Simple Budget, Simple Life

PSA - I've just received my $100 cash reward from DBS today. Earlier, in Oct, I blogged about setting up my SRS account with DBS and topped up $10,001 to enjoy their cash rewards  and used the SRS amount to invest via Endowus. The cash reward is only applicable to the first 4,000 customers. Glad that I am eligible! If you've done the same when I blogged about it, do check if your cash rewards are in! Till then 🥳

I had insomnia on and off since forever. Yesterday's sleepless night sparked me to write my thoughts down - yeah, my brain was drafting out what I should write today. I dislike how my overactive brain works. While this is not a financial post, it is my personal reflection post and outlet. These have been recurrent issues I face. I hope by writing all these down, I can get rid of my negative and worrisome thoughts. After all, the new year is coming, and I want a good start to it. Work I attribute yesterday's insomnia to insecurity at my workplace. Although I am rather senior in the team, I feel like an imposter. And I feel that staff are judging me.  I feel extremely inferior when I compare myself with my team. My team is made up of elites - academic elites from overseas top universities and top JCs and a handful are social elites with rich family background - whereas I come from local university and mid-tier schools. Despite having stronger  experiences, I feel that my staff do

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

I never thought I would face this issue. After accumulating $300k cash, and feeling that I've kept too much dirty fiat with me, I've been investing aggressively. Aggressive may not mean smart. In fact, I am feeling stupid because my investments have been doing badly 🙃 As a quick summary, this is what I've been doing over the past year: Buying more REITS, just to name a few - Keppel dc, Ascendas, Capland China Buying more US stocks, just to name a few - Tesla, Roblox, Sea Converting SGD to USD for crypto Just on crypto alone, in midst of the recent drop, I've pumped in $15k SGD to buy BTC and ETH 🙃embodying BTFD in my blood very literally, within a week.  Am I worried? Of course! Each time I open my Tiger Broker + crypto apps, I see a blood of red. My limit orders on Gemini just keep setting off hahah. I've been doing what people call DCA, but man, the amount of transactions I made is quite crazy. I've also just started Anchor Protocol for it's lucrative

Back in 2020, I blogged about my 8 sources of passive income generating $600-$1,500 per month . It's not a consistent amount since a few of the sources were on-off like selling on Carousell. So, here's a refreshed version of my 2021 sources of passive income, the $ that comes with it and.... crypto joining the ranks. Here goes: 1. Stock Dividends - $4,962.3 Same as 2020, this remain one of the key sources of passive income given my REITS portfolio. I was heavy on REITS a year ago. But boy, how much things changed in a year. Currently, I am still very heavy on dividend generating stocks ~70%. CDP SG stocks: $2,510 for 2021 (portfolio value: ~$78k. Sitting on 12% paper loss) Tiger SG stocks: $995.10 for 2021 (portfolio value: ~$63k. Sitting on 2% paper gain) HK stocks: $1,445.2 for 2021 (portfolio value: ~$70k. Sitting on 8% paper loss) US stocks: $12 for 2021 (portfolio value: ~$34k. Sitting on 31% paper gains) Total Dividend: $4,962.30 on $245k portfolio. That's rather path

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?