Showing posts with label Holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holiday. Show all posts

How Much To Get Married

A common topic amongst my single friends is the amount of money that they require to get married. Many of them lament that it will cost them a bomb to get married. Big ticket items include paying for the house (cash over valuation), renovation, holding a wedding lunch/dinner @ a hotel, buying the engagement ring and of course other miscellaneous expenses. Some of them reckon that they need as much as $50k and above to get married in Singapore!

Surely there must be a cheaper way to get married in Singapore and still enjoy the perks of all the above. Let's do a rough breakdown of the expenses and perhaps in my next few posts, I can touch on how one might save up on each of the big ticket items.

As mentioned above, the big ticket items are as follows and estimated costs are also shown:
  1. Buying a HDB flat (Cash over valuation) = $20-$50k (Rest is usually paid by CPF)
  2. Renovation = $20 to $40K
  3. Wedding dinner/lunch = $20k to $30k (depends on hotel and no. of tables)
  4. Engagement ring = $1k to $10k (depends on the depth of the guy's wallet)
  5. Photography + Wedding gown/suit = $1k to $5k
  6. Miscellaneous lunches, hongbaos = $1k to $2k
  7. Honeymoon = $500 to $10k (depending on where and when you travel)
Anything else to add to the list?

3/4 Petrol Tank Rule

All cars leaving Singapore must have the petrol tanks filled to 3/4 tank full.

Lately, Malaysia has also come up with a ruling that does not allow foreign registered vehicles to pump more than 20 litres of petrol at any petrol stations within 50 km of any exit points.

What is the rationale for this decision?

For Singapore, it seems that the Government wants to prevent people from crossing over to Malaysia to buy cheap petrol. This 3/4 tank ruling was put in place so as to prevent that. The government earns revenue from taxes placed on petrol and this measure would help to prevent any loss in revenue.

For Malaysia, it seems that they have a problem with fuel smuggling especially at the border with Thailand. As the Malaysian government heavily subsidises the petrol, they do not want these subsidies to be passed on to foreigners.

What about the consumer?

A lot of people are clearly unhappy with these rulings but it seems that this will not go away anytime soon.

The amount of money I could save if I pumped my petrol at malaysia would be tremendous. I could easily spend half the money that I usually would on petrol. Never mind the inconvenience.

The best I can deal with this now is to make sure that I pump just up to 3/4 tank when I leave Singapore for any trip to Malaysia. I then make sure that I pump a full tank before arriving back in Singapore.

For those worried about the 20 litre rule, just make sure that you pump once before entering the 50 km radius of the Johor CIQ or Tuas Checkpoint.

I have also heard that some petrol stations are not as strict and simply let you pump 20 litres, reset the pumps and then pump 20 litres again. It will be extremely hard for anyone to police this as the petrol stations also do not want to lose money just because of a ruling. There are many grey areas as nothing is stopping motorists from pumping at multiple stations within the 50km radius.

Centralised Planning Versus Disciplined Pluralism




I was reading John Kay's The Truth About Markets as I was touring recently.

In it, he mentioned that there were many instances when centralised planning fails and how a market economy could actually achieve better coordination compared to an economy which had some form of central planning.

Take for example the queues in a supermarket. Shoppers are out to protect their own interest and based on their own judgements, join the queue that they perceive to be the shortest. This sort of decision making without any form of centralised control (i.e. a supervisor of the shop directing shoppers to join the shortest queue) is efficient by itself.

That is why you seldom see supermarkets employing people to help people get to the shortest queue. People who are looking after their own interests will automatically search for the shortest queue to join. This is how a successful market economy ought to function with disciplined pluralism.

In another example, no one discovered the personal computer. Instead, the industry emerged from a process of unplanned trial and error within a framework of disciplined pluralism. We are all well aware of how the founder of Microsoft himself was not even certain of the need for such powerful machines for an individual when he said: "640K ought to be enough for anybody."

A look at the failures of Mao in his attempt at the Great Leap Forward also shows the failures of a centrally planned economy. We idolised Jack Welch because it is hard to believe that a large corporation like General Electric remained successful because of decentralised decision making amongst thousands of individuals in the organisation.

So what does all this have to do with my tour?

During my tour, I could not help but noticed lots of unfinished buildings that lay scattered amongst the landscape. I was told that it was perhaps due to the economic crisis that led to this projects being abandoned.

This unfinished hotels were indeed a sore sight to any tourist. The buildings looked like they could easily become 5 star hotels but were now left abandoned without any windows or paintwork.

It made me wonder how disciplined pluralism really works. Sure.. we can let all the businesses flourish and let businessmen make their own decisions. The market will decide everything and that is why there were so many unfinished hotels.

But wouldn't it have been better if there was some kind of central planning agency to estimate the actual supply and demand of tourists that were expected in the area? Of course, for all we know, the central planning agency might have failed even more spectacularly with over optimistic figures and for all I know, the landscape might have been littered with even MORE unfinished hotels.

And yet when we look at Singapore, we seldom see any so called unfinished hotels or buildings. The tight control and central planning by URA has been efficient and effective in that sense.

So which works better? Centralised planning or Disciplined Pluralism? I don't know.

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