~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This month marks the end of the 1st quarter of 2024.  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.  Currently, my US Growth Portfolio consist of mainly big tech names, bank and exchange traded funds (ETFs). Being a relatively conservative investor, I prefer to dollar cost average (DCA) into the market to slowly build up my portfolio.  The advantages of using Interactive Brokers to buy the US shares via DCA are undoubtedly the low fees and ability to buy fractional shares of mega-cap technology shares like Alphabet and Tesla.  The latest FED meeting in early March helped to calm the markets as Jero...

Back in September 2023, I wrote a post pondering whether it is time for me to start including physical gold and silver into my portfolio after watching the Channel News Asia documentary on the Singapore Reserves.  At that time, I think I should follow the footsteps of the smart monies, especially the Singapore reserves, to allocate a small percentage of my portfolio into physical gold and silver.  Initially, I was looking at adding 50 grams of gold into my portfolio per year, but later in January 2024 , I changed my mind and decided to lower the allocation to buy 1 troy ounce (31.1 grams) of gold into my portfolio per year instead.   In Singapore, there are many online and physical stores where physical gold can be purchased.  Personally I prefer to collect physical gold over paper gold.  There are many platforms where physical gold can be purchased, through United Overseas Bank (UOB), or through private dealers like Silver Bullion Singapore, GoldSilver Ce...

As per the previous post , the 32% decline in dividends from Hong Leong Finance triggered me to relook the stability of the annual dividends.  Thus I decided to divest a part of the shares in my holding and include more dividend powerhouses into my portfolio to reduce the weightage of dividends from individual shares.  As mentioned, I have decided to include the two remaining Singapore banks into my portfolio, namely United Overseas Bank (UOB) and Development Bank of Singapore (DBS).  However, due to the limitations of capital, I will do this in stages.  In stage one, before the XD date, I will slowly nibble some UOB shares, so that I will be eligible to receive the half-yearly dividends.  In stage two, I will buy into DBS shares after XD (hopefully the price decline is more than the dividends and bonus shares payout- no guarantees on that). So what exactly am I doing and why? The shares that I am partially divesting is Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE)....

Early this year, I had the privilege to sponsor my mum, aunt and myself to a short trip to Bangkok.  This is possible because of the 25% growth in dividends collected in 2023 compared to 2022 from my SG Dividend Portfolio, and due to the slight increase in tutoring income in 2023 after pushing myself to work 7 days a week for the second half of the year.  As such, I think it is time to take a break and pamper myself a little, and also take this opportunity to bring my mum and aunt together to my favourite future retirement destination.  This is their first trip to Bangkok (they had been to Chiang Mai, Phuket and Hat Yai), so I have to do the planning upfront to bring them to do some sight-seeing and enjoy some great food not to be missed, while keeping in mind to minimize walking during the trip. It was a 4 day 3 night trip, and we arrived at Don Mueang International Airport in the early afternoon.  We took a grab ride to our hotel, Trinity Silom Hotel, close to Chon...

As a dividend investor, I have been slowly accumulating shares in REITs and dividend shares to grow the annual dividend income since late 2017.  I am blessed and contented with the performance thus far, as the total dividends received annually continues to grow, despite hiccups along the way.  First major hiccup along the way is in 2020, where the strike of the pandemic and the circuit breaker hit businesses and some REITs in a huge way, resulting in cuts in dividends.  The second major hiccup recently will be in 2022 where the FED suddenly hike interest rates at rocket speed, and that created financial stress on REITs, which inevitably resulted in the drop in distributions by most REITs to varying degree.  Thankfully, with the slight diversification into other dividend-paying shares, they helped to mitigate the decline, and allowed my portfolio to experience dividend growth year-on-year. This year, on 23rd February 2024, Hong Leong Finance (HLF) reported their earni...