~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

When other investors first look at my dividend portfolio, one question seems to come up more often than any other.  Why is Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), and not Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), my largest holding?  After all, DBS is widely regarded as Singapore's premier bank.  It consistently delivers strong earnings, generous dividends and has rewarded shareholders exceptionally well over the years.  It would seem natural for DBS to occupy the largest position in a dividend portfolio. Yet today, OCBC accounts for approximately 21% of my portfolio, taking up the top allocation while DBS makes up around 14% in second place.  The answer has very little to do with predicting which bank would perform better.  Instead, it reflects my own investing journey, one that began with a simple misconception shared by many new investors. My Investing Journey Began with Share Price, Not Valuation When I started building my dividend portfolio in end of...

One of the questions I see many financial bloggers and "fin-fluencers" talk about frequently on social media is "How much money is enough to retire"?  Some people swear by the 4% rule, which is a good gauge for a start, or even 3% rule for more conservative investors.  Others say you need SGD 2 million or even SGD 3 million before you can sleep peacefully at night. As for me, I have never been fixated on a particular net worth.  My goal has always been much simpler.  Build a portfolio that generates enough reliable dividend income to fund my everyday life (anything that generates an annual dividend that is 1.2 to 1.5 times annual expenses is a great safety net according to my previous writeup .)  If my portfolio eventually reaches SGD 1 million, then perhaps that becomes my finish line, not because SGD 1 million is a magical number, but because I believe it represents a portfolio that is resilient enough to weather life's inevitable financial storms. As I look t...

One thing I have learned from investing is that nobody knows where the next crisis will come from. Every crisis feels different while it is happening.  The headlines are different, the causes are different, the fear is different.  Yet when I look back at history, I notice that the lessons are often surprisingly similar.  Markets panic, asset prices collapse, people become fearful, and eventually, life moves on.  As investors, we do not get rewarded for accurately predicting every crisis.  We get rewarded for surviving long enough to benefit from the recovery. That is why I find it useful to study past crises, not because I think the next crisis will look exactly the same, but because understanding how previous generations navigated difficult times can help me better prepare my portfolio, my finances, and my lifestyle for whatever comes next. When I look back over the last few decades, four major crises stand out: the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the 2000 Dot-...

When I was younger, I never viewed Central Provident Fund (CPF) very positively.  Like many Singaporeans and PRs, I saw it mainly as restricted money.  It was money deducted every month from salary, locked away for decades, and inaccessible during the years when financial pressure felt the heaviest.  At that stage of life, CPF did not feel empowering.  It felt limiting.   However somewhere in my late 30s and early 40s, my thinking about money changed quite significantly.  I stopped viewing investing mainly through the lens of maximizing returns.  Instead, I started thinking much more about stability, future vulnerability and long-term survival, basically, managing an entire portfolio as a whole.  Aging changes financial psychology very deeply.  Once parents grow older, healthcare risks become more visible, and retirement starts feeling real rather than theoretical, stability suddenly becomes extremely valuable.  That was when I slo...

This post is just for personal reference, to record my personal income and expenses in my journey towards Barista FIRE. For the month of June, nothing special happened.  It was just a normal month, with normal expenses.  The only event that will impact my finances partially is the end of lease for my tenant in Johor, and he will be moving to KL for other work opportunities.  This meant that my unit will be empty again, and I will rely on my agent to help me seek another tenant as soon as possible so that healthy cashflow returns for my finances in Malaysia.   In addition, I would like to praise my home country, Malaysia, as quite a few improvements have been implemented recently which made my life easier.  One of them is I am now able to renew my driving license via online app.  So this saves me time and eliminates the need for me to travel back to Johor UTC to queue and renew.  This month will be the Johor State Elections.  I should return...

This month marks the end of the 2nd 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 consumers.  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 portfolio....

When I was younger, I used to think traveling was a waste of money, not because I hated traveling.  It was simply how I grew up.  I came from a single-income family in Malaysia.  My father was the sole breadwinner.  My mother was a full-time homemaker taking care of my brother and myself, and also caring for my father’s elderly parents.  Money always had to be used carefully. There was no concept of luxury holidays in my childhood.  No yearly overseas trips.  No airport excitement during school holidays.  No “family vacation” culture like what many middle-class families experience today. On top of financial limitations, my paternal grandmother was afraid of taking flights due to motion sickness.  Therefore, my family never travelled overseas together throughout my childhood and teenage years.  To me, traveling simply did not feel like a normal part of life. Growing up in that environment shaped how I viewed money very strongly.  ...

**Disclaimer:  This post is written with the help of AI, because as a total technology-noob, I do not have the insights to AI development.  As such, much information in this post is gathered with the help of AI. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The AI gold rush has created a strange divide in the investing world. On one side are the American monsters.  Alphabet, NVIDIA, Micron Technology, Microsoft.  These are some of the companies that are leading the AI arms race.  Their revenues are exploding.  Their valuations are astronomical.  Their capital expenditure plans are now measured in hundreds of billions.  Goldman estimates hyperscaler AI capex could hit US$755 billion in 2026 alone, up sharply year-on-year, with much of operating cash flow now redirected toward infrastructure rather than shareholder payouts. On the other side sit traditional dividend investors.  People like myself, buying banks, utilities, ...

Over the years, my Singapore dividend portfolio has slowly evolved into something more structured and intentional.  It is no longer just a random collection of high-yield stocks bought simply because they looked cheap or offered attractive dividends.  Instead, my portfolio today resembles a Qing Dynasty imperial harem ( 后宫 ) hierarchy.  Yes, this link is made because I am an absolute fan of the drama 后宫甄嬛传, even till today. This may sound ridiculous, but surprisingly, this framework actually helps me think clearly about: Conviction levels and portfolio weight Portfolio importance and risk management Dividend reliability and cash flow sustainability Capital allocation priorities (who gets my fresh cash) Promotion and demotion of holdings over time Not every stock deserves to become the Empress ( 皇后 ).  Not every stock deserves permanent favor. Some generate stable heirs (dividends), some stabilize the empire during difficult macro times, some are ...