~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This will be a relatively short post, just to update on the transactions for the month. For the month of April, it is a gloomy month.  The CPI for March is hotter than expected, and that is the third consecutive month where CPI was buck the desirable trend and went upwards.  On the other hand, PPI was a tad more subdued, and PMI released recently showed signs of weakness in demand.  One main worry was the intensification of the war in the Middle East, which was bad for inflation numbers due to the war's impact on the price of oil.  In the wee hours of 13th April 2024, Iran began their retaliatory attacks on Israel through drones and missiles.  Thankfully all drones and missiles were intercepted and no casualties are reported.  Less than a week later, Israel also fired back in a limited retaliatory strike. Thankfully, it seems like both sides are halting further moves for now, and the tension seems to be defusing in the near term.  I sincerely hope th...

This is going to be a short post just to share that my aim to rebalance my portfolio has failed.  As shared in previous post , I have planned to rebalance my portfolio to lower the percentage of REITs, and increase the percentage of non-REITs.  That would be done by keeping the amount of REITs I hold in my portfolio unchanged, and adding more non-REITs into my portfolio, namely United Overseas Bank (UOB) and Development Bank of Singapore (DBS).   As shared previously, I hope to add shares of UOB into my portfolio below SGD 29.00 before XD, so I can benefit from the 6% dividend yield.  However, when my cash is ready, the share price has already propelled to above SGD 30.00!  When I consoled myself that I may have another opportunity after XD to add more shares below SGD 29.00, reality slapped me in the face as UOB's share price shot up above SGD 31.00 just two days before XD.  This probably mean that not only did I missed out on more dividends, I am als...

Recently in Malaysia, one middle age man was lured into a gold investment scheme, where he was promised an incredulous 10% return every hour!  Without a doubt, it turns out to be a scam and he lost MYR 570K (you can watch the news here ).  This is a huge sum of money for the average person on the street, and losing it is definitely impactful to one's livelihood, especially if one is near retirement years.  So why did such scams succeed?  Short answer: greed. As the saying goes, when something is too good to be true, it probably is.  So why are there still pockets of individuals falling into such scams, especially when the returns sound so ridiculously high, which is probably a red flag?  This could probably due to the recent rocketing prices of commodities like gold, bitcoin and cocoa.  For gold, the price has risen by about 12.7% (in SGD terms), and cocoa prices has rocketed by 34.2% in the past one month! Personally, I did buy physical gold at the st...

Recently in a Telegram group, I come across a debate between Kyith from Investment Moats and a reader, where the reader claims that as long as his portfolio is made up dividend stocks with good dividend growth through the years, he can just live off the dividends with the total capital left intact, while Kyith on the other hand, supports the idea of Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR).  The reader claims that he would not want to sell any part of his portfolio, and just having to live off the dividends makes dividend investing superior to the withdrawal method, while Kyith explains that the reader's perspectives show a lack of understanding of how the SWR method actually works. After reading the long string of exchanges in the telegram group, I decided to pen this post.  Personally, I am definitely a supporter of the dividend investing group, and I also believe, and strives towards just living off dividend income upon FIRE.  From a dividend income investor perspective, the idealis...

In the latest CPI report by Singapore Department of Statistics, core inflation rose by 3.6% year-on-year, and 0.5% month-on-month.  For a more visually appealing statistics to see what affect individuals most, we can refer to the diagram below released by Singapore Department of Statistics: For singles like me, I would like to think my expenses are relatively low, because I do not own a car, I do not take grabs or taxis in Singapore, only travel via bus, MRT and walking.  My main expenses lies with dining, utilities, mortgage, household items replacement and healthcare.  However, with the recent increase in GST, it is clearly making everything a tad more pricey.  The price of many food items have risen by approximately 10-20%, and even bus and MRT fares, have risen by 10%.  In a bid to deal with inflation, I checked with ChatGBT to find out how a Malaysian (SPR) like me staying in Singapore can find alternatives and ways to deal with inflation. The following is ...