Moving to Bedok

After searching for a home for months, we finally got a otp (option to purchase) for a Bedok 4NG flat.

We never thought we would buy a 4NG because we wanted a place with at least 1000 sqft. 

But these past few month of home searching, we werent able to outbid others.

Funny thing is that the agent was the one who called me to go view the unit out of the blue. Had wanted to view the unit but the owner wasnt keen to let us view after 8pm. Then we thought that there was no viewing for sat night when I received the call from the agent to get then at 7.30pm.

After viewing the place, it ticked off some of our wish list

- squarish living room

- long kitchen

- high floor (not top floor)

- breezy

- broken marble floor

- get brand new toilets (hip in 2nd quarter 2021)

- chinese neighbour

- door to door unit

For the price, we may need to top up a few thousands for the cov, but we thought it was reasonable given that units command cov of 20k easily.

Finally we can rest abit, and focus on selling our current flat.

Sembcorp Marine

Initially I intended to keep my SCM shares, after I got them through owning SCI.

But because I am thinking of moving houses, I felt that it was time to let go.

After selling off SCM, my breakeven for SCI is 2.17.

Decluttered my study room

I have to work from home (wfh) two days a week. So had bought a xiaomi monitor so that I could work more effectively.

After buying it, my study table became very cluttered. I can't stand it.

Today with no where to go, I decided to further declutter my table. So removing everything except my cosmetic box, monitor and 2 laptops (one for work, one is my personal).

Felt very light after doing 2 rounds of decluttering.

Sold remaining boustead stake

I sold the remaining 15k of Boustead shares at 0.73.

In total, I estimate my losses to be around 2k.

Why I decided to sell my shares even though this would make a loss.

Reason is that I feel the markets eill nose dive soon. So am trying to encash out positions that are not too loss making. 

I may sell qaf these few days. 

Accumulating cash to take advantage of the drops in prices that will inevitably come. Remember we are in a pandemic global recession period.

Bought 2k singtel

Singtel price reached $2 today. I managed to buy 2k at 2.01 a share.

Will continue to load up slowly. I think the global stock market will crash shortly after US election.

Will continue to monitor nd may buy if it reach 1.50.

Sold half of boustead

Sold off 15k shares of boustead at 0.72.

Reason for selling, in need of lumpsum cash for switching of hdb.

But even if we did not manage to switch to another house, I felt that stock bubble would burst after US elections. So i could use the monies to buy back the shares at a low price later.

Will be selling off the remaining of boustead soon. After that would consider to sell off QAF.

House hunting

We started to do some house hunting lately because of the spike in housing prices. Was thinking that it might be a good idea to sell off our current hdb in place of a cheaper one with some requirements i.e. high floor, squarish layout, move in condition.

Reason for selling, is the house is warm, longish.

But after 2 months of looking around, I started to think that our current house is not as bad. It has 4 room, coffeeshops are nearby. Got 2 sheng xiong, 1 giant within walking distance. 

We need to wait for another 2 months before we can sell. Hmm maybe it is a sign not to sell it.

Currently narrowed down my searches to teban, pandan garden, and boon lay. These areas are where flats are big and cheap.

Books on investing

Being a little bored lately, I was looking around for books to read on getting rich. 

I realised most of what the books/video advocate is start a business, save money and buy assets such as stocks/real estate etc. 

Not anyone can be a business owner. Most will be an employee.

I myself do not think I can start a business. A 9-5 job is definitely what I will see myself in.

Buying stocks

To buy assets, you need to save. There are many ways to save. For me, I myself did a onetime setup to tranafer 2.2k to my account for investing.

This sum is 

Working in a dream job

If you have been reading online materials, you will come across a very common piece of advice, find a dream job and you will never have to work again.

Is this really the case? Even if you find your dream job, you will inevitably become bored. It's the same if you eat the same food every meal every day.

There is no perfect job in the world. What is more practical to me is doing a job that pays well and able to fund my lifestyle and allow me to invest.

I have been thinking, if I could quit and find my dream job, looking for companies to buy shares in. The fact is that because I only do this when I have excesses to invest. But if it becomes a 9-5 job, I dont think I could enjoy this as much as now.

Life is short, and indeed, how many jobs would one have to try in order to find the dream job. Time is essence.

Even if you land your dream job, there are other aspects that could make it hellish, like a bad boss, lousy colleagues, bad company culture.

So I do not think it is practical for me to do this now. Maybe when i reach financial indepedence, i could give more thoughts on this.

Saving up money

 It's been some time since my last post. A few things had happened.

Keppel and SembCorp Industries

Temasek has walked away from the partial takeover deal of Keppel, whereas SembCorp Industries' demerger plan with SembCorp Marine was approved.

It was kind of bittersweet, as news of Temasek caused Keppl's share to plummet breaking below $5 a share. Approximately 43% of my investement are concentrated in Keppel and this is concerning. But I did not panic as much as I thought I would. I believe Keppel will be able to ride out this pandemic and I am still holding onto my Keppel shares. This presents a buying opportunity. As Warren Buffet once said, if you want to buy something, you would wish its price goes down, and not up.

I may consider to load up on Keppel if its price goes below $4.

For SembCorp Industries, its shares remained largely battered. Though it was a breather for SCI to demerge from SCM, there was generally pessimism and its price remained below $2. I would continue to hold onto the shares as I believe it can ride out this pandemic.

I am still in the midst of accumulating cash so I have a few shares in mind to stock up on should their shares drop. Keppel or Singtel. If Singtel share drop below $2, I may stock up on this compared to Keppel.

In a recession, cash is King. Hopefully I can save enough by year end to be able to buy these stocks in greater quantity. My usual buying quantity is 5k or 10k of each stock. 

Still waiting

As a Sembcorp Industries shareholder, the highlight ofbthe coming week woudl be the decisions made in tmr shareholders meeting. To decide on the proposed demerger plan of SCI and SMM.

After that, it would affect keppel corp fate as to whether Temasek would continue with its offer to aquire 51% of keppel corp. Of which I am also a shareholders. This might take another month or so.

If the deal falls through and keppel corp shares plummet below 4, I would consider stocking up on it or Singtel.

Python programming

I decided to learn python programming.

Programming is not my forte. In my life till date, I took only one computing module (think it was C++ programming) during my Uni days. Everyone around me said it was easy and Aced it. I got a B- which was very bad. That was 20 years ago.

Till date, I do not know how to write a macro, so essentially you could say I have completely zero knowledge on computing.

I decided to embark on this as it is the new thing on the block. And it could come in useful in future as there are a mad rush to go into data analytics. I understand python can be used for a variety of stuff and since it is free, why not. One main reason for going into python is because the program is free. I thought of going into others, but the programs are not free.

Started by borrowing ebook from NLB and installed the programs.

so far, I am taking it easy, my goal is to spend at least 30 mins on it on everyday. Starting from zero.

Who knows, i might be able to use it for investing in the future. 

Recent events

I have not been writing the past 2 weeks as I was busy with work and stuff.

Recently, there was an announcement of the proposed SCI (Sembcorp Industries) demerger plan with SMM (Sembcorp Marine).

I hold 12k shares of SCI. Some thoughts I had prior to these, were whether I should let go of the shares at a loss. My average price was $3.

SCI shares were trading around 1.50ish. But I decided to hold on as I truly believe in the potential of its utility business.

After the demerger news was out, I decided to wait and see.

Should the demerger proceed, I could end up with 50k SMM shares.

To me, how I evaluate this is, if SCI shares hover to 2plus and SMM maybe around 10cents after the rights. I would hold on to both till prices recover. With Temasek backing, SMM would likely survive.

If the deal does not get passed, I would continue to hold on to SCI.

Loading up shares

I was 28k short of investing 50k in stocks this year.

Last week I began loading up on Boustead. Why not? Since it was 60 cents, a drop of 30 cents when I last bought.

I had been waiting for singtel and city devt shares to drop, but they didnt.

So i changed my tactic and decided to look else where.

I bought 10k of boustead at ave 0.61.

Next I came across QAF. Though it was not highly profitable and profit margin was low, it had some brand names under its belt that are household name like gardenia.

I decided to buy 5k of the stocks.

Total am 9k down. So my target would be to invest another 19k into stocks.

10 May 2020 - decluttering time

It's been quite boring to be staying at home all day. Was looking for ideas to occupy my time else my mind would wander back to my work.

Yesterday, I spent my afternoon doing three things
1) filing my insurance policies
2) summarizing my insurance coverage in a table in word
3) documenting my net worth (assets - liabilities)

I just bought FWD cancer cover plan and I always forgot to print out the policy details. Yesterday having being too bored to even read/look at youtube videos, I finally went to print it out and file it together with the rest of my policies. I think this is important because in the event anything happens to me, my family member know where to look for my insurance policies.

I also did a short summary of the coverage I had, so that I can put my mind at ease and know at a glance, what areas I am lacking. This is also knowing what I have, I will not be easily persuaded to buy another insurance policy later.

I have also documented my net worth (all my assets - all my liabilites) so that I know my progress. I started this by writing at the end of 2018 and flimsily writing it down in a book. With excel, I can track my progress across different years. I just realised how much my net worth was for the last 2 years, and I could set goals on what to do with the debts.

So far my largest debt is my housing loan and 2nd largest deb is my car loan.

For my housing loan, I would be able to accumulate enough savings in my CPF OA to fully settle the loan in 2029.

Sunday (10 May 2020)
Having nothing to do, I decided to do some decluttering of my study room. I managed to clear out 2 shelves of useless stuff and my tabletop. Now my table has so much more space.

After decluttering my space, I feel that my study room is alot bigger and my mind alot clearer. I could also work out a little sweat doing this.

I think there's more and I would devote around 30 mins every Sat, Sun to declutter/clean my house abit. Usually I only wipe surface tops and mop every alternate days. But with things lying around, dust accumulates and I absolutely hate touching dusty stuff as it would cause my hands to break out in rashes. This is why I try to make sure my stuff are always either stored or covered by something.

Buying a car

Me and my husband do not see eye to eye. To me, a car is just a transport tool, having one is better than nothing.

We currently owns a Toyota Wish 12 year old car, left with 8 more years of COE. Bought the car 2 years ago for 55k while trading in our Toyota Altis.

Instalment 550
Monthly car associated expenses 300
Petrol 100

considering the above, I have not much complaints as we seldom use the car except on weekends. His only complaint was that it does not have power.

But my husband has been blaming me for past 2 years, saying I was the one who pyscho him to buy Totoya Wish, trading in our Altis which was a better car and he blamed it on me.

Now when the economy is in the doldrums, he wants to change car. I really hate it when he decides so. He was the one who wanted to sell the Altis and he blamed it on me. Now he wants to sell the Wish and now it was all my fault again. Everytime it was only my fault.

Ended up he wanted to trade our Wish for a Axio which is in a lousy condition. This does not make any sense to me and he was hell bent on buying it despite my protest. I am the one who have to fork out the money for the car. Anyway we couldn't see eye to eye. I also refused to budge and in the end, I said I leave it to him to decide.

In the end, he settled for a expensive 39k Camry 2.5A with 2 years COE left. 39k does not seem like a lot, but if you divide it across 2 years, the instalment (assuming 70% loan) is 1200.

This 1200 is quite a big increase from the 550 instalment I am paying for the Wish.

I was thinking to myself, is it really worth it to pay 1200 for 2 years.

One way I comforted myself is that, I tend to ruminate on things alot.

I decided to do a very simplistic calculation to comfort myself.

a) Firstly the dealer is able to offer a much higher price for our Wish, 2.5k more than the others
b) The car has parf value. If we were to sell the camry before 10th year is up, we can get back at least 15k.
c) Lastly, I assumed that we would sell it at the end of 2 years for 15k. This means that though I am paying 1200/m, at the end I get back 15k which is equivalent to 600/m. It is muchiam as though the car only cost 600/m, not much of a difference from our current Wish instalment.

Of course (c) is being very simplistic. I have not counted the 30% downpayment that I would have to pay. For my case, assuming I could get around 4k (after settling the Wish), I need only fork out 7k. Which is still affordable considering that it is easily 15-20k of downpayment for other cars.

This is how I consoled myself. Because of this, I can no longer save 56% of my income. My saving % will dip to around 42%. My goal of retiring in 3 years, will be a challenge.

But whatever worrying, it will not change the fact that we have bought the camry. I hope I can still tahan my job for 3 years.

Jiayou!!!

2nd try using an infographic

How much I think I need to be financially free

Today I have some free time to write while waiting for my hubby to cook lunch, so am taking a rest and also doing some reading of other financial blog.

I was reading Seedly blog when I came across an article detailing how much savings one should have to retire at age 62.

For me, I plan to retire at age 40.

To derive how much I need a month, assuming I have retired and have no income, I first write down all my current fixed expenses:

1)  Insurance 450
2) Transport costs 80
3) Utilities 100
4) Telco and cable 150
5) Food 900
6 ) Groceries 300
7) Car loan 550
8) Costs associated for owning a car (petrol, car park, insurance, road tax) 380
9) Shopping 100
10) Exercise membership 170
Monthly total 3,180 = 3200 (rounded up)

Next, with this above list, I will go through each item and ask, how would this cost look like if I have retired.

1)  Insurance 450
2) Transport costs 80
3) Utilities 100
4) Telco and cable 150
5) Food 900  600 (I will be eating less expensive food at home)
6 ) Groceries 300
7) Car loan 550 Switch to taxi 320 (assume I go out every sat and sun and take taxi to and fro)
8) Costs associated for owning a car (petrol, car park, insurance, road tax) 380
9) Shopping 100
10) Exercise membership 170 (I would be exercising at home/park nearby)
Monthly total 3,180 = 3200 (rounded up) 2,020 = 2,000 (rounded up)

With this above, I know that I would need minimally 2k a month to retire. This means I need 24k passive income a year.

working backwards once again, I use 24k/rate of return from my investment (around 4%) = 600k.

This means I would need to invest 600k with a return of 4% every year, to support my retirement.

Currently I have already invested 250k. I would need 350k more.

With my goal of retiring by 40, this means I would need to invest 120k a year. Seriously, this is next to impossible because my annual income is less than 100k. So knowing that I can't do this, i need to be realistic about retiring at age 40.

Let say I delay my plan by 5 years, each year I would need to invest 44k (this is comparably more achievable). I then subtract another year

Retire at age 45 - invest 44k a year for 8 years
Retire at age 44 - invest 50k a year for 7 years
Retire at age 43 - invest 58k a year for 6 years
Retire at age 42 - invest 70k a year for 5 years
Retire at age 41 - invest 87k a year for 4 years

As I look at the figure above, I think i could aim to achieve retiring at 44. This is not something I could do easily, but it will be a challenge that I set for myself for the next 7 years counting from this year.

Lazy sundays

Writing this post on my sofa as I just finsihed eating a macdonald breakfast for lunch.

Weather is sweltering hot. 

Every sunday, one of my routine was to surf the net for new blogs in personal finance. 

Some of the blogs I frequented are seedly, simple sum, woke salaryman, dollars and sense.

Today I decided to search for something different - don't listen to everything the financial gurus preach.

I myself, have read a few books like the Automatic millionaire, the millionaire next door etc, and many other books on personal finances.

Personal finances is not a one-size-fit-all mainly because everyone has a different goal and personality.

For instance, my financial goal is to earn passive income that can cover my expenses which differs from person to person. My timeframe is also different because I want to reach there in 3 years time. I would prefer fuss-free way to do this. Because of this, I would accumulate savings and put them into stocks. And accumulate passive income through dividends.

Another person with a similar goal but who has a different timeframe and expenses, may want to save and accumulate enough for a condominium and earn income from renting it out. To accumulate for the downpayment, likely 200k could take 5 years or more. This could resonate as at the end, you end up with a tangible asset.

Others prefer to set up a side business etc.

With this knowledge of myself, I try to reach up on books or articles to further my knowledge. 

Making money in a Reccession

2020 will be the 2nd time I experienced a recession as a working adult. First time was during 2008-2009 Financial crisis.11 years later, would be the global pandemic.

Singapore would be in a soft lockdown from 7 April onwards. For me, I would likely be working at home from my laptop. Life goes on as normal just that I can't go to my fightzone for exercise. This means I would need to exercise at home if I could.

Well I have a stationary bike at home, been collecting dust and acting as my bag holder for a little while. I may start to go running again ( I stopped running since joining fightzone), so good to restart this. Luckily I have brought my running shoes back from office.

Talking about recession, there was some regrets that I had, as I missed the opportunity to buy big chip stocks there were selling at very low price. OCBC was selling for less than $5, F&N $1 plus.

But I didn't, partly because I was new to investing. I only started investing in 2008 and I was not confident that my job would hold.

Luckily my job was stable but there was no pay increase and bonus. Even after times improved, there was no bonus. Back then, I was drawing a salary of 2450. This was not a bad salary during times then. Beggars can't be choosers. Actually I had some savings then, but I was not confident enough to like buy 30k worth of stocks at one go.

So now, the opportunity arose again. I do not feel that the stocks have fallen low enough as at the time of my writing, I think it is only halfway there.

so my game of plan is to save as much as possible and buy stocks when they are near bottom. 2 stocks that I am waiting for, are City development and Singtel. Target price is $5 for CDL and $2 for Singtel.

I believe this 2 stocks have the ability to double in price when the economy recovers maybe in 1-2 years time and if they do, I will be almost 3/4 my way to my financial freedom.

In a nutshell, my financial freedom plan is to build a 500k portfiolio and live on the dividend income from them. My return rate is around 4%, so if I have 500k generating 4%, I would have 20k per year without working. So far, I have invested 223k cash (Cost price) in stocks, another 30k using CPF monies. On hand, I have around 15k left, I am aiming to save 2.2k every month and to invest them whenever the opportunity arises.

If my stock holdings can double in 2-3 years, I would have reached my financial freedom, by 2023 which is my 40th birthday.

Passive Income

With the Covid pandemic wrecking economic damage online, it's inevitably going to cause a global recession. Before writing this, IMF already announced that the global economy was in recession.

Because of this, government worldwide are pumping monies into their economy to help businesses stay afloat.

People are worried about being laid off. With unemployment expected to rise, it is indeed worrying especially if you are in the private sector. I am blessed to still have a job.

It is expected that SG will enter a recession and I do not foresee myself getting any bonus etc, any extra money other than my salary.

This brought me to my dividends - at least they could provide me with some help.

I relooked at my past 2 years dividends.

Dividends

2018: 6750

2019: 6155

So far, for 2020, i have received 1000. Expecting another 2760 in May. This extra cash will come in useful.

I don't buy reits because the reits are overly leveraged and that if business is poor, they would likely need a right issuances. So in my 12 years of investing, I did not buy a single reit.

Thus far, I also have not bought a china stock. Reason was that there was once, I nearly bought a china stock based on the reported financial reports. But the company quickly went downhill after it was discovered that they had made false report. I was totally shocked that this could happen, and therefore I told myself never buy any china company stock because you can't trust the figures in the reports.

I have saved up 6 months of emergency funds. Will bide my time to buy stocks since this pandemic will be a long drawn affair.

Trying out some infographics making

I was quite bored so decided to try ny hands at making some simple infographics. 

I decided to download Canva to start this. They have some nice templates for infographic. I made one just to pass time.

This was a very rough one but I quite like the idea. It forces you to concise everything into point forms. 

Buying times

Shortly after I bought 5k of Singtel @ $3 a share, the stock market tanked.

Yesterday Singtel sank below 2.50.

I managed to buy another 3k shares at $2.50 a share.

If the share price continues to fall, next target price I am looking at is $2. Will buy another 3 or 4 lots at this price.

Stock crash

I just bought 5k of Singtel at $3 per share when the stock market experienced the largest drop in one day. A black monday precipitated by a 30% drop in oil future.

This drop had a tsunami effect, as investors are already jittery over the effect of covid 19 on the global economy. 

I planned to stock up more on singtel once it reaches 2.50.

Cancer insurance

Everytime I read a story about cancer, I would feel very paranoid. The costs of treatment could easily be 100k for each relapse.

Somemore cancer is a recurring issue. I recently read the story of a cancer survival from the woke salaryman blog, it mentioned that the person spent 200k in a span of 2 years.

Imagine a person having to cough up 200 grand. After reading this, I immediately went to look at my insurance policies.

I have 2 AIA policies for cancers, for total sum assured 230k for major cancer diagnosis. 57k in the event it is a early cancer.

I have 2 prudential term insurance for death, terminal illness of up to 700k. My integrated shield plan is also under prudential. Rest are accidental plan, a daily hospitalisation policy.

I realised my cancer cover (in the event it was detected early) would only pay me 57k. Far from the 200k.

Immediately i googled for the best cancer guard plan in sg and came upon FWD's. I got sold, I bought their cancer insurance for 100k coverage and paid one year premium. The plan cost half of my AIA, it was cheap. 

I did everything online and paid for it. The plan cover all cancer regardless the stages. This fit what I was looking for. Although i am not sure whether claiming this would be easy, but i believe all insurance companies claim process would not be so easy. 

Anywhere my concern is to pluck the hole. Indeed there are many other illnesses that could pose a threat, I still think cancer (especially since it can happen anywhere) is frightening and could potentially bankrupt the person and his family. With this purchase, i could at least breathe easier as I feel my policies are able to cover me adequately.

Wuhan outbreak

With Sg just averting a recession last quarter, I felt that the wuhan outbreak may like plunge sg into recession as tourism will be hard hit.

This meant that the stocks market will go down earlier than expected.

The wuhan outbreak is likely to last a few months, meaning the downturn will also likely last.

Last check on my existing counters, all are on the downward spiral. I am accumulating cash meanwhile to take advantage of this when the price of my counter is right.

Stocktake

At the end of each year, I would usually do a stocktake of my assets - cash, cpf, investment etc.

This year I decided to consider my liabilities - house and car loan.

My net worth is 141k.

This is quite dissappointing as I have worked 13 years and managed to accumated 10k+ a year.

Though dissappointed, I am grateful it was a positive figure. Imagine if it is a negative one.

This made me think real hard about not change my property, at least not to buy a higher price home and car.

If I had bought a condo, my net worth would be negative. Though negative net worth does not mean the end of the world, it does not gel with my determination to retire in 4 years time with passive income of 15k a year. I think by end of 2020, I should be halfway there with 8k passive income. 

If I could save and invest 200k over the next 4 years, I could reach my goal.

Less is more. I hope by end of 2020, I would have added 50k of stock investments.