Simple Budget, Simple Life

  Earlier in my post , I mentioned that I will be topping up $2k+. Silly me. That was before the MA interest gets rolled out. Today, I made a top up of $3,000 via paynow. This is because my company contributions usually come in on 7th or 8th of the month.  Now that this is out of the way, I will have $5,000 more throughout the year to top up. Will ponder about this later. Till then :)

This always boost up my mood every start of the year 😊 My beloved CPF interests. This time, I crossed 5 digits interest, clocking in $11,291.01 for 2023. Back last year, I was receiving $9k+ interest. I will be topping up  $2,085.62  max out my MA and for tax relief purposes. I didnt hit BHS as at 31 Dec 2023 as my MA was deducted for my surgery.  -- Last night, I slept early and didn't do countdown. My hubby lie on the bed with me a while and hugged me. He wished that in 2024, I will be happier and able to achieve my goals, whatever that may be. He said he wished I will go back to my young happy self years ago, and the depressed me will go away. I cried. I recognised that I've become unhappy and unsettled easily, especially in the past few years.  I don't know if my younger me was really happy, but I do know as I grow older, negativity has been clouding me. He told me to cry out and let out my concerns. I wasn't able to articulate what's making me depressed. ...

Detailing my yearly CPF top-up and thoughts.  This is my 8th year of top-up. 1. Top-up $2.5k to Medisave via Paynow Did a $2,500 top up to my Medisave, bringing it to 2023 MA ceiling of $68,500. Done the same for my husband as well. 2. On hold - To top up $5.5k to SA or no? Contrary to the past where I top-up at the start of the year, I have decided to hold off the top-up. A) Running out of cash Firstly, I'm running out of cash. I'm berating myself for degrading to the past where I look forward to my monthly income for cashflow. So I can build up my $100k capital in savings account again, given the current high interest environment.  B) Hitting FRS soon = no tax relief Secondly, I'm concerned about reaching FRS too soon.  The FRS this year is $198,800. I'm now sitting on ~$157k SA which means $41,800 away from reaching this ceiling.  I know some people encouraged maxing this out ASAP. But, as I've crossed 6 digits annual income, maxing FRS soon meant lower tax r...

Happy 2023~! I woke up feeling not very positive. It seems like I've brought forward my 2022 negative thoughts along. I ought to be more optimistic! Anyway, my best way of welcoming the new year is to count the new inflow of $ and here's my CPF interest for 2022: Have you check your CPF interest yet?

Work 1 year into my role and I'm jaded. I guess I'll never find a job I'm happy with. But the consolation is that this job is relatively easier than the previous, so I'm just cruising along...until I get fired.  I resonated with the quiet quitting term that's been all over the news recently. I guess I've been quiet quitting all these while. People said it's a term for cruising, doing the minimum, or performing at your payscale. I've always been the type who knock off on time, though I am more enthusiastic in my first few work years. Somehow, my bosses acknowledge my efforts and I don't have to wayang. As I grow older in my career, things change. Because of how "quiet" I am, I may not get into the good books of bosses. I don't talk to bosses nor bother talking to colleagues to showcase what I'm doing. I don't bother  to wayang. I don't bother suggesting ideas to improve work - I did try recently, but it backfired. I'm bet...

Back in 2021, I opened my SRS account to lock-in my withdrawal age at 62 and as another avenue to reduce my income tax. Blogged about it below: I finally set-up my SRS account and then DBS screws up Maximising my $10,001 SRS top-up with Endowus Best time to lock in your 62 yo withdrawal age is now - Endowus $40 referral bonus (usual - $20) till 31 Dec 2021With the  2022 SRS Game Plan via Endowus Now that it's 2022, I needed to start my SRS purchase again. This time, I will be pumping in the max of $15,300 cash to squeeze the max income tax relief. I had initially thought to delay this pump till later this year, as I wanted my cash to generate higher returns first, and then channel it to SRS. However, I decided to be more robotic about my SRS investment and DCA in. This means that I will Buy SRS at 5 different tranches, at $3060 each For the past weeks, the stock and crypto market has been dipping while awaiting the actual plan from the US Fed. Just last night, US Fed has released t...

Detailing my yearly CPF top-up here.  This is my 7th year of top-up. However, there will be changes to my CPF top-up strategy d ue to the changes in CPF tax relief . 1. Top-up $3k to Medisave via Paynow As I have hit MA ceiling of $63k in 2021, I will be topping up $3k cash to my MA today to reach the MA ceiling of $66k in 2022. I am doing this today before my Jan 2022 salary comes in, as it will reduce the amount of MA cash-top up and therefore, reduce my tax relief. I've completed my Paynow transaction, which is instantaneous. Look at my CPF MA changes within seconds: Done the same for my husband as well. 2. Top up $5k to SA For the past 6 years, I've been topping up $7k to my and my mum's SA to max the tax relief. That's $84k cash lock-up in my and her CPF. This time round, due to the tax relief capped at $8k for both MA and SA top-up, I will only be topping up $5k to my SA.  However, contrary to the past where I top-up at the start of the year, I have decided to hol...

Standard start of year post. My best way of welcoming the new year is to count the new inflow of $ and here's my CPF interest for 2021: Unfortunately, the extra $8,728.48 interest still hasn't allowed me to cross the $700k net worth mark. Will work towards $850k net worth by end of the year :) Have you check your CPF interest yet?

The title is not a clickbait.  In all honesty, I am going to become a millionaire for sure in my lifetime (assuming I don't die young, choy!). I am very sure I'd become a millionaire, at least through CPF. Yup, 1M65, 1M48A is going to be a reality for me. Based on my CPF projection, these are what I realised: Next year, my OA + SA will reach FRS  At 35, my SA alone will reach FRS (which means I can't do RSTU and get tax relief) At 42, my SA alone will reach ERS  At 47, my OA + SA + MA will reach $1m combined But I am still not satisfied. I don't think this is something worth shouting at. Millionaires decades ago vs today are vastly different in riches - what's more millionaires decades down the road. It's like me cracking lame joke in Indonesia that I'm a rupiah millionaire. By the time I reach 50-60, I am sure there'd be many fellow millionaires. Everyone is so financially savvy these days. Heck, even students are multi-millionaires . And by then, being...

Blogging about my financial moves is good. I had the impression I started topping up my SA and my mum's since 2015, but it was actually since 2016 (see here and here ). This is my 6th year topping up, which meant a good $84,000 into my mum and my CPF 😱. Not forgetting a blunder I made in 2019 where I top-up ~$6k cash for MA only to be refunded. I've forgotten the story because I didn't blog about it (it was drafted halfway).  Anyway, here's locking down in my little virtual journey that I've just done the cash top-ups via paynow  today.  I will egg my husband to do the same as my SA has outdone his. Afternote - settled his top-up.

This post is to remind me that I've made my CPF nomination at the start of 2021...all within 10 minutes It was an impromptu event. I mean, I had wanted to do this since a long time, but never got around it. For one, I had difficulties finding 2 witnesses lol. But I realised I should just be thick skinned to ask. Nice enough, the 2 witnesses replied instantly with their details   ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ You can refer to the picture here on what details your witnesses need to provide: - their IC number - name as per IC - email address - mobile number Anyway, the CPF nomination was sparked by CPF's video when I was browsing facebook - so CPF Social Media peeps, your post/intent is working. Here's the said video or you can click the link here : I decided to do it because as what the video shared, if I pass away without a nomination, my CPF money will be distributed by intestacy law, takes 6 months to process, and requires fees for my family to receive my money.  Whereas through a 10 minutes n...

I love seeing more money roll in. Who doesn't? I get especially excited to see how much CPF interest rolls in every start of the year. This time, I've clocked an extra $6,800 for my CPF Such gains will propel my goal towards $650k  net worth in 2021 even faster.  Given the projected FRS in this Seedly page , I expect my SA to reach FRS in 3-4 years time😱On hindsight, I should have protected my OA from being wiped out for my flat so that I can reach FRS even faster... Still some way to go, but with me topping up $7k for my SA...hopefully, I can achieve 1M65 or even 1M50 very very soon. Have you checked yours yet?  😊

You would likely have seen 1M65 if you are following up on personal finance posts/blogs.If this concept is new to you, you can watch a video here: Essentially, this concept meant the following (extracted from dollarsandsense ) At around 30 years old, both husband and wife puts $130,000 each into their CPF SA and MA. The prevailing CPF SA and MA interest rate of 4% compounded over time will grow the couple’s combined CPF balances to over $1 million when they retire at 65 years old. I was really intrigued by his latest post that I decided to do my own calculation. Given my laziness and constant daydreaming to not work, I really wish to retire at age 50 . That's ~20 years more (yes yes, I am very old liao), which is why I'm aiming for 1M50. Am I on track? It seems to be so. With my past 5 year efforts to pump $7k/year into SA  and one time top-up to MA (psst, I will hit BHS this year), my SA and MA now stands at $125k. 1M50 Couple Goal In order to achieve 1M50...

One of the best feelings in the world is seeing more $ in my accounts. At the end of 2019, I received an extra $6,000 for my CPF. Total CPF stands at $140k. I intend to top up $7,000 into my SA this month for tax-relief purposes. Have you checked out yours yet? :)

Each day passing is one step towards old age. Unknowingly, we are in mid 2019. Top-up to CPF SA Anyway, with my bonuses in, I decided to park $7k into my CPF SA for tax relief purposes. I've always been saying that I should do the $7k voluntary top-up at start of the year to gain extra interest, but have never done so hahaha Got my hubby to do the same as well...not without some nagging and me taking control of the transfer  🤦‍♀️ Hubby wasn't super keen as he preferred to keep the cash to pay off our housing loan ASAP. His thoughts on our housing loan For context, our balance to pay is at $500k+ 🙃We are paying equal amounts for the home. Wipe out our CPF, leaving $20k in OA Pay $100k cash upfront (or even more if we can afford) - he feels our investments does not beat 2.6% interest charged by HDB for loan. This is true given majority of our money in savings accounts, SSBs, FDs which gives at best 2% interest? For the remaining amount, to get a 25 years loan ...

Aloha.  Some updates on what's going on with my life.... A. I accepted the job offer Ever since I received the job offer, I've been feeling jittery. I kept playing the angel and devil's advocate and in the end, decided to take up the offer. I still worry about the instability in the new place, but at worst, I'll just find another job if I can't survive there. The new salary, although not a lot, is also better than if I stay put. I figured I might only get this salary 2 years later. So, hopefully, things pan out well.... B. Transferred $7k to my CPF SA Next, I've transferred $7,000 cash to my own CPF SA. This is the 3rd time I'm doing so. You can read more about it here and here . I probably should have transferred the amount in Jan, instead of waiting till now...but well, better late than never.  My CPF SA now stands at $46,000.  C. Parking $40k with CIMB F.D at 1.8% and 1.6% Also, good lobang must share! I've done some house...

I've gotten lazy. I should have joined the hype like everyone else talking about my 2017 achievements and setting 2018 goals, but no, I felt like there wasn't a need to. Who would be interested in my 2017 achievements anyway? But I figured, tracking these down are not for you, it's for me. It's for me to document down bits and pieces of my thoughts so that one day I can look back and recall what I went through. So hey, it's the 2nd week of 2018. Work has drained the hell out of my soul and I've only worked barely 1 week this year, although I've had a sucky end to 2017. When others were celebrating, I was buried with work. While others were chit chatting casually, I was stuck in meetings and meetings taking notes and doing loads of useless nonsensical stuff that does nothing to improve my life. The only thing I gained out of these was my salary. I am trading my time, my soul, for money. 2017 Review Ok, enough of complains. Here's a throwback on what ...

Some people see putting money into CPF as a foolish thing to do. They do not believe in the CPF system for it locks their money up unless conditions are satisfied. They may be right, and they may be wrong, for there are no perfect systems. I am putting my faith in CPF as a way for me to generate higher returns for my retirement. A 4% p.a interest in risk-free environment. Other than CPF, which other systems provide such benefits? I am only in my twenties, and have close to 30 years till 55 before I could start withdrawing my money (assuming this policy does not change). I was apprehensive about this initially - what if I need the money in the future? Once I put my money in, the action is irreversible. It does not have the liquidity like my 1 year FDs, SSBs or my savings account. Maybe I should park my extra cash into more FDs? But the interest rates are not attractive at all. As I tabulated my finances, I figured that I have at least 1 year worth of my salary for immediate expenses...

As we countdown to 2017, I was reflecting on my 2016. 2016 was an average year. Nothing exciting to shout about and nothing major happened.... Until I started to browse through my blog and reviewed my financial portfolios. As I browsed through my blog, I looked back at the little things that happened. I got engaged, got a shock from my health screening results which turned out to be nothing bad (pessimist really), achieved $100k cash savings and this is excluding CPF at 25, transferred money to my mom's CPF which made her happy, travelled overseas twice albeit to nearby areas, and got around $10k performance bonus. These are little milestones and achievements worth clapping for. Here's my throwback to 2016: Jan - Got engaged, but feels bad for wasting his money Feb - Started this blog to pen down my thoughts - Went for health screening.  Had a health scare because I didn't understand my health report. Took the chance to upgrade my hospitalisation plan to the best Ma...

The thought of depositing cash into CPF struck me when I read some blogs on reducing tax reliefs and also earning the decent interest rates given by our government in the current low interest rates climate. Since then, I've been researching on the pros and cons of this move and concluded to transfer $7,000 cash into my mom's Retirement Account. Here's why: 1. To reduce my tax payable My estimated tax is around $2,400, assuming there are zero reliefs. By topping up my mom's CPF, I'll get a relief of $7,000. Now that will reduce my tax to around $1,900. 2. Growing spare cash  I mentioned that I'm always on the look out for safe places to park my cash, mostly FDs. But the FDs these days are disappointing. I've on standby, at least $60k cash in my BOC account  . So, emergency funds are settled. I've also 2 FDs accounts which have yet to mature. The remaining cash could be put to other uses, like giving it to my mom by parking the money into a sa...