Dinner at Third Floor

Few days ago I and my team member finally manage to go for our long due project dinner. We've been searching for a fine dining restaurant that we possibly will not go just for fun. The list goes on from The Carat Club, Vila Daniella, Angus House and few more other ( I couldn't remember the name cos obviously I am not used to it hehe).

We end up with the Third Floor in Marriot, suppose to be a French fine dining cuisine. Don't ask me what I ordered cos I dont remember the menu well. Overall I find it just so so ... I am not a fan or French cuisine or maybe my selection is not right.

Anyway what I want to share is the conversation we had during the dinner. We talk about our life.... and what we are up to. Mind you that my team mate are all boys except me so no stories about handbag or shopping or gossiping abt others haha. Well most common subject are of course about cars and properties. I love this subject cos I can see what other people have in mind and learn from their experience.

One of my team mate just bought a Honda Civic and he is so obsess with the car. Any single noise from the car he will send to the service center. If he were to count, it's more than 10 times he actually send back her car to the service center. The other colleague planning to buy a new car since he just got a baby. Plan to buy a MPV and even thinking to buy a 12 seater....hurm when just having the first baby ;).

Next move on the subject of properties. One would like to buy a house in KL, big house but cheap. The others are looking for a house somewhere in Puchong and trying to look at something cheap as well. House or properties I guess is subjective. Everybody tend to buy house where their parents live in or where they are familiar. Maybe they are friends around, so that will be the factor to buy house there...But what caught me is the way people thinking.

Mostly people that I know off will buy house for them to live in for long term or to retire. Same goes to car....I know most people will buy brand new car and keep on changing one. But I do notice that I am lil bit different. Well I don't go for a brand new car cos my principle, car will depreciate fast. Since I am not able to buy my dream car yet ( I am not millionaire yet!!) . I settle with second hand car which the criteria must be reliable, comfortable, fuel saving, and their resell value should be reasoanble. So far the car we bought, one for hubby and one for me serve the purpose to get us from point A to B. Of course since we love to travel, the car should can bring us around Malaysia and Singapore comfortably. One day, when we really have the capital, we probably going to buy our dream car. But for now, that have to wait for other priorities.

Next on the properties. Well price of the properties went up all the time. Given that you buy the properties at the right place. We bought our first house near to my parents house. Impulse decisions.... At that time we have extra money and we are thinking that we should tie ourselves to something so that we don't waste the money to unnecessary stuff. Lucky enough, now the properties is near to a newly launch shopping complex that become very popular in our area. The price of properties around went up. I hope in next few year it went up further so that I can sell it off. Ok you see, my thinking of properties is not for long term...If I can make profit I will sell it off.

Other than house, we are keen to invest on land. We are crazy about land. But the down side is to buy land we must have cash. We scout on cheap land at area that has potetial, look from properties website, ask around and so on. The good thing about land .....the price will grow and again if you buy at the right area. It will not give an immediate return but it will be someday. The one that we bought has rise up to double the price from original price... but we still keeping it for future. Hoping to buy more land...but land price now is quite high ( the place that we aim for ) and of course we need to find capital first !

I and hubby are not very good in unit trust investment or stock market. So we go for conventional one. More safer but longer return. I bought some unit trust few years ago but I guess with current situation, the price went down as well. But according to my friend, if you have enough time to monitor the progress of the stock market. You can easily make money. Time is valuable for us now...so we set it aside.

That is what we do to gain asset. But before asset can really become an asset, they are liabilities to bear. The loan that we are taking to buy the asset. Currently the BLR went down so we engage ourselves with morgage consultants. Try to get the best options on how to restructure our loan so that we can minimize the interest and hopefully reduce the years serving the loan. Amazing we actually found out that we can save around 400 a month from our current housing loan. So of we go...now we are in the process of restructuring. Details on that I'll let hubby to elaborate more on his blog since he does all the nitty gritty.

We don't earn that much to start with investment. We starts with saving little amount each month since day 1 we start working. Which is 7 years ago. A part from that we do not forget our responsibilities to our parents and those who in need. We just work around it for future. So if we can means you can too :)

Well go back to Third Floor, the dinner went well I guess. I get the dose of quality chatting about life even I don't enjoy the food so much. That is enough for me...quality time. I might not the type of fine dining enthusias at all since I can't appreciate much yet. I enjoy good food...but so far good food always come from my own kitchen :)