. My goal for this year is to cut down expenses and pay off my credit card bill. Once it’s zero, then maybe I can start saving more.

Be an adult.

Wtf is that even? Be responsible. Am I responsible, first of all? Yes. 

Let’s list it out so that we’re clear and can feel better about ourselves.

1. I have a job.
2. I have a job I like.
3. I can pay all my bills in cash.
4. I live in my own apartment that I rent using money that I earn from my job, and I can pay that in cash, too.
5. I live in a good, safe neighborhood.
6. I can put food on the table for my kids.
7. I have access to clean drinking water.

Let’s stop there for now.

Item #7 was a turning point for me. It was what made me feel like I’ve become an adult. 

Explain girl.

Okay, lemme explain. Yes, I do live in a safe neighborhood with good schools. It took moving 2 times before I could achieve this milestone, but I have achieved it. However, the tap water in my neighborhood isn’t all that clean. Even after boiling it, there’s still that weird taste. I have lived in countries where their tap water is good and clean enough to drink. But we don’t have that here. 

For a great many years, 13 years to be exact, from the time my family moved back to Malaysia (we lived overseas before that), we’ve bought bottled water to drink. Boiled tap water was good enough for cooking but for drinking we used bottled mineral water. Or bottled distilled water. And only 6 years ago was I able to afford leasing a water purifier for my home so that I can stop buying bottled water. 

Do you know how cumbersome it is to keep buying bottled water? They sell those 5 liter bottles at the supermarket for like $3.50 each or something, and each month I’d have to buy 4 bottles and carry it from the car to my apartment. And it’d still run out before the month was over, and I’d have to buy more. And then back when we were really poor, I’d get so mad when the kids wasted drinking water. Like pouring a cup and not finishing it. Leaving it on the table overnight until ants are swimming in it the next day. Argh. It was like kaching-kaching (cash register sound)… money being spent and wasted. At that time, my income could pay rent and bills and not much else. I couldn’t afford the monthly fee for something like a water purifier. We were so poor.

The company that I worked for was going thru a lawsuit at the time time, and to help pay for the damages, they implemented a company-wide pay freeze. No salary increments for 2 years. It was harsh but I stayed. 

Then it was over and they lifted the pay freeze. That was 6 years ago. When I finally had a pay raise, one of the first things I did was sign up for a Coway water purifier. Do you know what a relief it was just to have access to clean drinking water everyday? It was a godsend! My kids were so happy. The water tasted good and you could drink it cold! 

That one thing improved our lives so much. I saw that moment as a milestone in adulthood. 

I still see some people at the office (younger ones) fill up a 3 liter bottle with water from the office water dispenser to bring home everyday. Like I’m just glad I never had to do that. Three liters is not enough anyway for a family of 3, but I can see how a single person can make do with 3 liters. But anyway, that’s not the point. The point is:

1. Coway water purifier rental achieved. Classified as a bill.
2. Able to pay for it monthly in cash.
3. Achievement unlocked. Level up.

Then when the haze came, I signed up for a Coway air purifier, too. Level up up.