Update

A little update about my life.

We booked an apartment last year and paid a booking deposit of RM2000. I even shared here how the house looks like. However until now, the progress of the house just stop because the developer are waiting for their loan to be approved. Its been more than 6 months. So I guess we can't really depend on that house anymore.

So we searched for another house and found one in Rawang. Gulp! I know quite far from the city centre. I wasn't too keen on the house at first. There was doubt about the location being too far (for me). But my husband love the neighborhood  of the house. Ooops, this house is not yet ready, expected to be finished 2 years from now. Since my husband love it, I just followed him and agreed. It is a two-storey terrace house. Yes, its landed! Kinda happy for that. No more having problem of carrying the groceries into the house like now.

So we already signed the Sales and Purchase Agreement last Friday. Thank goodness. It wasn't like the first house, paid the deposit and went silent. Haha.

Okay, on Aisyah. She's grow up quite fast now. She can say a lot of words, very sulky, like attention and like to sing her own song (which of course we don't understand) but love to watch. We are planning for number two next year. Nope, I'm not pregnant yet. Just planning. Hehe.

Having said that, I think we need a bigger car. Now, we use Myvi and with baby stuff, I think it is quite packed. So really hope we will have the chance to buy a bigger car. I don't really mind which car. Just recently I saw Honda launched Honda BR-V, the capacity of the car and the price really intrigue me. But I doubt the price will be that low. Hopefully I am wrong. (^_^)

Okay, till then.

Assalamualaikum.

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What I want to do if I get the key of my house

The house we booked back then is almost 65% finished. Alert, we just booked and haven't done the loan process yet. Since that house is an abandoned house, so the developer needs to finish the condominium until 80% and then they can apply for bank loan. This is what explained by the agent. Not sure whether it was totally true or not.

Okay back to the topic, what I wanted to do after we get the key (well everyone can dream, in this case I plan ok! :p)

1. Cornice
The distance between our ceiling to the floor is not so high. I don't think it is a good choice to install plaster ceiling. Since our soon to be house is small, we need to avoid making it looks much smaller. So solution? Only cornice. A simple cornice. Nothing too fancy or traditional.

Design C330 is what I'm aiming for. I got this image from the net

2. Laminate wood flooring
I know. Its gonna be quite expensive but I love it too much! I tried google and found out the price range for laminate wood flooring will be around RM3 to RM8 per sq. ft. So really need to be extra careful when choosing the vendor. Preferably go for individual contractor since company charge way too high compared to individual contractor. One of the famous brand for laminate wood floor is INOVAR. INOVAR has plenty of collection for laminate floor which comes in 8 mm and 12 mm thickness and resistance to wear (for house AC3 is recommended).

Super love country walnut!

3. Floor to ceiling wardrobe in the laundry room
Since our house is quite small, it will be such a waste not to use vertical space in the laundry room. This wardrobe will be used as the storage wardrobe. Extra things like luggage bags, bags, old clothes, tools, sewing stuff will be arranged in this wardrobe.Things which are not use that often will be put on the top section of the wardrobe for easy access to always used item.

4. Grill
Almost forget this! I think this is the main thing that we should do after we get the key. Always SAFETY first! We both super love simple design. So design is really not a concern here. The main concern I assumed will be what the grill is made of. I love stainless steel but to have stainless steel for the whole house is never going to happen, price wise. So I think we will go for mild steel with powder coating. For a condominium with 3 bedrooms, I assumed it should be around RM5k.

5. Fan
The house developer will provide two units of air-conditioner and we already have 1 unit of air-conditioner. Even we will have three units of air-conditioner, it is still important to have fan in all room. We need to save energy whenever we can. I assumed we will need 5 units of fan. Depends on the brand, no of blade and whether the fan has remote control or not, the price of fan will be range around RM150 to RM300. Based on what I read, KDK brand is the best in term of long lasting and for four blades, the price is around RM240. So I guess, for 5 fans, we need to prepare RM1200. Phew.

6. Lamp
Choosing lamp definitely will be difficult. With abundance of design in the market, I am sure I will be taking a lot of time in choosing the right one which suit our house. Both floor lamp and table lamp will definitely need to be incorporated in the house. So to come out with the budget for the lamp will be difficult now.

7. Paint
Yes, paint is important too. My husband and I both love grey color. So for the living room, we gonna choose grey color. This color can suit every color. I know white can suit every color too but I'm sure the space will be quite dull if we choose white.

Alright, that's all. Hehe,

Till then, Assalamualaikum.

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We Booked A Condo

We booked one condominium in Ampang for us to stay in (or maybe rent, not sure). It was actually an abandoned project. But it got continued due to change of developer. Husband said he saw some progress on the construction, so I guess I can dream with the house decoration now? Haha.

We chose type A condominium (1010 sq/ft) which inclusive of 2 units of air conditioner, 1 wardrobe in master bedroom and the kitchen cabinet. Sounds interesting yoohoo!

Here is the layout of our chosen condominium.

Based on the layout, the drawback is the second bathroom separates the dining room and the kitchen. So I guess it will be a bit inconvenient to go back and forth sending food to the dining table. And also we can't have open space kitchen. It's actually my husband's dream to have an island. Hihi. I also like having open space kitchen. I can watch over my children when I cook. Well, you can't have everything right.

I also dislike the fact that there is a nook at the living room. It actually makes the living room looks smaller. The house is quite small, so the wall definitely shrinks the space more. Maybe we should demolish the wall? Good idea!

We visited the sample house way back in April 2014. Here some picture I took:

Living room

This is what I'm talking about - nook space. Here in the sample house they put the tv cabinet. Quite small, only 8 feet.

kitchen cabinet 1

kitchen cabinet 2

kitchen cabinet 3

kitchen cabinet 4

The agent said the developer will provide the exact kitchen cabinet and tiles with additional of sink. I hope they will really provide it because truthfully I love this kitchen cabinet. Easy, clean and sleek.

Bathroom 1

Bathroom 2

So pretty right? Again, the agent said the developer will provide the same tiles too in the bathrooms. I don't put too much hope in this because the tiles are so gorgeous. Looked at the sink too. Love love.

Work Area

They put air conditioner here since it is too risky to put it outside. The building is an abandoned building and a lot of foreign workers go through this building. Scared people will steal the air conditioner. But I will make this space my laundry room and store. I will put wall to wall wardrobe, make use of all the vertical space we have.

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 1 

That is the wardrobe the developer will give to us. It is a wall to wall wardrobe. Yey! I can put all our linen here. The second picture I took to show the air conditioner they gonna give us. Haha.

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3

The agent said the window in bedroom 3 won't be like this, they will change it into the modern one (casement type I suppose).

The house is not that big but being a person who get scared easily, I guess this is just nice. Haha. I also dislike so many things in the house. Me and my husband like to throw away stuffs that we don't use, my husband especially. We like our house to be simple and clutter free.

I hope in the future we don't have any problem with the process of having this house. Booking the house was just the first step. There are a lot more process we need to go through. I am sure there will be obstacles within the process in having the house. I really hope we will be strong enough and manage to get the house.

Aminn.

Ok bye people, Assalamualaikum.

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Debt

I have a lot of debt, well in this case financial debt. Study loan, wedding loan and car loan. I guess loan is really unavoidable, to save a lot of cash in short amount of time is kinda difficult but of course not impossible.

Me and my husband is in a mission now. We plan to buy a house in 3 years (its still far away I know!) but we wanted to be realistic. Most of our debt (of course car loan is exceptional) will be clear in 3 years time so by then, I guess we can afford to buy the house.

Buying house needs a lot of planning.

First and foremost, the 10% deposit. Then the renovation budget which can easily reach around RM40k.

How to get money for all this?

1. The EPF fund from account 2. We just work for almost 3 years and trust me when I said our account 2 EPF is not that much. So the 3 years time is just perfect (hopefully) to increase our account 2 amount. To keep tract of your account 2 amount, please register your i-account at KWSP website. It is so easy.

2. Saving from now. Its difficult, yeah. With baby on the way and a lot of stuff to buy for the baby arrival, we kinda slowing our saving mojo (especially me!). But there's a lot of way to save minimally.

a) If you have heard about this, good. It is "Keep Your Green". Green means the RM5. Why RM5? Because the value is in the middle. Not that high not that low. So whenever you have RM5, save it!

b) Other than the green, you can also save the coins. Especially guys, they hate carrying around the coins. So its good, you can save the coins in your beloved piggy bank.

c) Avoid going out too much. Petrol price is really unbelievable these days and with the parking fee, its really adding a lot of burden to our monthly expense. So if can, please stay at home. Not only you can save the above stuff, you can also cook! Save more there.

d) Talking about cook, whenever can, please cook. It really did help me save some of our budget. And of course I can also practice my cooking skills.

e) Don't pretend like you are a rich fellow, please EAT AT CHEAP PLACE. I know some people tend to follow others, eating at expensive place. Especially when we see people uploads picture of their foods and where they eat. But don't get easily influenced. Maybe someone treat them or luckily they got extra allowance that month. Always remember your mission.

f) If you plan to buy something, please always be friend with google. Search, search and search for cheaper price. Same goes whenever you want to buy grocery. Buy groceries at supermarket that offers cheaper price. If you need to buy some groceries urgently but unable to go to the cheaper supermarket, just buy the urgent one. Don't buy other unimportant item.

g) Whenever you want to buy something on the spot, think first whether the item really necessary. Sometimes we just buy and afterwards we don't really use it that often. In short, spend wisely.

Other than the above, if can please don't use credit card. Its uncontrollable. In my case, only my hubby use. I don't because I know I will have a difficult time to control it.

Okay I think that's all. Really hope we can achieve our target. Let's all of us reduce our monthly commitment.

Good luck to others as well.

Till then. Assalamualaikum.

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Dream : 1st House

We planned to buy a house next year. But house price goes up so quickly, it can double in just 2 weeks! I don't lie, its true. I have a friend told me this, last week she called an agent asking about an apartment's price. It was RM120,000. Then this week she called back, it already goes up to RM215,000. Its double the original price!

Come on, its freaking scary.

Average people like me cannot have our own house now. With average salary and only 2 months bonus per year, how on earth we can afford to buy a house? With other monthly commitments, I think it was quite impossible.

And the SKIM Rumah Pertamaku?

If you go to bank, they will laugh. No bank will give 100% loan (car can) for house loan.

On other note, why you should pay to bank a lot of money? 100% loan means more money being given to bank.

So what is left?

I guess I need to save some money every month for the house deposit. And of course with the help from the EPF saved every month. But how much is it? Lets check the criteria I want for my house first.

I dream of having a landed house. I don't care whether it is 1 storey house or 2 storey house. I just want a landed house.

Second, I want it to be near my current rental house because I love the location. Its like the center to my hometown, hubby's hometown and KL.

Third, I really don't mind if it is a secondhand home. Really. If it is still in good condition, why not?

Heh, dream much?

I hope this dream can come true. I know landed house is so expensive. The cheapest I found was RM350,000 and it was a secondhand house. To be safe, lets go for RM400,000 (for lawyer fees and other payments)

So the deposit must be RM40 000.

Our EPF give or take maybe around RM16,000. So we must prepare around RM24,000 before next year. Divide by 12 and divide again with 2, means RM1000 per month each person need to save.

Huwaaaa. Its quite hard.

But we will try our best. And I know Allah will help us. Like during our wedding.

Insyaallah.

Till then. Assalamulaikum.

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