What To Do If You Are Too Lazy To Keep Track Of Your Expenses?

Hi Everyone!

In order to build your own passive income, it is always important to save more money while you are working so that you can invest those savings into different instruments for good returns. So in order to build your own portfolio, you will need more money in order to generate decent amount of passive income to support your monthly expenses, in order word, achieving financial independence. 

So most of the people would suggest to start monitoring your own expenses in order to achieve your monthly saving goals. At the start, you might be able to diligently keeping track of your expenses however, it might died down after a certain period of time (I have to admit that I, myself have experience this kind of situation before). 

So I asked myself, what should I do in order to maintain my expenses while not keeping track of it?

Well, there is a way to do that and we use to do that when we are in schools (especially in primary and secondary school), do you have any idea on how to do that yet?

Live like a Student and Save like a student

So there are a few things that you need to do because after all adults and children/teenager are different as adult, we have liabilities that we need to take care of, like house debt, bills and etc. So there are a few things that you need to do!

Set aside some of the money for fixed expenses

So, before you start your saving journey, do make sure that you write down all your fixed expenses and set this amount of money at one side in order to pay for your fixed expenses. This is rather simple and straight forward.

Note down the monthly expenses that you would spend

Before you start living like a student, set your target monthly expenses for your travel, food and entertainment. This is important because this is the sum of money that you will be spending for the month without touching the rest of your income.

Split your income into various account

Once you have listed down your fixed expenses, monthly personal expenses and savings, split them into different account for segregation.

Set daily allowance for yourself

So after the splitting is done, now is time to live like a student! If you recall, when we were a student, we used to receive allowance from our parents for weekly or daily expenses. So now you will have to live like a student, set a daily allowance for yourself. For example, your daily allowance is $10, so you will have to go to the bank to receive your $10 allowance at the start of each day. This will ensure that you won't overspend and you will be able to maintain your monthly expenses and you do not need to diligently keeping track of your expenses.

So what do you think of this strategy? I will be adopting this strategy after I settle my down payment for my condo next year. So if you find that keeping track of expenses is not your style, do try this method. 

Understand Yourself Before Starting Saving/Investment Journey

Hi Everyone!

Today's topic is about understanding yourself before you start your investment/saving journey. This is important because it can greatly affect your portfolio and the returns that you can generate.

These are some of the questions that you can asked yourself or make sure that you know about yourself before getting started.

1. Is Your Determination Strong Enough To Complete Every Task?

This question is important because financial saving/investment requires determination before you can reach that financial goal of yours. The reason is because in order to reach the financial goal via saving/investment, you would need to give up some of the excessive lifestyle that you are currently enjoying in order to save up some money to build your first pot of gold.

Initially, you might be able to have some determination to work towards that, but maybe few months down the road, you might think otherwise. You will feel that you are tired of saving money, tracking your own expenses and etc, which eventually goes back to your normal lifestyle where you spend or overspend the money that you earn for each month.

So determination is very important so to ensure that you won't give up half way. Personally, I have been through that stage before whereby I was too lazy to keep track of my own expenses for about 2 months, and after which when I resume on tracking my expenses (without any changes in my daily spending), I actually spend more than what I should have. So I quickly set myself a target, goal and expenses tracking website to ensure that such things will not happen. 

2. Risk Appetite

There are tons of investment/saving tools out in the market whereby you can make your money work for you to earn more returns. So you will have to asked yourself, what is your risk appetite. 

For low risk, you can go for banks with high saving interest like OCBC 360, UOB One or BOC, together with SSB, STI ETF, CPF Top Up and probably fixed deposit.

For high risk, you can go for tradings, invest in shares, FX and etc. 

So it really depend on your risk appetite. However, if you are new to investment, do not go all in at the very first time, set some amount that you can lose and try it out first before increasing the limit of your money. If not, you might lose all your money at one shot.

3. Lazy or Hardworking

Depends on whether you are hardworking or lazy. If you are hardworking, it would be best for yourself to manage your own portfolio. However, if you are lazy, then it would be best to get one agent, middleman or fund manager to handle your money for you. 

The reason is because monitoring your portfolio can take up a lot of your time which makes you have lesser time to slack around in the house, even during your weekends. So if you do not have such time for monitoring, it would be best to ask a middle man to manage it for you (by paying them some commission or price - depending on what you buy, could be insurance saving plan, STI EFT and etc.)

So these are the three things I find that it is important to asked yourself before you start your saving/investment journey. So what is your view about this? Do comment below!

3 Lessons Learnt from My First Year in Stocks

Hi Everyone,

It's been one and a half year since I started this blog and at the same time, my investment journey in stocks/shares. It's been a rough ride for me as there are some ups and down during this journey and I have learn some valuable lesson during this one and a half year and would like to share with the readers.

1. Do Not Rush into Purchasing High Dividend Shares

I remember when first I started off with stocks/shares, I was inspired by various financial blogger who show their portfolio and their monthly/yearly dividends in their blog. So I did a scan through for high dividend yield shares and discover that most of the high dividends yield types of shares are REITS, ranging from 4% to 8% (at that point when I started investing). 

Of course, if I were to choose (during that time), I definitely would choose the highest dividends yield so that I can get more dividends in the future (It is an obvious and common sense kind of choice). Before my trading account is ready, I already got some of them in mind (I forgot which are the shares that I shortlisted) and I told myself when the time comes, I will go ahead and pour all my money into these shares and collect dividends until shiok shiok (Shiok = Great! Satisfactory kind of feeling). 

However, before I made those purchases, I stopped. The reason is because I do a self reflection on my action before I click on the "Buy" button and realize that I do not know much about the company that I am investing at all! This makes it a risky move as I might lose all my money if those companies that I shortlisted goes bankrupt. 

So I took a step back and re-analyze the companies and finally after understanding their business nature and some analysis given by the financial bloggers, I took the first step and purchase my very first shares, Keppel DC REITS. I have shared before on why I purchase Keppel DC REITs is because of it's business nature (Data Centers). As IT become more prominent in this era, there is no doubt that REITs for Data centers will be a hot choice for a IT graduates like me. I purchase a small position in Keppel DC REITs and I hold it till today and I won't be selling it off as of now. (Unless I need money). 

So, don't be hard up over dividends! Read and understand the company well before purchasing any stocks/shares instead of just relying on high dividend yield.

2. Start Small, Don't Rush

During my initial days of investment, I rush into the stock market after reading some of the company profile and understand their business nature. I put in nearly three quarter of my savings into shares and hope that I can gain most out of it. This is truly a mistake for newbie investors because market can change anytime, from bull to bear. It is really scary to see your share price falling and losing few hundred dollars in just less than a day! 

(I have encountered such experience with DBS when I purchase it at around $19.70 for 300 shares and in few hours, it drop to $19.32. But luckily, I hold on to it and manage to reap profit instead of loss)

So start small, do not rush in because it will be hard for you to digest when you see your share price falling like nobody business. This triggers you to whether to sell to cut loss or hold on to the shares and wait for the share price to increase. In my personal experience, I will tend to have the mindset of selling off because of the sudden panic that your money is slowly fading away.

Start small and once you are comfortable with the shares then slowly invest more (incrementally) to build up your portfolio and earn good dividends

3. Do Not Buy High Sell Low

Many people will think that this point is useless because it is obvious that no one will do that as it will mean that you will lose money. However, I can tell you that despite the fact that it is common sense, many people will still do it. Some say that they are doing this to cut loss, or due to panic sell or just following the crowd. 

I must admit that I have done that before and I truly regret it because now that shares that I sold with a loss, it is now way above my purchasing price. If I did not sell that share, I will be happily collecting dividends and sitting on paper gain. But what done is done, it is a important lesson that I have learnt for this episode that I must be calm when investing in shares that I believe in.

Some Bonus Stories from Warren Buffett - The first share that he ever bought and the lesson learnt

At the ripe old age of 11, Warren Buffett went into the stock trading business with his sister, Doris, buying six shares of Cities Service, an oil service company, at $38 a share. Buffett had identified Cities as an undervalued stock and was confident of making a nice profit for himself and his sister. Unfortunately, the stock lost almost a third of its value within just a few weeks of Buffet purchasing it. Despite his sister haranguing him continually about their dwindling fortune, Warren held onto the stock until it rebounded to $40 a share, when he closed the trade for a $2 per share profit. He then had the unpleasant experience of watching the stock rise to over $200 a share without him.

Buffett's experience is a good example of the importance of timing in investments. Another legendary stock trader, Jesse Livermore, stressed the point that it is nearly as important for an investor to be right in his timing as it is for him to be correct in his directional forecast. A stock may indeed be going to advance from $50 to $100 a share, but time and again investors have lost money buying it while it was first dipping down to $20 a share, only to then, like Buffett, watch it finally take off without them. Successful investing requires that traders be correct in their overall forecast for a stock and that they enter the market at the right time to realize a profit. Smart investors wait for market action to confirm their investment hypothesis before entering a position.

Patience is indeed a virtue for investors. Buffett exercised patience well in waiting for the market to come back in his favor, but he failed to be patient enough to take full advantage of the stock's profit potential. Having successfully weathered the storm, he failed to observe the adage, "Let profits run." Still, he did make a profit on his very first stock trade.

Source: http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/021915/what-was-first-stock-warren-buffett-ever-bought.asp


So with this, what are some of the lesson that you have learnt? Care to share some with me? If you have written your experience, do share the link with me so that I can read more about your experience.

5 Things You Should Do When You Start Working

Hi Everyone!

The purpose of this post is to share my personal experience on the things that I believe you should do in order to save extra income when you start working. This is just my personal experience in terms of the things that young working adults should do in order to have some savings for future expenses like wedding, house, car, family and etc.

Also, one more thing, you do not need to earn substantial amount of money in order to build your saving fund. You can either start small or if you earn less. If you earn more, save more, that's simple. Of course, don't worry about catching up with your peers or friends who are earning more than you. Go at you own pace when following the things that I mention, don't rush! Because slow and steady also can win the race. Well the race is the goal that you set for yourself in terms of future expenses or retirement fund.

Here we go!


1. Track Your Spending

This is the first thing that you should do when you get your first job. It is important to set a spending budget for yourself so that you can set aside some money for your expenses and the rest will go to your saving account. 

When you do your expenses planning, do make sure that you try it out for 2 to 3 months to ensure that the amount that you allocate will not disrupt your daily activity or making yourself uncomfortable. Also don't go too extreme whereby you drink plain water for your lunch rather than getting a good meal for yourself, don't ever do that. It is always better to set a reasonable amount for your expenses.

I started off quite late as during the first few months of working, I did not keep track of my spending and I just spend whatever I could without thinking about building my own savings. However, after reading some financial post and forum, I realize it is important to have such habit in saving money, thus, I started keeping track of my savings in spreadsheet and soon after I create a website to monitor my own savings. (As shown below)

2. Having Spending Account and Saving Account

A continuation on the first point, after you have your expenses finalized, create two account, whereby one account will be using for your monthly spending, and another account will be using for pure saving. This will ensure that you won't accidentally touch those money that you plan for saving. Of course, if there is an emergency needs for using extra money, do go ahead and spend it. 

My personal experience for this part is that I tend to overspend with no control if I mixed my saving and spending account together as one. Because when you see that there is sufficient funds in your account, you will unexpectedly overspend and exceed your budget for the month. Of course, I realized it during my 3 months trial period and decided to split them up into 2 different accounts. 

3. High Interest Saving Account

A continuation to the previous point, the next thing you need to do is to do some research on the type of account that enables you to earn higher interest. There are several banks offering quite an attractive interest rate with conditions applied to enable you to earn 2% to 3% interest per year.

Banks like OCBC, offers OCBC 360 account whereby you can earn up to 3.25% per year or more as shown below

URL for more info: http://www.ocbc.com/personal-banking/accounts/360-account.html

UOB One account also offer similar type of interest rate, with up to 3.33% per year as shown below

URL for more info: http://www.uob.com.sg/personal/deposits/chequeing/one_account.html

Bank of China also provide similar type of interest rate as well, with up to 3.15% or more per year as shown below

URL for more info: http://www.bankofchina.com/sg/pbservice/pb1/201510/t20151023_5857863.html

Of course there are other banks which provides saving account with good interest without much activities required like CIMB, Standard Chartered bank and etc. So do the necessary research to see which one suits you the best before applying.

Currently, I am using OCBC 360 (lazy to change) and UOB One account as I have exceeded $60,000 in OCBC 360 so the excess amount I move it to UOB One account. Currently I am earning around $125 dollars per month (on the interest itself), which basically covers my concession card per month or 3 to 4 bills being covered.

4. Investment in Shares and Bonds

If you are comfortable and understand very well regarding the risk in shares and bonds, I would suggest you to go for it. However, do not treat it as a gamble by trading, no doubt that you can earn quite a huge sum of money (if you know how to trade) but you can burn badly as well because no one can predict the market movement. So go for low risk low return first, slowly build your dividends so that you can make money to work hard for you. 

For starter, I would suggest going for Singapore Saving Bonds  or if you want higher returns then you can consider STI ETF (there is a risk for STI ETF as share price might drop due to bad economy, just like shares) .

For Singapore Saving Bonds, it is risk free as the capital is guaranteed (read more about it at http://www.sgs.gov.sg/savingsbonds.aspx). Although the returns is pretty low but you can put some money in it for diversification in your portfolio. The best thing about this is that there is pro-rated interest rate when you withdraw before the interest due date.

Personally, I have invested $5000 in Singapore saving Bonds and around $2,800 in shares, which gives me about $108 per year. Although is quite little but slow and steady wins the race!  

5. Set Your Goals!

Rather than aimlessly building your saving fund / retirement fund, try to have some short term goal and long term goals in mind so that at least you have a target to achieve in every milestone that you have set for yourself! This makes it more interesting to measure how far you can go and whether at the end of the day, will you be able to achieve those goals that you set for yourself! It is like gamification whereby you make the process like a game in order to achieve your goals in building up your saving fund / retirement fund.

Personally, I did my own goals in order for me to have a target to aim for. My long term goals are listed in this URL: https://jyklmoneyblog.blogspot.sg/p/goal.html and my short term goals are listed in the website that I have created as shown below

So these are the 5 things that I believe you should do when you start working, as it will help you to build your funds for your future! Do share with me some of your tips or other methods so that we can learn from each other!

Financial Freedom

Hi Everyone!

Below is my video that I created on Financial Freedom. This video is for beginner and also my aim as well.




This video shows my spreadsheet that I am using to keep track of my own finance and spending.

Small Updates of JYKL

Hi Everyone,

I have been inactive for quite sometime as I was busy with handling my career stuff, a job hop is the exact phase for my activity.

Yes, I am changing job, because I am still young so I am seeking for opportunity before I hit 30. Well at the same time I also intend to upgrade myself by getting myself certified as my goal is to become a project manager or consultant.

Well, enough about my career stuff, so I will start to share my portfolio status. Now I only left with 4 counters as I sold DBS for small profit aka kopi money (coffee money). So I have left with:

1) CCT
2) M1
3) OCBC
4) Keppel DC Reit


Now my realized profit and my unrealized loss adds up to a total of $0, so it means that I am back to where I am except that I still earn some dividends.

So this is my little update for my portfolio, as I am not as active as before since these will be my long term counters unless the profit is there, then I will take it :D

June Portfolio and Updates

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I have update my blogs as I am currently focusing on hunting jobs. (Hope got good news) But for now, I will update my current portfolio status.

Currently I have
1) DBS - 200 units
2) OCBC - 1100 units
3) Keppel DC REITS - 500 units
4) M1 - 2700 units
5) CapitaCommercial Trust - 5000 units

I have narrow down to 5 finalist for my portfolio and I will concentrate to gather more blue chips at the later part of the year as my cash flow is a bit tight from all these purchases.

Portfolio in April 2015 and Updates

Hi Everyone,

I have sold some and buy some shares in the month of April which causes my unrealized gain to drop to 1.4% which is a bit sad by seeing the number drop. However, it is still a good news as I still have gains in my portfolio. I didn't include my dividends for the month in April yet (XD period) because I will only count when they are in my bank account. (Prefer to count it that way :D)

So tentatively, my earning is a bit more than what you can see on the portfolio above. 

So my actions in the month of April are:

Buy: M1, CapitaCommercial Trust and Q&M

Sell: First REIT, Sembcorp Industries and Fraser Centerpoint Trust

Due to my selling of shares with profit, it brings my passive/side/profit income raise to $455.25 for this month. (including profits from DBS)

Quite happy for the result for this month :D But May will be a tough period as there is a saying of sell in May and go away. Hope this don't create much impact but a good opportunity for me to buy in more.

Changes in Portfolio

Hi Everyone,

Today I have made some transaction in my portfolio.

I have sold these shares

1) Sembcorp Industry @ $4.57 (with dividend of $0.11)
2) First Reits @ $1.44
3) Fraser Centerpoint Trust @ $2.10

The reason why I sold these three is because I want to redirect my focus to other shares which will give me long term investment and growth.  No hard feeling for these stocks.

I have bought 2 new stocks, please welcome them

1) Q&M - Growth Stock @ $0.785
2) CapitaCommercial Trust @ $1.695

I have added another 900 units of M1 today as well.

So in total I have 10 brand new stocks in my portfolio and I will only maintain 10 at one go.

Drop and Rise in my unrealized gain (Update on my portfolio)

Hi Everyone,

Last week is indeed a tough week for my portfolio because they is a slight drop in some of my counters, especially Sembcorp Industry and OCBC. Before the drop, my Sembcorp Industries has the unrealized gain of over 12% but now it had drop to 7% unrealized gain. Well, I gotten the dividend for this counter, so still not so bad. I will be looking forward at the performance of this counter on Monday to see whether should I add in more for short term trade. 

OCBC is another counter which drops but for this counter, I am still positive in its performance in whatever direction it goes. If it goes southward, I will accumulate more because now I only have 300 units for this shares and the dividend is 3%++ so it is still not very bad. 

However, despite the drop, there are also gain in my other counters like FCT, STE and Sheng Siong. These three counter really grow and Shen Siong and STE had unrealized gain of more than 10%! Which is good, especially for Sheng Siong as I am looking forward to it's growth in May. 

I also added M1 into my portfolio :D

The below is my updated portfolio: (My growth)

Purchased M1 Shares

Hi Everyone,

Finally, I have a telco shares in my portfolio which makes my defensive shares formation complete. So to summarize, my defensive stocks are listed as below:

1) ST Engineering - 1000 units
2) M1 - 900 units
3) OCBC - 300 units
4) SCI (Depends) - 500 units

The reason why SCI had the label (Depends) is because some people might not view this shares as a defensive stocks but for me because of its utilities business, thus I personally label it as defensive stocks. (Personal view)

Okay, so the reason why I purchase M1 shares is because it had dropped during the XD stage. I have been eyeing on Singtel or M1 or Starhub for a long time and I decided to go with M1 mainly on the business and the company portfolio as well as my girlfriend and I are the customers of M1.

With the recent news on SMRT collaborating with OMG in becoming the 4th telco, it certainly affects the investor point of view. However, I believe it will take sometime in order for the 4th telco to become a threat to the 3 main telco. The reason why I said so is because they are the new entrant to the market and the 3 main telco already had strong customer based. Of course, customers can choose to jump ship whenever they want however, most of the customers are either tied down with contract or loyal customer to the telco that they have sign with.

In addition, customers might want SMRT to focus on their core business instead of being a 4th telco and the reason for SMRT and OMG to become the 4th telco might be a strategy to drive away the potential threat coming from myrepublic. (Just my personal view)

However, if SMRT and OMG telco really come up with a great subscription plan (concession + data plan), it might really be a threat if they can prove that their services wont be like their own train services (up time of the mobile services).

After due consideration and the recent price drop, I have decided to go with M1 to join my portfolio in the telco business. 

What are your views?

Green Green

Hi Everyone!

It's mid week already and when I and all of you (those who invest in Singapore shares) might find that the STI hits over 3500! That is really awesome! My portfolio are green which means all my shares are earning capital gains already. I am really happy with the results although I am just a small investor and just a newbie, the positive results is quite a good start. Of course, I believe is because of luck whereby the uptrend is here and not because I am good in trading/investing because I knew that I am not. 

The below picture is my portfolio (From DrWealth): 

Unlike other big investors or experience trader, I still believe in playing safe for now because I still prefer to have 70% cash in my pocket for now until I am really confident in my investment method. (As you can see, the shares that I have is very little as compared to you guys) I believe that everyone will huat and hope more to come! Dividends is coming so I am waiting for it! May is the important period where my dividends comes into my bank account :D But DrWealth keeps the ex-div date and I believe is because after ex-div date, the dividend is certainly yours to grasp even though you sell it.

So huat ar!

Strategy Plus a Little Update

Hi Everyone,

First for the update of my passive/side income this month which is over $200++!!, $280 to be exact. The main portion comes from the profit after I sold my DBS shares and also the money that I have received from OCBC 360 interest. For OCBC 360, next month will be the final month for me to get the 3.05% interest, which is quite a pity since 3.05% is quite a good interest rate for us to get. But what over is over, we can only look forward to what I can do with the 2.05% or probably more depending on the two additional criteria that OCBC will be announcing in May 2015. Up to date, I have successfully achieve my target of having $120 passive/side income per month which is quite a good achievement for me. Will continue to monitor my own progress to ensure that I will it the target for the next 8 months.

OK! After a mini update on my status, now I will talk about my strategy, my strategy in investment and savings. The reason why I talked about this topic because I have heard from many people in the forum talking about their strategy in terms of investing. Some people want fast cash, which is why they bet on pennies while the others might have other strategy. Although newbies might have the urge of getting fast cash, thus, betting their money on pennies. But for me, I am going for blue chips and reits partly because of dividends and partly because of stability. However, I am still learning on investment, thus, I only put less than 30% of my cash to investment while rest of my cash sits in the bank to collect fat interest (one more month to go). 

So I believe slow and steady wins the race, so lets get down deeper, am I a long term investor or a trader? I believe my style is more towards a hybrid because my main goal is still dividends however, whenever a share or a counter (depending on what you used to say), hits my target point (one year worth of dividends + a bit of profits), I will let it go, which is what I did to DBS. The reason I do that is because firstly is to get my realized gain and secondly, I want to get the additional money to reinvest to gain more interest early. For example, lets say 2.05% for OCBC bank and I put $180 (profit from DBS) in it, with the compound interest, I believe I can get extra few dollars in a few months time. (I am measuring based on the time where I gain the yearly dividend from DBS. Although is just few dollars, but money is money. Certainly, reinvesting is also good but one more point I will take into consideration is the dividend rate as well as the volatility of the shares. DBS is too volatile for me so I prefer to shift to OCBC instead, a rather stable and less volatile than DBS.

Each people have their own way of investment, for me, I think betting on blue chips and REITs will be the best for me to start with :D How about you?

DrWealth Review

Hi Everyone,

Last month, I have discover a portfolio management website called DrWealth, which I have wrote about http://jyklmoneyblog.blogspot.sg/2015/03/drwealth.html. I mention that I will do a review on DrWealth website based on my experience on using it. 

After using it for around 20 days, I find that this website is quite good as it helps you to track your own investment, your cash and also recommend you on your portfolio health. Well I am not sure whether about the recommendation because they did not take into consideration of my OCBC 360 interest. But nonetheless, I still like it interface, although you will need some time to picked it up but overall the user experience is quite alright. 

On top of that, they also provide weekly report on your performance, if I remember it correctly, it should be every Tuesday/Wednesday. The report will show you your overall performance and indicate which stocks is your major player (in terms on getting profits)

I did not tried it on the mobile simply because I seldom go to the website to look at my portfolio unless I have done a transaction in shares whereby I will go and update my portfolio in DrWealth website.

There are certainly lots of functions that an experience portfolio master will be able to use, as for me, I only go for a simple and straight forward functions which is to keep track on my investment (in shares) and my current assets (Cash).

So overall, this website is quite good but as for advance functionality, I not sure about it as I seldom use. Oh yea, one more thing, they also provide useful articles in savings and investment, so if you are interested, do take a look :D

Endowment And Insurance Saving Plan

Hi Everyone,

Recently, I have met up with one of my friends for lunch. Over the lunch, he talks about whether do I have financial planning for my future? Well he is not an insurance agent or something like that. I told him that I have just a simple financial planning for myself. I told him about my portfolio whereby 25% of my money goes to stocks and the rest of my money, which is 75% of my money, parked at my OCBC 360 account for the 3.05% interest. 

I was wondering why he asked me this question so in return I asked him back about his financial plan and why he suddenly talked about this topic. He told me that he was told by one of his insurance agent about an investment plus insurance plan where the investment will be invested in secure shares. He didnt told me about what kind of shares that the plan will be invested by I presume that it would be blue chips (Correct me if I am wrong). 

I myself have went to NTUC income to asked more about endowment plan because it is better to diversify my portfolio in this area as well. But when my girlfriend and I went down and hear the agent's explanation, we felt that it is not really that worth it. Okay, not say totally because in the end, you will be able to gain some money out of the 10 or 20 years of "investment". We did see the chart and saw that for more than first half of the investment period, we will be losing money, so in any case whereby we need cash urgently, we will be losing some of our capital. Of course, this is the penalty but would be too harsh if it eats up our capital instead of just forfeiting our interest.

Well, I do not have much understanding about endowment plan yet, but if I am going for one, it will not be for me but will be for my children so that after 20 years, my children will have enough money for his university education without me having to crack my head to pay for it. After that he/she will be on his/her own (after graduation).

So what is your view on these two plan? Will you be going for it?

Portfolio Template from Investment Moat

Hi Everyone,

Just today, I have started using the portfolio tracker from investment moat. Although I have heard of this portfolio template/tracker few months ago even before I started investing, however, due to the fact that the functions and the usability is quite unfamiliar to me (mainly because of my lack of knowledge in stocks) which deters me from using this portfolio done by Investment Moat. 

A few months later, which is today, I decided to use this template for my portfolio update for this blog as well as a spreadsheet to help me track my progress. After 15 mins of understanding how it works, I manage to did up my portfolio using this template done by Investment Moat. 

I am happy about the results and I believe that this is a good initiatives by Investment Moats to help us the investors (probably small/retail investors) to keep track our personal portfolio record. The below is my portfolio using the new template

As you can see from the above portfolio, it is much clearer about my progress as compared to my own personal spreadsheet that I have created by myself. It also keep track of the stocks I have sold and the dividends I have collected. This makes the entire process runs even smoother for me and good for me to keep track of my own personal record.

So, for those who have yet to have a portfolio tracker, do use this, it is quite a good one :D

You can get this portfolio at this link: http://www.investmentmoats.com/stock-market-commentary/portfolio-management/introducing-our-free-stock-portfolio-tracker-spreadsheet/

Just follow the tutorial and it will get you to what you need :D. 

Which Telco to purchase?

Hi Everyone,

I have been trying to get into tele-communication stocks which includes Singtel, M1 and Starhub. (Either one) At first, I was thinking of getting Singtel because it is the first telco company in Singapore and with strong backing by various shareholders, I feel pretty safe with this telco but the problem is the share price is quite high as of now. 

The second option is Starhub, the reason is because of its stable dividend payout each year and last but not least, M1, the reason for me to go for this share is basically because of its cheap share price.

The reason why I am thinking of this is because as the price of DBS keeps going up, I would cash it out for profits when it hit my target price. So I would have some cash for investment. Certainly, I can keep it in OCBC 360 to earn interest but that will determine whether I can make decision on which telco to focus on. 

So back to the topic, out of these 3 telco, I am currently looking at Starhub and M1. As Singtel, as I am the current user of Singtel but I dont see any positive outcome when it comes to customer service. I can see a lot of people are jumping from Singtel to other telco. I will do that too when I have complete my contract in June 2015. I am thinking of M1 because of the benefits for its customers (one for one movie ticket on every Sunday).

Maybe I will go with both Starhub and M1 but more focus on M1 because I will be M1 users and people around me are using M1 also. But still in Dilemma.... well, there will be a fw days for me to decide. (Hope I can make a decision by the time I sell DBS)

Well, what are your views on telco? (I understand that I did not even touch on fundamental and technical analysis because I am suck at it. I only go with my own observations and understanding of the company itself.)  

Conservative or Aggressive

Hi Everyone,

I am been looking through my portfolio management tools by DrWealth (If anyone still does not know what is DrWealth, do check out my previous post http://jyklmoneyblog.blogspot.sg/2015/03/drwealth.html), the analysis that I have gotten is pretty unhealthy in the sense that I have more cash flows than the amount that I have invested in shares. 

As you can see the graph above, that is my overall portfolio that I have currently. more than 70% of my portfolio are cash and only less than 30% of my portfolio are in investment. Certainly, this has indicate that my portfolio health is rather unhealthy but the reason why I have so much cash is because of OCBC 360. Because with OCBC 360, it gives me 3.05% returns every year, which is pretty good as compare to other banks. The risk of this is much much much lower than investing in shares. 

Although 3.05% wont be able to beat the inflation rate but for me, I am quite a conservative person. So I prefer this strategy first until OCBC 360 remove this promotion. After that, then I will focus more in investing in stocks and open other bank account to gain more interest.

Personally, my investment fund wont exceed 45% of my total portfolio because I am a super conservative person and I am still new to shares and investment, it will be wise for me not to go all out if not I will get myself burned!

So how about you? Are you an aggressive or conservative type of investor?

Feburary Portfolio Update

Hi Everyone,

The month of February is over, it's so fast that the second month of 2015 just fly pass in a blink of eye.

In the month of February, I have added DBS into my portfolio which gives me an addition of a bank stock into my portfolio.

On the month of February, I have receive my dividend from Soilbuild Business Space REITs and Fraser Centerpoint Trust.

The total amount of dividend that I have received on the month of Feb is SoilBuild Business Space REITs ($9.51) Fraser Centerpoint Trust ($13.75), with a total of $23.26. 

With that adding up to the interest received from OCBC and my side income from surveys, the total amount is $142.87!!

I have exceed the monthly target of $120! YAY!

Hope next month I can earn more passive income and hit $120 in March! Wish me luck :D

Tentative Dividend Schedule + Dividends

Hi Everyone,

I have posted my portfolio which I am satisfied about (in case if anyone did not see my portfolio, it's located at the right hand side of the blog and I also posted about it at this link January Portfolio).

So now, as a new investor aiming for good dividends, I am more concentrate on when can I get my dividends rather than aiming for capital gains (of course, I don't mind having capital gain as well).

So in today's topic, I will list down all the dividend dates from all my counters/shares that I have bought (just a rough estimate)

*Do note that, current I do not have the dividend information on Keppel DC because it is a new REITs.

My dates will be starting on February since I started trading in the mid of January, so February will be my office start of my own financial year 

February - SoilBuild Business Space Trust ($9.51), Fraser Centerpoint Trust ($13.75)

March - AIM AMPS CAP IND Trust ($13.85)

April - ST Engineering ($120)

May - SoilBuild Business Space Trust ($9.372), First REITs ($13.93), Fraser Centerpoint Trust ($14.40), Sembcorp Industry ($85), Sheng Siong ($8.4)

June - Cambridge Industrial Trust ($8.757), AIM AMPS CAP IND Trust ($12.55)

July - Fraser Centerpoint Trust ($11.98)

August - ST Engineering ($40), SoilBuild Business Space Trust ($9), First REITs ($14), Fraser Centerpoint Trust ($3.13), Sheng Siong ($9)

September - Cambridge Industrial Trust ($8.757), AIM AMPS CAP IND Trust ($12.75), Sembcorp Industry ($25)

October - SoilBuild Business Space Trust ($9.276)

November - Fraser Centerpoint Trust ($13.925)

December -Cambridge Industrial Trust ($8.75), AIM AMPS CAP IND Trust ($13.85)

January - 

Because I have missed First REITs and Cambridge Industrial Trust previous dividend, thus, I will not include it in.

So the estimated total amount that I will get till the end of the year (December), will be around $331.827, which gives me a total dividend yield of 3.2987%. Well, not bad for a start and as I have mention I didnt include the last quarter of First REITs and Cambridge Industrial Trust, also not included Keppel DC REITs. So the total dividend yield is definitely higher than this amount. 

So let's see in the end of the year, whether my dividend yield will increase :D