Simple Budget, Simple Life

Back in late Oct, I blogged about my reflections on building a 6 digits portfolio. It took me 7 years to finally starting investing proper as I've always been trying to accumulate cash and park it in savings account giving me ~2-3% interest. It was with sheer diligence and discipline that I amassed $300k  in Aug. My cash savings has since gone down as I started deploying cash into the market. Covid as an impetus to invest When Covid hit and the market started to turn south, I attempted to "invest". I bought SATS back in Mar when things were  starting  to get shaky. Not very smart since things went downhill after I bought it. I bought SIA during then too, at a high of $7+ 😉interesting lessons Long story short, I've since sold my SATS stocks after it hit a 6 mths high. Sold it at $4.35 earning around $230. Not a bad 5% dividend considering I held it for less than a year. I couldn't fathom why the stock went up when situation still seem bleak. Good that I sold it as

In this current economic crisis, the stock market offers attractive picks. As you know, I had $300k cash, but in a span of 2 months, I've held lesser cash and pumped in ~$50k into the stock markets - particularly in HK and US markets. The thing is, I only had a ~$50k portfolio value for the past 6 years (from 2014-Jul 2020).  So what made me daringly pumped $50k into the stock market in a span of 2 months? Entrance of Tiger Broker  I'm not paid to say this, but Tiger Brokers opened my eyes to look beyond local shores. I've always been thinking about investing in foreign market. But I've only been thinking . 🤔 I was set back by the commissions and fees charged to buy and hold foreign stocks and has been procrastinating. When Tiger Brokers entered the market, it took me some time* i.e in Aug  (see my link for the beginner's guide), before I jumped onto the bandwagon. I was attracted by the ease of sign-up and the low fees. The app was also pretty user-friendly, maki

I've previously shared about my 8 sources to get a decent passive income here . Broadly, it's due to: Stock dividends Savings accounts such as Etiqa and Singlife Surveys Selling items I shall not repeat my sharing as you can head over to my link  😉 Since May till Sep, I've been getting $500-$900 passive income. Though I must add that it has been long since I cash out my survey ( check out milieu app - see point 6 ) as I need a sizeable point + I dont have much to sell on carousell now. Given the current economic situation, interest rates have been dropping. On one side, it's good news for my housing loan as I've changed to a bank loan; but on the other hand, as I'm cash-heavy, I don't have much platforms to park my cash. So earlier, I've only park $10k in Singlife to earn 2.5% interest. I decided to up it to $100k to enjoy 1% on the next $90k. Unfortunately, even the 2.5% will now be nerfed to 2%. Sigh This is the last month where I'd see 2.5% inter

Just as I pumped in ~SGD$28k into the stock market in the past 10 days, the share prices dropped 🤦‍♀️ Anyway, ever since I blogged about my $300k cash savings , it has been at the back of my mind that I may be too heavy in cash. It's a great safety net, but because of the poor interest rates across savings accounts, I seem to be "losing money".  With the entrance of Tiger Brokers (see my guide here and here ), it gave me an impetus to enter foreign stock markets - because of their low transaction fee and given how sluggish SG market is. US market is one of the hottest market to enter, but for the past days, it has been rallying so high that I don't bear to enter. Despite the drop today, I'm still waiting for the time to enter🤭 As such, I decided to enter the HK stock market and pumped in ~SGD$23k. Don't ask me where my courage came from but I guess I didn't want to sit around and miss out the chance since the March market dip. Who knew things would go e