~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

When I first joined a Telegram discussion group focused on dividend investing, I was looking for an environment with like-minded investors where insights, strategies, and real-world experiences are widely shared from fellow investors.  While I had a basic understanding of dividend investing, engaging in discussions with very much more experienced individuals exposed me to deeper perspectives and valuable lessons that are shaping my investment philosophy. Through my participation, I have come to embrace three key principles:  1)     The importance of staying invested rather than frequently trading; 2)     Managing portfolio allocation wisely to mitigate risks;  3)     Maintaining a calm and patient mindset while enjoying the rewards of dividends.  These lessons have helped me refine my investment approach and reinforce my confidence as a dividend investor. 1)      Do Not Buy and Sell Shares Frequently: Time...

This is not really a post on personal finances or sharing of any little financial knowledge I had.  Instead, this is just a personal record of my current life journey, on how I choose to view the small hiccups in life positively and make changes to my life. The past couple of years have not been great for my health.  In the pursuit of FIRE, especially after Covid, I began to work choose to work 7 days a week, though just for a couple of hours of work daily.  However, with no full day of rest, I find that I have gotten more unhealthy (in terms of dining and lifestyle), and it started to show.  To make matters worse, things got tougher on the work front too.  Due to the large number of students graduating by November 2024, it has been hard for me to get new students to fill up the slots since the end of last year.  This meant my working hours per week have dropped drastically since November and December 2024 (and evidently, I did not get many new students in ...

This month marks the end of the 1st quarter of 2025.  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.  This month is a gloomy month for US markets.  The tariffs and count...

Investing in blue-chip companies, especially those that are state-owned like Keppel Corporation and CapitaLand, or those controlled by billionaires like Mr Kwek Leng Beng (Hong Leong Group) and Robert Kuok (Wilmar, Shangri-La), is often perceived as a safe bet.  At least to me personally, I think that generally they provide a basic safety net, as the management of these companies are supposedly much more capable than myself in the operations and management of these companies, therefore it should be quite safe to invest my monies in them, and let them help me generate more returns from my capital invested, especially when many of these companies are typically well-established, financially sound, and possess strong market dominance.  However, history tells us that investing in such entities may not always equate to safe investments.  In Singapore, we have "once-upon-a-time" stated-owned listed companies like Noble and Singapore Press Holdings that ended up delisted, and mor...

This is my third time writing on this topic, so it shows I have been 'scammed' by the fake rally twice prior, the first time back in December 2023 and the second time in September 2024 .  Around 10th March 2025, REITs started staging its third rebound, with the CFA ETF up 4.2% within one week.  So will this uptrend finally last, and does it mean that I have made the wrong decision to rebalance my portfolio previously by selling part of my REITs allocation to buy banks? Frankly speaking, I have no crystal ball to foresee whether the rally will last, but personally, I think it may turn out to be short-lived as well (although I hope I am wrong once again).  While the recent drop in the 10-year yield might seem like a positive catalyst for REITs, it is important to consider the underlying reason behind it.  The decline in yields is possibly largely driven by a "flock to safety" from investors who fear an impending recession due to escalating trade tensions and tariffs i...

After discussing about how I perceive mini-Retirements in my previous post , and looking at my current circumstances and regrets in my financial journey, I find that time is actually one of the most critical factor in personal finance.  The way one manages financial decisions early in life can significantly impact financial security in later years.  Whether it is leveraging the power of compounding interest, tackling debt before it spirals out of control, or making smart investments, time can either be an ally or an adversary.  Below are some key examples of personal experiences of how time plays a crucial role in financial well-being. 1)      Early Central Provident Fund (CPF) Contributions: The Power Of Compounding Interest One of the best financial moves a young working adult in Singapore can make is to aggressively contribute to their CPF accounts, particularly the Special Account (SA), as early as possible.  I came to realize this only recently ...

In recent years, the concept of mini-retirements has gained traction, particularly among younger Millennials and Generation Zs, as discussed in this recent report .  Rather than following the traditional path of working continuously until retirement, they take extended breaks (sometimes months or years) to travel, pursue hobbies, or simply enjoy life.  These young professionals see mini-retirements as a way to avoid burnout, gain new perspectives, and enjoy life while young.  While this idea sounds appealing, my perspective as a 40-year-old working towards Barista FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) in Singapore is a bit more nuanced, as challenges like financial planning remain key considerations.  For a start, I would like to conclude that I personally prefer a more aggressive attitude towards work in my twenties and early thirties, and transit towards a more work-life balanced approach in my late thirties and early forties (which is my current state), foll...

This will be a relatively short post, just to update on the transactions for the month. For the month of February, it remains a rather volatile month.  The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January has once again risen year over year and even month over month.  This showed how sticky inflation is going to be moving forward, and has thus caused the 10 year treasury yield to spike up above 4.5% once again.  This has been unkind to many REITs, which experienced continual decline in prices, some going even lower than the Covid times.   Nothing much this month, except my regrets from the sale of Palantir last month.  It was definitely painful to watch its price rocketing through USD 100 to above USD 120, but I can only console myself with my reasons for selling at that time.  The sale proceeds were diverted to Microsoft and Google, and also 2 new ETFs, namely Vanguard Value Index Fund ETF (VTV) and iShares China Large-Cap ETF (FXI).  Microsoft and Google...

Recently, I have just completed reading Morgan Housel's "The Psychology of Money", and finally digested some of the contents within the book, which are valuable lessons that can further help me improve in my journey towards achieving Barista FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early).  For those unfamiliar, Barista FIRE is about having enough passive income to cover your basic needs, while working part-time to maintain a balanced, fulfilling lifestyle.  It is about finding financial freedom without retiring completely.   Living in Singapore currently, with its increasing cost of living, this goal can feel challenging (that is why returning back to Malaysia for retirement is always in my mind, and I am definitely working towards that too).  Thankfully, some of the lessons from this book have molded my approach towards dealing with money more conscientiously and live life fully within my means.  Below are some of the key things I learnt and how they have gui...

Dividend investing is a popular strategy among investors in Singapore, particularly for those seeking a steady income stream, me included.  However, focusing solely on high dividend yields can lead to poor investment outcomes.  In this post, I shall remind myself why solely focusing on chasing high dividend yields without other considerations and analyses can be risky, and highlight some examples of Singapore-listed stocks that once paid high dividends but consequently experienced declining share prices, resulting in a non-favourable investment. For a start, it will be good to understand that dividend yield is calculated as such: Therefore, a high dividend yield can be a result of high annual dividends per share, or low current share price, or both.  To me, a high dividend yield is anything above 8%.  Kindly note that this yield is just a number that I generated randomly since I started investing (I do not have any financial rationale or formula to generate this yie...

This is going to be a relatively short post, as a personal record to pen down a new achievement I have unlocked. I have started investing and trading since 2010, but without any systematic methodology.  It took many years of hits and misses, buy high sell low, fear of missing out and buying based on hearsay and selling on news out of fear, before I finally decided to revamp my investing methodology and stick to it religiously.  The pivoting point began at the end of 2017, when I decided that dividend investing is the path for me to take.  It is not a path or strategy suitable for everyone, and I understand that there are many naysayers of dividend investing.  However for myself, I appreciate the beauty of dividend investing and it is definitely the method that suits my personality and lifestyle. After the pivot, I started recording the dividends collected from my SG Dividend Portfolio since January 2018.  It has been a slow but steady journey.  After embark...

This will be a relatively short post, just to update on the transactions for the month. For the month of January, it is a rather volatile month.  The first half of the month was the extension of the mood back in December which was rather pessimistic.  The main reason lies with the worries of sticky inflation stemming from potential policies to be implemented by incoming US President Donald Trump.  This was worsen by the December US Payrolls, which grew by 256K, exceeding expectations by a huge margin.  In this period, good news is bad news, as the strength of the US economy means that the FED has no reason to cut interest rates in 2025 in the face of possibly looming reignition of inflation.  This is clearly shown in the bond market as the 10-year treasury yields shot up above 4.75% and reached a high of 4.817%.  All these caused the markets to pivot and began its downward movement.  Thankfully after the release of the Producer Price Index (PPI) and C...