Rainbow on FI

My household expenses rocketed this few months as I was on shopping spree. It's not because of the upcoming GST hike nor the attraction of Year-end sale.  Image source: Unsplash It's because of my mom and because our household appliances are throwing in the towel one after another. Considering that it's been almost 10 years since we moved into the BTO, these appliances have been used way past their warranty and already to money's worth. I was surprised that some of them can even last for so long. First is our Samsung washing machine which the Start button spoilt. I bought one of Midea brand from Shopee at a sale. The only dissatisfaction is that it does not have a wash timer, unlike the Samsung one. Since we always wash almost the same load of clothing and use the same mode of wash, we can remember the estimated completion time now after a few washes. Second is the ceiling fan. Our old Fanco ceiling fan wasn't good, it required servicing in about a year's time a

Banks are pumping up interest rates in the shortest time span ever. (I saw that CIMB is currently offering as high as 4.2% on its fixed deposit! A rise of 1-2% in interest from just a few months ago. Darn, I should have waited.) This interest hiking spree is attributed to FED's rate hike , which caused the treasury bills yield to be climbing for a while. Hot money (from past QEs) have been flowing out of risk assets (cryptos, equities, junk bonds etc) to the supposedly more secure assets (bank deposits and gov bonds). Note that periods of past FED rate hikes are in year 1999-2000, 2004-2006 and 2007-2008. Then we see rate cuts after these periods. Inflation and loans interest rates have been climbing too. Layoffs are starting, economy seemed to be slowing. We won't be surprised to see  recession , perhaps from next year, if the FED rate hike and inflation continue at this pace. Gotta keep a watch out for recession trends like a rise in the unemployment rate and a decrease in GD