Singapore Expats

Salary Culture in Singapore

Discuss about getting a well paid job or career advancement. Ask about salaries, expat packages, CPF & taxes for expatriate.
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aster
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Post by aster » Sat, 19 Feb 2011 2:40 am

Is that the most popular lottery-type game people play here? :)

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Post by Asdracles » Sat, 19 Feb 2011 10:51 am

Lottery: The tax for people who don't know mathematics

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Post by aster » Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:04 pm

One of my profs at uni used to call it a "stupidity tax" but people being people will still play. Gives them a bit of fun and hope. The most lottery-mad country I've ever been to is Malta. When people wish each other well they actually wish the other person to win the lottery. And they all tell you when you're departing that you have one last chance to take part in the lottery because there is a special counter selling tickets at the... airport. :)

So here in Singapore, when I see these humongous lines at Singapore Pools, what is the vast majority trying to play?

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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:50 pm

Normally 4-D AND Toto.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:53 pm

And apparently you can play on football now. I quit buying toto & 4D after I won 1st prize back in Dec 1991. Figured it was time to quit as my winnings were quadruple my total bets over the previous 5 years that I had played. When you do that, it's time to walk away. :cool:
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Post by beppi » Sat, 19 Feb 2011 5:06 pm

Answering "Enough!" when asked how much I earn normally kills the discussion in its infancy - they probably think I'm completely weird for not wanting more and more ...

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Post by aster » Sat, 19 Feb 2011 7:21 pm

sundaymorningstaple wrote:And apparently you can play on football now. I quit buying toto & 4D after I won 1st prize back in Dec 1991. Figured it was time to quit as my winnings were quadruple my total bets over the previous 5 years that I had played. When you do that, it's time to walk away. :cool:
Kudos for stepping away in style. :) Best time to walk away, but also the hardest.

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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 19 Feb 2011 7:49 pm

aster wrote:
sundaymorningstaple wrote:And apparently you can play on football now. I quit buying toto & 4D after I won 1st prize back in Dec 1991. Figured it was time to quit as my winnings were quadruple my total bets over the previous 5 years that I had played. When you do that, it's time to walk away. :cool:
Kudos for stepping away in style. :) Best time to walk away, but also the hardest.
I already did it that way! :cry:

I lived in a town called Laurel, Maryland in the early 70's when I was working in Washington DC. Within 20 minutes of my apartment were three major race tracks (two of them, jewels of the triple crown), Bowie Raceway, Pimlico and Laurel International. I lost half of 6 digits and between that, Hurricane Agnes & a divorce I went bankrupt in 1973. Since then, until this day, I've never stepped foot on a horse track again. I really didn't look at Playing toto or 4D as gambling, as it was a token sum but after winning, I remembered all to vividly what can and did happen all those years ago. Almost seven years without credit! (lost 'em all during the bankruptcy) First credit card I got back, six years later, was an ordinary AMEX card. Shortly after I also got a bog standard VISA card and I still carry both of those card today even though I rarely use them. The reason? They both say member since 1979. The funny thing is, both have been upgraded during the years to gold and then platinum without my asking (which was funny here in Singapore as when I got the platinum Visa card nobody here had ever seen one! - now everybody's got one as minimum standard) Anyway I keep them as a constant reminder. :)
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Post by aster » Sun, 20 Feb 2011 12:49 am

I'm with you here - I don't like credit at all, don't have any debts whatsoever, and only got a CC for the first time (and right here in Singapore) simply because I needed it to collect air miles (debit cards are terrible in that regard). It wasn't even for regular spend, but the fact that I was able to charge my Serviced Apartment to my personal card, which meant that a lot of prospective miles would just evaporate away each month if I didn't get that card.

Not once have I not paid off the full balance upon receiving my statement.

I'm also no fan of horses or casinos, though I used to enjoy bets on sports in the earlier years. No time for that now with kids and all, so I've only had one bet since I came to Singapore, and that was via Singapore Pools.

The Platinum thing has become a bit of a joke, hasn't it? I mean you open a regular account with a minimal balance and the standard debit card they give you is... a platinum one.

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Post by JR8 » Sun, 20 Feb 2011 1:18 am

I have one credit card and the balance is settled every month. I don't recall when that was not the case and I paid any interest, certainly back in my late teens I think? You need it for certain things like hiring a car. Plus in the UK credit cards come with the major advantage that purchases are a contract between the card issue and the vendor, rather than the cardholder and vendor. So if you buy a holiday and the company goes bust, it is the card issuers problem. Buy a pair of shoes and they fall apart after two weeks, same same. Most holidays booked on a card come with card-backed insurance. And so on...

I am not a gambler. I have no capacity for more vices :wink:. I have been taken to casinos a few times and given chips to play with. I enjoy blackjack as it is a game of odds and skill. But can anyone explain the point of roulette above and beyond the 'buzz' that some people must get. I mean it is random, there surely can be no strategy or logic involved. Are you simply paying to get a gambling 'buzz'?

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Post by revhappy » Sun, 20 Feb 2011 9:02 am

sundaymorningstaple wrote:
aster wrote:
sundaymorningstaple wrote:And apparently you can play on football now. I quit buying toto & 4D after I won 1st prize back in Dec 1991. Figured it was time to quit as my winnings were quadruple my total bets over the previous 5 years that I had played. When you do that, it's time to walk away. :cool:
Kudos for stepping away in style. :) Best time to walk away, but also the hardest.
I already did it that way! :cry:

I lived in a town called Laurel, Maryland in the early 70's when I was working in Washington DC. Within 20 minutes of my apartment were three major race tracks (two of them, jewels of the triple crown), Bowie Raceway, Pimlico and Laurel International. I lost half of 6 digits and between that, Hurricane Agnes & a divorce I went bankrupt in 1973. Since then, until this day, I've never stepped foot on a horse track again. I really didn't look at Playing toto or 4D as gambling, as it was a token sum but after winning, I remembered all to vividly what can and did happen all those years ago. Almost seven years without credit! (lost 'em all during the bankruptcy) First credit card I got back, six years later, was an ordinary AMEX card. Shortly after I also got a bog standard VISA card and I still carry both of those card today even though I rarely use them. The reason? They both say member since 1979. The funny thing is, both have been upgraded during the years to gold and then platinum without my asking (which was funny here in Singapore as when I got the platinum Visa card nobody here had ever seen one! - now everybody's got one as minimum standard) Anyway I keep them as a constant reminder. :)
:) I know exactly how credit cards work in the US as I have worked for Capital One's customer service some 10 years ago. I had just passed out of college during the dot com bust and the only jobs then were call center jobs.

I was working in the unsecured cards dept. Basically people who had ruined their credit rating and no one wanted to give them a card. The unsecured cards had a limit of like 200-300$ in some case. What a joke :)
There were people who were earning well and could really afford much higher credit than that so they would just make a transaction and then pay it off immediately so as to make way for more transactions. But the problem was it would take about 2-3 days for the payment to actually get posted and that would get them agitated :)

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