Reflections For 2024- What I Have Achieved This Year And What I Hope To Achieve In 2025?

One of the biggest perks of blogging is I can easily look back at previous posts and compare which are the goals I have successfully achieved and which has fallen behind.  In this second last post of 2024, I will like to reflect upon 2024, and compare with what I had written in this post one year ago to assess my achievements.

1)     Changes To The Way I Manage My US Growth Portfolio

The first point proved to be a failure, not because I failed to execute the change, but this whole idea to change the way I manage my US Growth Portfolio proved to be a failure.  In my wish-list, I hope I can try to do a little timing of the market to partially sell some shares when they reach all time high.  Just one month later in February 2024, I posted how this idea became a huge mistake.  Another event to slap myself is to sell half of my US Growth Portfolio in late October to return the investments to my family.  This caused my family to miss out of a low 5 digit returns if I have held on till end of the year.  Indeed, in 2024 alone, the S&P 500 index (or VOO ETF that I bought) has already hit about 56 all time highs, which is just amazing and something beyond imagination at the start of the year.  This just once again proves that time in the market beats timing the market any time.  Hope I learn from my mistake and stop the trading mentality, and just let the winners run.

2)     Hitting Basic Healthcare Sum (BHS) And Hitting A New Milestone: Basic Retirement Sum (BRS)

I first achieved the BHS in late 2023.  Since then, it has been relatively easy for me to continue hitting the new BHS yearly as I am still working and still contributing to my Central Provident Fund (CPF) Medisave Account (MA) to fulfill my Medisave liability.  In 2025, BHS is going to increase once again, and I believe I should be able to hit the new BHS once again soon.

One happy event in 2024 is that I have finally reached the first milestone towards retirement, hitting the BRS, which stands at SGD 102,900.00 in 2024, and will continue to increase annually (BRS is SGD 106,500.00 in 2025, and this 3.5% increment should be easily covered and achievable by the 4% interest earned in SA).  This is achievable because of my continuous contribution towards CPF, and more importantly, it is due to the 'supercharging' made possible after hitting BHS.  This is because with the BHS in place, all the contribution within the year meant for MA will flow into Special Account (SA), thus increasing the direct contribution towards SA significantly.  One small step towards financial independence checked, and slowly progressing towards FRS.

3)     Including Gold Into My Portfolio

It is funny how irrational markets can be.  At the start of 2024, spot price of gold has hit about SGD 2,750.00 per troy ounce, which was at a 52-week high and close to all time high at that time.  I was hesitant to buy at that time, but thankfully when I was travelling in Bangkok one week later, the price of gold retreated very slightly and I decided to take the plunge and buy 1 troy ounce of gold bar from BullionStar (and receive a free troy ounce of silver coin).  Fast forward to December 2024, the spot price of gold is now hovering around SGD 3,550.00 per troy ounce, which is an alarming 29% higher than the time I bought the bar.  This is a high jump for an asset that does not produce income or growth.  Although gold just occupies a very small percentage of my portfolio, but the high price in gold once again is making me very hesitant to buy my next troy ounce of gold in 2025 unless price of gold dips further.  How this will play out depends on how the price moves in time to come, and I will update via the blog again if I decide to buy my next ounce of gold bar again.

4)     FED Pivot

The long awaited FED pivot did happen in September 2024, and it did help to propel the price of REITs to short-term highs!  However, a couple of weeks later, the price of REITs resumed their downtrend due to Trump winning the US Presidential elections, whose policies were regarded as inflationary.  This brought the worries of inflation back into the markets, and the 10-year treasury yields rose back to above 4% and crept close to 4.5%.  This exerted huge pressure to the price of REITs and the REITs are once again back in the doldrums.  At this juncture, I am just happy that my portfolio is sufficiently diversified and the profits in banks and US Growth Portfolio are sufficient to mitigate the losses in REITs, propping up the market value of my entire portfolio.

5)     Bring My Mum To More Places She Wants To Go

This year is a mega year for travels.  I brought my mum to 3 countries this year, to Bangkok together with my aunt in January, to Japan in May and to China in November!  These trips have been quite an adventure, and looking back, there are indeed many precious memories that have been created in these trips.  Hoping for more new adventures in 2025!

6)     My Portfolio

At the start of 2024, I had set the goal of achieving an annual dividend target of SGD 26K, and my portfolio value to exceed SGD 550K by the end of 2024.  I am excited to announce that I have achieved, and exceeded both my goals, as the annual dividends collected for 2024 hits above SGD 28K (details shared in my quarterly update) and the portfolio value has exceeded SGD 550K, hitting SGD 625.7K at the end of 2024!

In conclusion, I am glad that this year has been a great year for my portfolio, and for my travel adventures with my mum!  Wishing that 2025 be a better year ahead, hoping that I can continue to diversify my SG Dividend Portfolio and increase the allocation to the non-REITs, achieve an annual dividend target of SGD 30K, and portfolio value to exceed SGD 675K by the end of 2025!  Barista FIRE, here I come...!