What's Causing Your Electricity Bill To Skyrocket?

Our electricity bills cost us the earth, every single month, with figures ranging from RM450 to RM500 every month, for the past few years. Shocking right? Considering we only stay in a 1,500 sq feet condo and there are only the 6 of us. I still don't understand how we can utilize so much of electricity every month. Air conditioner is only turned on for 2-3 hours in two rooms and for my room, it runs for 8-9 hours every night. That seems a lot but I have friends and relatives who literally turn on their air conditioner 24/7 and yet their bills don't exceed RM200 a month. They even leave the air cond turned on when they go out so that when they return and step into their house, it's cool and nice. Nice right? Wish I could do this too!  I don't even use the clothes dryer as this will jack up the amount further. So our clothes dryer is a white elephant sitting atop our washer since last year.

We boil water on the stove as well as use a tiny 500ml Russel Hobbs electric kettle once a day in the morning to make coffee and tea. Electric oven is only used occasionally. Ironing is done once every 2 days, for half an hour or shorter. We have two refrigerators and an electric airport flask. I was told by an electrician that the culprits that suck up hell a lot of power are anything that generates heat - iron, water heater, electric kettle, oven and electric airport flask, and of course the air conditioner.

For the longest time, I've been contemplating if I should get rid of the electric airport flask as we don't really need it anymore.  We bought it yonks ago when the girls were babies and replaced the airport flask with a new one last year.  Last month, the mil and I finally agreed to give the electric airport flask to our part-time helper as she's going to have a baby soon.  After a month, I saw magic on the electric bill!

The figures on the bill went down by a starking RM118! I can't believe that the electric airport flask could eat up so much power and money!  But I'll have to monitor our electric bill for the next couple of months to see if the figures have consistently remained at below RM400 before I can put the blame on the electric airport flask.

Once we had an industrial fridge in our house and our electric bill was so high that we discarded the fridge after a year or so. Right after the industrial fridge was removed, our electric bill took a dive and we were so relieved!





A huge drop in the bill from RM465.80 to RM347 in just a month!

Is your house electricity bill on the high side? If it is, you should go around your house to find the culprit, discard the item if it's not very useful to you and you'll be happily saying good riddance when you receive your next electricity bill!

Happiness In My Balcony Garden

Pretty blooms found in my tiny balcony garden these few days!

Little things like the occasional flowers that sprout out from our plants often put me in a good mood 😊🌺🌻🌹

Three precious flower buds on the Prosperity flower.




This is the second time that this plant has bloomed.  We bought this plant for RM10 at a church charity sale over 3 years ago. When we bought the plant, it only had 3 green leaves on it and was on the verge of dying. After a year of TLC showered on it (with plenty of water, sunshine, egg shells and fruit peel), flowers bloomed!  Cass and I were delighted. Cass loves this plant and has put in a lot of effort taking care of her 'adopted baby'. She chose this plant from among many other types of plants.

White flower on Kaempferia galanga/ sand ginger/ cekar/ resurrection lily plant.



This is the second time that our sand ginger plant bloomed  a single white flower with a known lifespan of no more than one day. The flower only opens up during the day and usually withers after 1 day. But this flower broke the record and it lived for  about 3 days! I thought it withered after just a day but the next morning, the flower 'resurrected' and lived for another 2 days!

No Longer Sparks Joy

Our 10-year old two-seater couch no longer sparks joy. According to Marie Kondo, throw out or donate stuff in your house that no longer sparks joy to you.  As this sofa is peeling badly on the seat and under, it makes the house floor dirty. That's no joy to me as I have to sweep the floor like 10 times in a day, I kid you not.  And it makes the house looks shabby.  In the past, I've also contemplated whether to engage a professional sofa cleaning service to make it look newer.    Besides, it's bad feng shui to keep a broken furniture at home. So out you go sofa and thank you for serving us the past 10 years.

I paid the cleaners at our condo to help me remove the couch. Now our living room looks really bare. Suddenly, the view of KL Tower and KLCC looks even clearer from the living room without the sofa. Our living room looks so much bigger without the two-seater couch. This means more space for our dancing queen to practice dancing and for Cass to do her floor exercises on her yoga mat.

Looking forward to shop for a new sofa now!

OCD And Germaphobes?

Would you believe it if I told you that I mop the floor of our home at least twice a day? On average, it's three times a day ~ morning, after lunch and after dinner.  Bedroom floors are moped once (sometimes twice) a day while the dining area and kitchen floors are moped between twice to thrice a day.  The more we cook, the more times the floor has to be moped.  I don't get how some people can cook a feast but have no urge to  clean up the  aftermath of their cooking.  I admire these people and wish I have such high tolerance to a greasy floor and stove.

I have to thank my blessings that we live in a condo where space is small and it does not take very long for me to mop the entire unit of 1,500+ sq feet.  This is one of the pros of condo living.

With daily twice or thrice mopping, yet the floor is still dusty. And I just don't know why.

See the disposable floor wipe here? That's from the second round of moping with two pieces of wet floor wipes used.  I do the first two rounds of mopping myself. When my part-time helper comes in the evening, she does another round of mopping. I have two part-time helpers who take turns to come in 5 times a week.  One of the helpers is a clean freak who is super detailed with her work. I love her and so do the girls. I have almost zilch complains about her work.  The other helper often rushes through her job, cuts corners and is very calculative with the number of hours that she puts in. When she leaves, I have to clean up after her.





With my overzealous cleaning of the house, would you consider me an OCD and germaphobes? 😀  I know my eldest daughter is a confirmed washer OCD.

Mother In Law's Tongue

I had a good laugh today when Cass told me that she saw a plant with a label 'Mother In Law's Tongue' in the garden of her school.  I never knew that the Snake Plant is also called Mother In Law's Tongue! What a name to describe a plant 😆

I can see why it is aptly named Mother In Law's Tongue as the plant has long, sword like leaves that are toxic. Some people have evil mothers in law with sword like tongues that only spew out toxic and hurtful words. 😰






Did you know that if cats or dogs ingest parts of this plant it can cause them to feel unwell?  Your pet will start to vomit or have diarrhea. They are not highly toxic but still can cause uncomfortable symptoms to cats and dogs.

Do you have Mother In Law's Tongue at home? 😝

Order Your Groceries Online From Happy Fresh

I received a surprise today!

The guard intercomed me this afternoon to inform me that I have a parcel from the courier delivery guy.  I told the guard that I ain't expecting any parcel today but he insisted that I have a parcel. Hmmm, who could the parcel be from?!  I love receiving surprises! :)

Door bell rang...

I opened the door and I saw the delivery guy in bright green  Happy Fresh uniform greeting me with a cheerful smile.  Aha, then I remembered that yesterday I had placed an online order at Happy Fresh but I really did not expect the delivery to be so punctual!  I totally forgot about my order.

Thank you so much Happy Fresh for the RM30 voucher for me to test the Happy Fresh app!  I am very satisfied with the whole experience as well as with the products received.

Downloading the Happy Fresh app into my Samsung mobile phone was a breeze and very fast. I downloaded the app from my desktop computer.  Next, I shopped for my groceries. During checkout, I keyed in  my preferred date and time of delivery and my discount voucher code and received an online order confirmation, as below...






With a complimentary RM30 to spend, thanks to Happy Fresh, I chose 3 items that I needed, which are a bottle of organic soy sauce, pesticide-free tomatoes and dental floss.





The tomatoes were plump and fresh.  The groceries came in a very huge bright green recyclable Happy Fresh bag.  Yes, I am indeed one very happy mummy today as I received my free groceries and those are the things that I had run out and wanted to replenish :D

Happy Fresh is an excellent app for busy parents and singles alike who just cannot find the time to make a trip to the supermarket to get essential items. The range of groceries and toiletries is wide.   And the delivery is punctual.  You can do your shopping anywhere (just find a place with free WiFi if your android phone does not have WiFi) and it won't take you more than 15 minutes, depending on the quantity of items that you want to shop for.   Do give this app a try and I am pretty sure you'll be HAPPY just like I am, with Happy Fresh!

Tick Tock Tick Tock...To GST

And so, there are only 2 more days left before the dreaded GST!

Yesterday, the roads leading to Mid Valley Megamall were jam-packed. We avoided the roads at all cost. I think kiasu shoppers like yours truly were charging the stores to sweep the shelves clean on items that are bound to be taxed.

A few days ago, I went to a nearby mini mart to get toilet papers but they were all sold out.  Many items on the shelves were swept clean.  There were long queues at the check-out counters with shoppers pushing trolley-filled household essential items. I was one of those kiasu housewives at the long queues to stock up on taiyima  and pocket tissue papers, muahahaha!

The loot here is just my first round. I swept the shelves of 99 Speedmart clear of my favorite brand of sanitary pads... then went to another outlet to have another sweep.  On Saturday, I went to Tesco for another round of sweeping items that are bound to be GST-axable.



Go ahead and have a good laugh.  My friends are already laughing at me. But who cares. I think I have saved enough to buy a bag of oranges and apples to make smoothie for my family. A little goes a long way ok.







Here is a list of taxable sundry goods from the Star newspapers.




However, do not stock up on everything ok. Some items like soft drinks, clothes, household white goods (TV, refrigerators, air-conditioners, hair dryers, etc), milk powder, toothpaste, soap, toilet papers (the list goes) are expected to be cheaper. These items have 10% sales tax now and are expected to be cheaper with GST (replaced with 6%). I read that even cars will be cheaper (10% SST replaced with 6% GST).

How are you preparing yourself for GST?

High Maintenance Panasonic Water Purifier

We have been using this Panasonic PJ-A36  water filter  since October 2008.  It cost over RM2k when it was bought.  The cartridge has to be changed once or twice a year and each replacement cartridge costs around RM270.  This water filter can  produce non-electrolyzed water, alkaline water and acidic water.







A few mornings ago, I saw drops of  gooey gunk on our kitchen top (under the water filter). I thought a 'rat' stole honey or chocolates when everyone was in lalaland!  When I checked the base of the  water filter, it was leaking stinky gooey gunk!




Hubs sent the water filter to the electrical shop where he bought the water filter from to have it fixed.  He was told that a spare part is faulty and it costs  RM500 to fix it!

I have always find that this water purifier is high maintenance.  We never had problems when we used a regular Panasonic water purifier that costs only a few hundred Ringgit each. Of course, the regular Panasonic water purifier has no such functions as turning water into alkaline water or acidic water and all that jazz (or bull shit?).  The cartridge is also way cheaper than its high maintenance sibling.  I find that using this alkaline water purifier is like driving a Porsche vs. driving a Kancil, which is low maintenance with low cost of spare parts.

Question :  would you spend RM500 to fix the high maintenance alkaline water purifier?  Or would you buy a brand new water purifier (regular filter or fancy one)?

Hubs paid RM500 to have our 'Porsche water purifier' fixed.

Come on, tell me what  you would do!

OCD

Of all the household chores, I have to say that I like doing laundry and washing loos the most ha ha ha!   However, in the laundry department, I only like putting dirty laundry into the washing machine and hanging them. I don't like keeping the laundry, hate folding them and absolutely hate ironing them.  So I tai chi ironing to my part-time helper.  Speaking of part-time helper, I think I can write a separate post on them.  From paying them RM700 a month just last year, I have no choice but to spend RM1,000 on my new part-time helper now :(  Oh well, I believe that this is money spent to get some sanity and me-time.

Anyway, back to my favorite list of household chores.  My friends often flip when I tell them that I do 4-5 loads of laundry in a day. But don't flip just yet.  Each load is only a 30-minute cycle. I have a light colored clothing load, a dark colored clothing load, a load for hubs' stinky post-exercise clothes and a load for floor mats and wash clothes every day :D  All in, my washing machine only works for 2.5 hours in a day.  I know many of you set your washing machine to a 1.5 hour cycle for each load but I don't.  I think that the color of the clothes will fade faster  the longer they spent soaked in detergent and spinning. So I shorten the cycle and my clothes come out feeling clean and fresh-smelling anyway :)   And sometimes I do not even need to iron my outing clothes as my spin is set to only 500spm.

On sunny mornings like today, I feel therapeutic just looking at my clean laundry getting a good dose of sunlight and disinfection :D

It is an irony that I hate sunny days but love watching my laundry bask under the sun.



I think I definitely have OCD! And I know someone must be very pleased with this fact, as the dirty laundry basket is always empty.  Clean and ironed clothes are always back into their wardrobe every nite.


And once a week, blankets get washed and sun-dried to a nice smelling sun fragrance too! I think I deserve a much better pay from the boss!

Living Next To A Limestone Hill

My parents' house in Ipoh is situated next to a limestone hill. The entire neighborhood is surrounded by scenic limestone hills and lush greenery. The view in the morning is pretty breathtaking, especially when the hills are covered by fog and clouds. The morning air is also pretty cool, thus I love jogging round my neighborhood and enjoy the view. It makes me feel as if I am in some holiday resorts overseas.

Too Much Laundry?

My mum always comments that I have too much laundry to wash everyday. She always says that my house is like a laundrette! We have at least 3 loads of laundry to wash in the washing machine everyday - one load for the kids' clothes, one load for adults clothes and another load for floor mats and dirty cloths used to wipe tables, the kitchen and furniture. I also allow my maid to use the washing machine to wash her clothes and she uses the washing machine every other day. I'll bet no one allows their maid to use the washing machine to wash their clothes but me. But I think my maid has quite a lot of work to do and I think it's perfectly fine for her to use it.

I change the bedsheets every week, towels are washed once every 2-3 days, jammies washed everyday and of course daily wear are washed daily. My maid spends at least an hour folding the clothes and she does not even need to iron my mil and my hubs' clothes. My mil irons her own clothes and my hubs sends his clothes to the laundry to have them ironed. She only needs to iron the kids' clothes and my clothes which are not many, perhaps only 2-3 sets in a week. You think we have too much laundry for the maid to do, looking at the picture here? There is some more laundry (mostly floor mats and maid's clothes) hanging in the balcony in the kitchen.

My First McD Delivery Order

We have been busy unpacking our stuff and my mil didn't have the time to cook. So we ordered McDonalds and had them delivered to our condo several days ago. Alycia and Sher woke up from their nap and found their favorite food greeting them on the dining table. I also ordered a cup of chocolate sundae and let me tell you, they enjoyed their meals tremendously. Oh well, which kid doesn't like fast food and ice creams eh?

Topsy Turvy And Dusty

Our new condo, particularly my bedroom and my bathroom are in a BIG mess. We discovered water leaking in the bathroom cabinet under the sink a few days after we moved in. The contractor couldn't detect where the leak was from. Finally today, they found out that the leak was from a leaking aircond pipe from my bedroom. So the contractor hacked a big hole in the wall of my bedroom to fix the leaking pipe. Such a nice new home but everything is so messy and the floors are so dusty. Some of the things are still unpacked and there are clothes, boxes, toys and just about everything scattered here and there. My 2 rambunctious brats have also been throwing their toys, papers, books, pencils, etc. everywhere! What an eyesore!

Still Moving, Unpacking And Arranging....

Here are some pix on our house shifting taken at our old home. There is still about 30% of our things that are still at the old home, to be moved to the new home. As of now, my closet is already 80% full and I have no idea how I am going to stuff my remaining clothes and paraphernalia into it. I guess I will no choice but to give away many of my clothes to friends... albeit with a heavy heart... sob sob sob...





Alycia helping to pack her books and flashcards into boxes.

Hidden, Found And Thrown

We will be moving to our new home in a couple of weeks. My mil was packing some of our things from the kitchen cabinet last week and dug out some of Alycia and Sher's old toys... sharp and dangerous masak-masak utensils like knives, forks, etc which I had hidden inside the cabinet about 2 years ago! I hid them as they posed a danger coz Alycia and Sher loved putting these toys into their mouths and these were all made in China too. When I saw the packet of toys, I was contemplating whether to give them to Alycia and Sher or to throw them away. I think I made the right decision and they all went into the bin. Knowing my 2 rambunctious samsengs, I know they will surely put them into their mouths, fight with each other with the sharp toys or they may even cut Baby C's hands with the knife or poke each other's eyes!


The masak-masak utensils all in the bin.... without Alycia and Sher's knowledge, hehe...



Also found a stack of folic acid which I popped when I was carrying Baby C. I don't need them anymore. Any takers? You have to come and collect them ok :) Miche, if you need them, I can send them to you.

Getting Rid Of Stench From The Microwave Oven

My mil and I had a rude surprise when she opened the microwave oven door this afternoon to reheat some noodles that she had bought from the market this morning. Inside the microwave oven were 3 plates of overnight dishes - a plate of tong kwai and wolfberries steamed chicken, some stir fried brinjals and another don't know what dish that looked mutilated, eeewwwwww.... and the stench was disgusting. The dishes also looked gross as they were covered with moulds, eeeuuuuu!! Those dishes were left inside to rot for at least 1 week! I immediately cut up a lemon into half, squeeze out some juice and poured some water into a small bowl and cooked it uncovered in the microwave for 2 minutes. The result was amazing. The microwave smelled fresh of lemon! I got this tip from a magazine that I read quite some time back.

Desperate Times Call For Innovative Ideas

There was a burst water pipe outside our house last week and the water supply was cut off the entire day. Since hubby's cook had cooked some chicken chops for us for lunch, we had to eat them and could not eat out. I was searching high and low for paper plates but there were none. My mum and I thought of this idea :

To line our plates with aluminium foil. With the plates all lined with foils, my maid needs not have to use so much water to wash the plates. However, we had to be really careful not to poke holes on the foil when we ate.


Alycia enjoying her chicken chop


and Sherilyn who eats no chicken enjoying her fried egg sandwich.

Mum To The Rescue

My mum is coming tomorrow to help me out. Yippee!! Though I can't expect her to help me in the household chores as she's quite plagued by ailments, at least she's here to entertain the kids whilst I get to do some house work or work on my computer. However, she can only stay for one week. Hopefully she will agree to stay longer.

We Just Love Cakes

Several days back, daddy brought home 2 mouth-watering cakes - a green tea and red bean sponge cake and a chocolate cake. They were extras from his functions for that day. That's the advantage of having a spouse who is working in the food line coz we get to eat food all the time. As we definitely couldn't finish the 2 cakes, we gave some away to our Sikh neighbor. I have been eating these cakes for 3 days straight and I hope I won't get gestational diabetes.

Burst Pipe Again

Damn it, the water pipes at our neighborhood burst again and water supply has been cut out. As hubby has to work today, he can't bring us out for lunch so we all walked under the scorching hot sun to the coffee shop nearby our house for lunch. But the girls love it whenever the water supply is cut out coz they all get to eat out and they can take their baths at our backyard with cold water.

Today, I've also learnt how to avoid murky water from flowing out of our taps after a water supply cut. One of my readers advised me in one of my earlier posts that during a water cut, turn off the main switch to the water supply, i.e. the one at the water meter. I did just that and when the water supply came back, the water was not murky at all. Thanks to this mum and sorry I can't remember who you are.