lee_yl\" post_id=\"1989802\" time=\"1596719586\" user_id=\"17023:

I just googled, so many common rooms pop out for rent at $500 / month (probably still can nego). Some are just a 5 mins walk from MRT. Common rooms‘ rental usually cheaper than renting a whole unit.

According to my hairdresser who co-shares a common room with her cousin, utilities bills aren’t that exp as most if the time they aren’t at home (work 6 days a week) and they don’t cook, of cos they don’t have aircon as well.

For those who think dormitories are good, ask yourself, if you have to spend $300/mth per pax, you prefer to rent a common room in HDB with a friend/cousin or sleep on a bunk bed with 20 strangers in a FW dormitory?

Google does not explain you many things in the rental market. I used to be a tenant for more than 10 years before I got my own HDB, so I have some experience. It's not very transparent but it is there. It is called 'racial profiling'. It is very hard for a worker from South Asia countries to go and find a rental place. Not to mention, imagine all the 300k workers in dorms now go out and rent HDB flat, the price will surely go up by a lot.

There are always a lot of ways save cost. However, the person must be knowledgeable enough (and sometimes lucky). We cannot expect those people coming from some poorer countries and probably less education to come to a totally new place and know how to live best there. If you go and ask parents in Singapore who sending their kids to overseas to study. You can see that most of them would rather spend more money for them to stay in hostel than let them find a place outside unless they know that place very well or have a property/relative there.

As for whether the current cost of the dorm should deserve better condition, I cannot comment cause I am not running the dorm. I hope MOM will look into that and make sure the workers are not abused/took advantage by the dorms or their employers.

May I know why NCPS is so popular? I could not find any information that could say why NCPS is more popular than the others except it is already oversubscribed every year.

And why Sengkang Green Primary is not in the list?

lee_yl\" post_id=\"1989737\" time=\"1596696559\" user_id=\"17023:

There’s one thing I don’t quite understand. Given the living conditions of the FWs in dorms, why is the cost so high?

FWs have to squeeze like more than 10-20 in a room and sleep on double decker bunk beds. Each FW pays about $250 to $300, does not include meals and share communal facilities like toilets.

I find it super expensive leh, imagine two pax can share to rent a common room in HDB flats, each also pays $250-$300, and each HDB is capped at max 6 pax for a 3room flat.

Why are the FWs paying as much as room rental in HDB flats but the living conditions are so different. Who is earning the big bucks in between?

It is not that simple. There are many other cost involved as well. For example electricity, water, security and also the distance from work. I doubt you can rent/share any HDB room for $300 that give you these:
1. Close to work (and maybe free transport)
2. Accessible to cheaper food
3. Include electricity and water
4. No contract binding =>can easily switch to different location (due to work place change)

I remember 20+ years ago, I used to pay $260 for my single room hostel in NUS and single room in HDB was like $150-$200. The room in hostel is still considered 'much cheaper' than HDB

My son (6yrs) and I play FIFA (football game) on PS4 almost 30minutes everyday. At first, I just wanted to have some fun time with him and also created some father-and-son bond. After some time, he started to gain lot of interests in football. So we started to play football together downstairs during weekends and also in our flat (using plush ball).

He also has about 15minute screen time on iPad daily and I notice instead of seeing those Peppa Pig clips, he started to search for tips and tricks on how to play FIFA. Now he could win me most of the time in the game.

I am not saying playing games is good or not. It really depends on a lot of things. What I think is that, their generation and ours are not the same. We cannot apply the old thinking to them anymore. Books used to be a very good source for education. But nowadays, Internet and Youtube change that. I don’t know about others, but for my case, to do something as simple as fixing my bicycle chain I simply go search Youtube to see the videos. I can’t remember where I put my dictionary when I can just use my phone to scan the Chinese word to get the meaning right away.

So when someone tell me, "books and Lego are better", I always ask "please help me to understand that". From what I see, there are billions of books out there. Which one is better? Are you talking about writing/reading skill or the knowledge from the book? And Lego? How paying so much money and follow the instructions to recreate something is ‘better’?