Monthly Financial Updates

This monthly sustainability report does not include any of the salaried income. The basis for this monthly financial review is to gauge the sustainability status of my financial independence based on the total amount of passive income received.

Holidays over!!! 

Well, back to work. LOL.

Closing for Year 2021 December passive income and expenses. Expenses went down a bit as nothing went wrong in the household. Hmm, thinking of changing a new laptop..........ah.....maybe next month. LOL.

Dividend income amounted to $3,872.64, added with the rental income of $1,800 brings the total amount for 4th quarter to $11,902.28. This average to an amount of $3,967 per month. Not too bad, still more than the average monthly expenses. Hopefully, dividend income can recovered as the pandemic situation becomes better. I hope..........:).

Portfolio as usual change little apart from increasing cash holdings. Nothing much happening in the stock markets. In fact, it is too quiet. LOL. I am guessing most of the players had gone over to play cryptocurrency. 

 

The year end resolution- Exploration

 Another year ending. Year 2021 has been eventful, marked with several changes and adjustments. 

My financial blueprint has more or less met its goals and targets. Firstly, my CPF combined amount has finally attained the retirement cap. Ironically, this was not achieved through my salary income, I did not do any voluntary cash top up, and there was not enough amount in my OA account to transfer to SA as I have to service my housing loans. Some 30% of of the SA amount was actually gains resulted from my 15 years of investments. When the government liberated the CPF special accounts (SA) to be used for investment, I dumped almost the entire volumes in my early 20s in several investment platform and forgotten about it. By the time I reached 42 years old, I decided to pull everything back into the CPF account. If I had not done so in my 20s, likely would need another 5 years to attain the cap purely through salary income. 

The housing loan has been neutralized to a comfortable amount where the existing CPF can now pay on its own without digging into my cash holdings. A long journey indeed. At least for now, I can sleep better without seeing a frightening high housing premium wiping off my monthly CPF. LOL.

Passive income has seen some huge drop last year by 30% for dividend income and one of the mechanism the DBS multiplier scheme no longer generate high interests return as before. Year 2021 proved to be a roller coaster year with the pandemic still causing havoc across the world with new waves of mutated virus. Most companies remained prudent to stay sustainable in tough time. Dividend income for year 2021 has recovered some 10%, not too bad in view of the seemingly unending chaos caused by the pandemic. For dividend income platform, it is unlikely there will be any changes to my existing approach.     

I started exploring a new platform in cryptocurrency. it has been gaining a lot of media attention lately and several trading platforms appeared in the market. To be honest, I have always been skeptical for this platform as I was more focused in dividend and the traditional rental income. As I studied and learnt about it, more and more cryptocurrency investment platforms emerged into the market offering better tools and methods. Just recently, I got my own first account in a platform in cryptocurrency and gotten some...well.....free cheap coins from it. A new journey begins, year 2022 likely will be a year of exploration into this new platform to use it as a alternative investment path. 

Apart from these financial journey, I started taking up short courses to get myself busy. Mostly enrichment courses and others to get connected with some of my childhood dreams. There has been several childhood wishes in my list, and I decided it is time to start fulfilling them one by one. I am getting older and less healthy, I felt I do not have much time left in my life, I decided that I do not want to leave too many regrets in my life. So, It is to start experience different thing.

So what did I learn? Well. I had some childhood dream about studying in NAFA (Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts). Yes, I am into Arts. But I wasn't privileged in my life to pursue a profession in Arts. But I can at least do it as a part of hobbies. So I went NAFA studied watercolour painting for about 4 months and graduated in December. It has been a good experience. I also went learnt Zither music course, unexpected isn't it. LOL. I managed to learn to play around 4 songs.   

So whats next?

Hmmm, gonna continue to stay healthy and explore more around me. Who knows, some hidden paths waiting somewhere out there for me to discover. Life after all is a path of discovery. Why wait until dying on bed then start wondering whats happening outside the window.

 

     

Christmas Orchard 2021

Another year passed. And......the pandemic still wrecking the lives off people. Ah....well....life still goes on. 

Not much Christmas mood this year. Lighting and decorations are simple as last year. 

Paragon Orchard

 

Street Decoration

The entrance

Monthly Financial Updates

This monthly sustainability report does not include any of the salaried income. The basis for this monthly financial review is to gauge the sustainability status of my financial independence based on the total amount of passive income received.

Aye.... Christmas coming. Christmas means MORE spending for me. LOL. This month the passive income from dividends amounted to $2,477.01. Amount is definitely lesser than Pre-Covid 19 period. But the projected overall amount is estimated to be better than last year. Signs of recovery? Well, not until this Covid-19 things really game over, I suppose the economy recovery will remain uncertain. Rental income remains stable. Overall passive income for November amounted to $4,286.22.

Household expenses however shoot up to almost $2800. What's going on? LOL. Well, to be exact about one third of it goes to medical bills, Yes, its serious......overall medical bills for the month of November is almost $1000. Singapore does have world class medical facilities but there is a price for it. High standards = high pricing. And there isn't any large subsidies, we have to bear the huge cost of medical services. Pretty scary place to grow old. 

Portfolio remains unchanged, except for gradual increase of war chest. Nothing much happening in the market. Boring isn't it? LOL.

 

Monthly Financial Updates

This monthly sustainability report does not include any of the salaried income. The basis for this monthly financial review is to gauge the sustainability status of my financial independence based on the total amount of passive income received

Ho ho ho, it is a new quarter of the year and I can smell Christmas coming. But....with the stubborn Covid still wreaking havoc in our world, it is going to be another cold Christmas. No events, no celebration and no crowd. Well,,,life still has to go on.

October is the last cold month for dividends payout. The month of October only obtained $120 from a small counter in my portfolio. Rental income remain stable. 

Expenses however, continue to increase. Got a shock when I visited a food court and saw the price tag of one of my favorite Malay cuisines Nasi Lemak increased from $3.50 to $5.50. OMG! That was an increase of more than 50%!!!!!! Seriously!!! I think we are in for a long run of combat against high inflation. Ah.... the fate of a small nation heavily depending on food import......

 

 

Portfolio remained unchanged. Not much happening in the market. In fact, it was dead boring. Nothing happening. The portfolio not improving. Hmm, maybe I should start looking at something else. 

 

Monthly Financial Updates

This monthly sustainability report does not include any of the salaried income. The basis for this monthly financial review is to gauge the sustainability status of my financial independence based on the total amount of passive income received.

A fat month, with 4 sources of passive income total amount to $7,732.18. This brought the total passive income for the 3rd quarter to an amount of $16,769.24, average $5,589.74 per month. Not too bad. Ah..... still, the income from dividend is much lesser than projected. The situations surrounding the businesses due to the impact of Covid-19 is still pretty much evident. Household expenses are expected to increase as the prices of essential items such as food and groceries continue to increase. Eh..........the never ending war against inflation.

 

Not much changes on the portfolio. A small counter in the portfolio has just diversified and cashed out, added into the War Chest.  Although the market started seen some recovery in the early month, the deterioration of the Covid-19 cases forced Singapore into again strict restrictions, not much in view for any fast recovery of the market. Some analysis even speculate a possible downturn of the market in October. Well, lets see how it goes. 

What is important? Health or money?

Sometime, I wonder which is more important. As I thought about it, age it appeared has an influence on how we look at it through the years.

When we are young, not constrain by the limitation of our mortality. We tend to focus on making money, enjoying what life has to offer. As we started to grow old, our body functionality started to decline as we fought to contain it in various stages. It lead me to wonder, can money buy back the health we have lost?

Maybe some. But certainly not all. Money can buy the best healthcare, help improve well-being. 

But, what about those health issue that has no solutions or beyond the knowledge of the existing health industry. We more or less has to live with it. And more than often, spiritual prayers appeared to be the only console.    

Looking through my life, financially I would say I had done well enough. As for the well-being of it, I m afraid I am very far from it. In fact, I do not see any path leading to it.

Life is short. Enjoy while you can.  

 

 

 

Monthly Financial Updates

This monthly sustainability report does not include any of the salaried income. The basis for this monthly financial review is to gauge the sustainability status of my financial independence based on the total amount of passive income received.

Hmm how sustainable my portfolio would be. I asked myself many times through the years. Since the Covid-19 impacts, my portfolio has definitely saw some decline in returns. Some were delisted and wind up in business. Fortunately, these only form a small percentage in my portfolio. Some of the performing companies were able to sustain themselves during the hard times and recover slowly. Those who evolved shall live, those who do not or cannot shall disappear into history. Such is the nature of a cycle.    

This has not been a happy month. A series of misfortunes and domestic unhappiness plagued the household. The wellness being of family declined and few might have wonder where it had gone wrong. For now, we managed as best as we can, and hopefully can stay mentally strong for the tasks ahead. 

Passive income surged as numerous companies pay out for the 3rd quarter. Overall dividend collected amounted to $5,417.84. In addition to the rental income, this brings our passive income for the month of August to $7,227.45.

Portfolio remains unchanged. As funding from both passive and salary income flowed in. My cash holdings continued to grow. 

 

Monthly Financial Updates

This monthly sustainability report does not include any of the salaried income. The basis for this monthly financial review is to gauge the sustainability status of my financial independence based on the total amount of passive income received.

Its a cold month for dividend! The month of July was a zero month without any dividend income. Well, after a big bonus on June, July dry out. LOL. 

Although I positioned a Fixed Deposit to cover for this type of cold dividend month, it got carried over to the next month, payment actually only comes in August this time. Ah well, just a few weeks delay anyway.

Rental income remains stable at an amount of $1800.  Added with the DBS multiplier, the month of July passive income amounted to total of $1809.61.

Portfolio adjusted a bit for July as I decided to subscribe to the rights issues of IREIT-Global as the price offered was quite attractive. As an existing shareholder, I was entitled for a certain amount of rights issue which I managed to obtain it at the end of the month. This further increase my holdings in that company. The investment allocated was partly covered by the huge dividend payout in June, so not much changes in my current cash holdings.

 

Monthly Financial Updates

This monthly sustainability report does not include any of the salaried income. The basis for this monthly financial review is to gauge the sustainability status of my financial independence based on the total amount of passive income received.

June. Usually a fat month for dividend income. This month of June brought in a huge boast amounted to $6196.10. This is the highest returns since the start of the pandemic. 

Household expenses remains higher than usual due to long term illness medical expense. Well, nothing much we can do about it.   

Otherwise, the rental income remains stable. 

This closed our 2nd quarter with a total passive income of $14,602.38 which amounted to an average of $4867.46 per month. Not bad! Still above the monthly expenses. 

Portfolio remains unchanged as I continue to increase my cash holdings. Nothing much happening in the market anyway. The STI index hovered around 3000-3100.

Boring market isn't it?