About this Blog

Why this blog?

I’ve been journaling – off and on – since my high school years and have always found that it’s a useful tool to help me put my thoughts in order and to help me remember things. Well, a few months ago I started getting serious about my finances and wanted to rein them in and figure out how it’s going to grow in the coming years. No, I didn’t suffer any financial catastrophe or experience an epiphany. But the GST% did go up, as did transport costs, utility costs, food costs, rents, etc.

So this blog is for me, to help me keep track of the things I’m going to be learning over time, the goals I’m setting for myself (and why) and the things I’m doing. It’s my way of being accountable to me.

I’m also hoping to learn from the people who visit this blog. One of the best ways to learn is to have open exchanges and to leverage off what the people around you already know. So please comment if you’ve anything relevant to share or any questions to ask. Thanks in advance!

What does it contain?

This blog will mainly contain views on personal finance from the perspective of a twenty-something with no formal finance training.

What this is not

I am not a CFP. I do not sell any MLM products, unit trusts or any other investment products. There are no hot stock tips here. There are no get-rich-quick schemes here.

Who I am

A twenty-something Malaysian working and living in Singapore. Engineer by day and most nights, trying to figure out how to stretch her dollars while maintaining a decent standard of living.

What's Banana Money?

Banana money was the currency issued by the Japanese occupiers of Malaya and Borneo during WWII. Due to how easy it was to re-produce these bills, counterfeiting was rampant, driving up inflation and pushing down the value of the currency during the Japanese occupation. After the Japanese surrendered at the end of the war, banana notes became worthless and only remain today as a collectors item. Sometimes I feel like my money is becoming like banana money, prices going up and a dollar buying less and less. That's why I picked this name for the blog.

See Wikipedia entry for banana money