Simple Budget, Simple Life

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...

As mentioned in my previous posts, I am now diversifying out to foreign stocks via Tiger Brokers.  My beginner's guide to setting up Tiger Brokers Tiger Brokers National Day Promo and virgin purchase of foreign stocks Pumping SGD$28k in HKEX and SGX the past 10 days and Fee comparison between DBS Vickers and Tiger Brokers  Within 1-2 months of account opening, I had pumped in SGD$40k in HK, US and local stocks. As I mentioned in my previous post, there are some merits of using Tiger Brokers to buy SG stocks due to the lower fees - the only thing is it's not stored in my CDP, which I'm fine with. On HK stocks, within just 1 week of my purchase (yup, I pumped money within a span of 2 days), the value has fallen and I'm sitting on ~SGD$3k losses. USD110 profit from Tesla in 5 days For US stocks, the volatility of their market makes trading exciting and scary. When I bought Tesla at $395, it went down to $340. And the following day, it rose up to $428. I wanted to test out ...

Asians find it pantang to talk about Death. But, we are born to die. With each birthday, we are one step closer to death.  Anyway, with the latest news of death of people not much older than me from suicide, sudden collapse, it hit me to be more responsible in planning for how I want to be "celebrated" and how my finances should be dispersed. I've just made my will via this link . I am aware of the one by moneyowl but felt the OCBC one allows more variation.  Through the will making, it gave me some thoughts on who is important enough for me to leave my assets to. Funnily, in my will, I am more concerned about the theme, music and outlook of my funeral.  My next step is to make the LPA .  I hope you will take some time to do yours after reading my post.

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...