~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This post is just for personal reference, to record my personal income and expenses in my journey towards Barista FIRE. For the month of March, I believe this is a better reflection of my average monthly expenses from the quarterly spending, due to the maintenance fees and sinking funds that are paid only once per quarter.  Spending this month is more than income, but from a quarterly perspective, it is still positive overall.  Seems like I am in the right direction after all. This month's miscellaneous spending is a little high due to preparations for my upcoming trip with my mum.  Definitely excited about the trip, and hopefully it will create more wonderful memories for us.  Barista FIRE, here I come...!

This month marks the end of the 1st quarter of 2026.  Thus it's definitely a good time for me to record the performance of my portfolio to track how it has been. To recap, I started my SG Dividends Portfolio in late 2017, and I began tracking the dividends and all reinvestment done starting 2018.  To date, my SG Dividends Portfolio consist of banks, REITs and defense technology.  On the other hand, I only started the US Growth Portfolio in late December 2021, but I have since liquidated my entire US Growth Portfolio in September 2025 to pay off my Malaysia mortgage loan.  In March 2026, I started the MY Dividends Portfolio, which currently consist of only banks and REITs.  The purpose of this is to complement my SG Dividends Portfolio, and hopefully generate dividends in MYR to hedge against forex risks when I FIRE.   Being a relatively conservative investor, I prefer to dollar cost average (DCA) into the market to slowly build up my portf...

As someone who has spent years building an investment portfolio in Singapore, I finally made an important financial move to open a Malaysian investment account with FSMOne Malaysia.  Starting in the second quarter of 2026, I plan to begin a new investment journey focused on Malaysian dividend stocks.  This decision is not just about diversification, it is also about currency strategy, retirement planning, and income stability. Why I Am Investing in Malaysia Instead of US Market Retirement Plans in Johor Bahru Although I currently work and invest in Singapore, I am Malaysian and intend to retire in Johor Bahru in the future.  As such, my retirement expenses will likely be denominated in Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) and building a dividend investment portfolio that generates MYR income makes perfect sense.  Instead of the need to constantly converting Singapore Dollars (SGD) to MYR and inevitably worry about the foreign exchange rate, I can rely on dividends paid by Ma...

The recent market turbulence has prompted me to make a gradual shift in my portfolio strategy.  Over the past month, I have started reallocating part of my holdings away from individual securities and into exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Specifically, I sold part of my holdings in Hong Leong Finance (HLF), Mapletree Logistics Trust (MLT), and Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust (FLCT).  The proceeds were redeployed into two Singapore listed ETFs, namely Amova StraitsTrading Asia ex Japan REIT ETF (CFA) and the UOBAM Ping An FTSE ASEAN Dividend Index ETF (UPD). One key reason for this shift is diversification.  An ETF holds a basket of securities, which helps reduce company-specific risks that come with holding individual stocks or REITs.  In the case of the CFA ETF, it invests across multiple REITs in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan), thus, its price movements tend to be less volatile compared to holding a single REIT.  UPD ETF also allows me expos...