Another week! I just finished running a 10K at Disneyland. It was the popular UNICEF one this time. Last year, I ran a less popular one at Disneyland with Apple Daily. This one was way more popular. The place was really packed. And then it started raining really hard so everyone crowded into the very few tents they had set up. I really thought the rain would let up after a while but it just kept raining. I was totally soaked after the first 5 minutes. My feet were miraculously dry-ish. I really don't like having wet socks. So uncomfortable. Anyway, I met up with a former coworker afterwards. Could not find him at the start. There were so many people that reception was really bad. Couldn't get reception until I walked towards the MTR station. We had dim sum afterwards.
Last week was mellow with me working full time on getting a submission out. I think I've got the hardest parts done already. I'm planning on finishing it up tonight (Sunday) and resting on Monday. I feel like I will be too sore to get myself to work anyway. Also feeling a bit out of it after running in that rain.
Last Wednesday, we had a team dinner for the CPS project. We "won" $3,000 HKD for being nominated for some design award. We went out to a really good Chinese place in Sheung Wan. The $3k totally does not cover our two tables of food but the food was really delicious. I really wish I had the stomach to eat more of it. Anyway, it was good to see everyone. The team is pretty much breaking up after this year with all the design work ending. It was a good project team overall.
I've managed to pay off the last of my student loans this month. I took a good amount of cash back when I went home in October. There are HSBC ATMs here that let you take out foreign currency right from your account, no fees. I was looking at my overall finances when I got back here to see how much I spent on that trip and how much money I can dedicate to paying off the loan when I discovered that I had enough in my HK accounts to pay it off completely. The loan is a fixed rate so I have been paying a lot of interest. My HK money is split into two accounts. One is for daily use and the other is to help me save up an emergency fund. I have a goal for the emergency fund and only keep track of the percentage instead of the actual amount. When I got back, I discovered that I had saved quite a bit due to the large amount of overtime hours I have been working. So I quickly transferred money back (which actually doesn't cost very much) and will be able to pay off that loan in full this month.
In other news, I also filed HK taxes. It was really easy except it still took me a while because I wanted to use their electronic thing. I had to get a password mailed to me twice because I managed to lock myself out the first time. Also took me a while to figure out how much I should be paying for the serviced apartment that my company put me in that first month. Turns out, I don't have to do any math because the online thing calculates it automatically. There is some kind of tax relief for last year (2011/2012) so the estimated amount of taxes I owe is very low, about 1% of my last year's salary. The predicted amount I have to pay in advance for next year (2012/2013) is also pretty small. The way they do it here is that you pay an adjustment for the past year and an advance for the next year. It's usually a shock the first time you pay taxes because you're paying the full amount for the previous and next year. But this tax relief thing is great.
1 comment:
hehe, when you group 10K into the title of your post with loan and taxes, it's more likely to be thought of as 10 grand.. but I knew what you meant =) I'm not too sore myself, but slightly sluggish from my run.
glad you paid off your loans! very exciting. I am excited to do my taxes for next year - first time with same state, same job. But it will still be much more complicated than filing HK taxes.
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