Here are my monthly financials for February 2023.
Top 3 Income Sources
Interest – S$564.37
This is interest from Trust Bank and coupon payments from SSB.
Merch Sales – S$79
I received US$62.99 worth of commissions from selling merch on TeePublic and Redbubble. If you like to find out more about selling merch, you can look at an article I wrote here.
Affiliate & Referrals – S$70
I got 7 referrals for Trust Bank.
If you still have not signed up for a Trust Bank account, you can check out how to get the sign-up rewards here.
Top 3 Expense Sources
Investment – S$200
S$200 of it is my monthly DCA into STI ETF using POSB Invest-saver.
Groceries – S$154.34
This is for groceries, all from NTUC as I need to use up my vouchers.
Health – S$128.71
I bought 2 bags of 2.5kg soy protein isolate to stock up on my supply.
CLL’s Infrequently Curated Videos
Why Boxing Stars Make So Much Money (and Why UFC Stars Don’t)
Although UFC stars are well paid, they are nowhere close to the level that how much boxers are paid. The creator compared between two fights, one mma and one boxing, with similar viewership. Although the MMA fight as a whole made more than the boxing match, the MMA fighters ($600k – $1m) are only paid a fraction of what the boxers ($15m each) are paid. A reason gave by the creator is that the UFC is almost a monopoly while boxing has a few big players competing to cover each match.
Spending S$5,000 To Get Attached
This video is in mandarin but there are subtitles in English. A 24-year-old is trying to find his first girlfriend and he spent over S$5,000 attending courses and matchmaking sessions with no success. He feels that he is a loser for being single for so many years and being attached will solve all his problems. Not sure if he got this from one of his dating courses but he thinks of himself as a predator and wants to be the on with the last laugh.
A person in the comments put it very well, if he himself thinks that he is a loser, why would someone want to be with him? In this video, they show him going on 3 blind dates but he did not do well.
What is the Optimal Body Fat % to Remain At
Social media has twisted our expectations of how low of a body fat should be considered our goals. In the US, if you are below 17% bodyfat (which is very reasonable), you are already leaner than 95% of the population. Being at a body fat level that is too low for long periods of time has several side effects like low mood levels, reduced testosterone levels, decreased sperm count and possibly erectile dysfunction.
In a separate video, another content creator added on how all of us have a body fat level that we can safely and comfortably remain year round. It can be 8 – 12% for some lucky genetic outliers or 12 – 18% for others. Your range will depend on your genetics and daily habits.
The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Fermenting Foods at Home
Kimchi is about S$7 per 500g and I didn’t want to spend this amount of money so I decided to make my own. This video shows how to make fermented foods at home. I would say I made at least 3kgs of kimchi at the same or even lower cost than storebought. I did not have chili flakes so I use gochujang instead and it still turned out ok. Basically, you will need to cut up your napa cabbage and salt it generously and leave it for a few hours. Wash it with water and squeeze out at much water as you can. Create the “marinating” slurry and mix in with the cabbage. Cover it and leave it on the counter top for a few days. Open it up every day and press the cabbage down and try it to see if it fits your taste. Mine took about 3 days. You can then place it in the fridge for up to 6 months and it will continue to slowly ferment (increase in sourness slightly).
This is Ruining Electric Cars
This creator speaks about the electric car charging infrastructure and how it is still not ready for the mainstream. There is no one standard app and payment method across the many different systems. Also, you might need adapters to make sure the plugs can fit your car. The plugs are also finnicky where you will need to adjust its position to make sure it charges and if the wind is blowing too hard, it might also disengage the charging. It might feel easy for some but it can be difficult for those if they want to just drive from point a to point b and not read a manual and tinker around with their cars.
I tried using AI. It scared me.
This creator wanted to fix his email back ups and tried out an ai to write out a script for him. It churned out something he needed in a fraction of the time he would have taken, albeit needing to adjust the code by clarifying the prompt a few times. This made him wonder if we are now on a sigmoid curve where AI might either be still at the beginning or at the end. If we are at the end of the curve, it might mean we will be able to make us of AI to assist us in our jobs, making things more efficient without much disruption. However, if we are only at the beginning of the curve, it might mean huge disruptions and technological advances that might displace millions of people from their jobs. We will only know when we look back after a few years.
Google Panics Over ChatGPT
ChatGPT is filling headlines this past month as it is the first time we are seeing such a high-performing AI. This AI is going to be integrated with Bing, the search engine we laughed at, to give users a better user experience when searching. Despite Google spending large sums of money on their own AI projects, they were not able to replicate something like ChatGPT (at least not publicly yet). Google has a dominating market share of all searches and this makes up for a huge percent of their revenue. Bing has everything to win while Google has everything to lose.
Things are moving very fast and the creator made 3 videos on the topic in 2 weeks. You can check them out below.
What’s the best way to cook Chicken Breast at home? (Food Science Explained)
Chicken breast is notoriously hard to cook as it tends to dry up. The creator looks at what makes a chicken breast juicy and how can one keep it juicy. The biggest takeaway in my opinion is that we will need to flatten the chicken breast (slicing or smashing) to give a even surface and thickness to make sure cooking is even. If the chicken is uneven, when the thick parts get cooked, the thinner parts would have already been overcooked and dried out.
Money Manager App
I am using an app called Money Manager to track my income and expenses. It is a free tool available on mobile available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
As far as I know, the data collected from the app is for tracking the ads you view and interact with on the app.
Please check out their privacy policy on what information they collect and what is it used for.
Personally, the value this app brings to me outweighs the value of the information I provide to them.
