~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

So, the time has arrived for me to settle the refinancing of my mortgage loan.  Kindly note that this is not a sponsored post, and the companies and parties mentioned below are involved in assisting me with the application process and completion of the refinancing procedure. My last mortgage loan is with Hong Leong Finance (and yes, I am a shareholder), which started in October 2022.  It was a 2-year fixed rate loan where I enjoy an interest rate of 1.4% in the first year, and 1.5% in the second year.  I was relatively fortunate, because I started looking around for mortgage packages since April 2022, before the crazy propelling of interest rates began, and thankfully, although I was a couple of months too early, Hong Leong Finance was able to lock in the rates for me till my previous lock in period ceased.  As such, I am able to enjoy the lower rates with peace of mind when the interest rates were crazily high in 2023 and most of 2024.  However all good things ...

Recently I watched this video on " 29 years old and already $250,000 in debt ".  The video discuss the investing climate in South Korea, especially amongst the younger retail investors aged 20s to 30s.  Based on the video, studies have shown that the investing mentality in the younger Koreans are geared towards 'gambling mindset' instead of investing.   Many of the Koreans in the 20s are 30s are dabbling in cryptocurrencies and penny stocks.  Do not get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with these investment vehicles, but the main problem lies with them investing with leverage, and getting loans to 'invest'.  This is a big red flag in investing.  Borrowing money to invest is very dangerous because equities are volatile, more so for cryptocurrencies and penny stocks.  Although volatility creates opportunities for traders, but it remains as a double edged sword, either you "go big, or go home".  Once the investments do not go in the direction on...

After dabbling with investing for more than a decade now, I have the following thought of property versus portfolio, and wonder how things will turn out if I have done things differently.  Before I begin, kindly note that all perspectives below are my personal viewpoints, which may be biased and have limited scope, and caters to my personal circumstances of being a single Singapore Permanent Resident and is unable to purchase HDB flat of any kind, hence only able to consider private property.  Do perform your own due diligence. Is it better to build up a dividend portfolio first and then use dividend income generated to save up for the down-payment for a residential property, and subsequently use the dividends to pay for the monthly instalments of the property, or will it be better to buy the residential property as early as possible before building a dividend portfolio? Personally, I did the latter.  One important thing to note here is that the main purpose of the priva...

In mid April, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) paused its monetary tightening policy and maintained the current rate of appreciation of the Singapore dollar.  This meant that MAS will not strengthened the Singapore dollar further to tame inflation, in a bid to defend the slowly economy, which is facing a deeper risk of slowdown.  This is supported by advance estimates which showed that the Singapore economy just grew by 0.1% year-on-year in the first quarter, a sharp decline from the 2.1% growth in the previous quarter.  On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted basis, the Singapore economy shrank by 0.7% in the first 3 months of 2023.  This means that if the Singapore economy decline again in the second quarter of 2023, Singapore will be in a technical recession. MAS believe the above policy is justified because while inflation still remains elevated currently, data shows that core inflation will continue to fall in time to come as the 5 successive moneta...

With the recent financial turmoil on-going, which includes (but not limited to) high interest rates, high inflation, shrinkflation, bank failures, company bankruptcies, mass layoffs etc, it further reminds us the importance of being financially prudent, and be responsible towards our personal finances.  This is highlighted recently by the Channel News Asia Talking Point program on " Millennials & Gen-Z: Young and In Debt.  Why? "  In order to be financially prudent and responsible, protective measures need to be in place to help us tide through any emergencies and unforeseen circumstances.  As such, I think it is crucial for me, and for anyone interested at this juncture, to relook into our personal finances to evaluate how satisfactory our financial safety net is, so as to ensure that we are on the sustainable financial journey. The base level is the 'Protection of Income'.  This, in my definition, includes insurance and emergency funds.  For myself, a...

Other than REITs, banks are definitely the next top choice for Dividend Investing in SGX.  This is especially so in the current rising rates environment, where the banks and financial institutions may get to benefit from the higher rates.  The top 3 local banks are Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), United Overseas Bank (UOB) and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC).  Being a “traditional” dividend investor (in the SGX market), I would like to have all my shares kept under my name in my CDP account, thus I did all my buy and sell via Lim and Tan Brokerage for my Singapore shares instead of the popular low cost brokerages out there like Moo moo, Tiger or Interactive Brokers (but I am using them for US shares).   What this means is, the minimum number of shares I need to buy is 100 shares for every order.  With share prices of DBS, UOB and OCBC at approximately SGD 26.40, SGD 27.43 and SGD 12.93 at the beginning of 2018, my top choice based on afforda...

To start things off, kindly note that I am no expert in property, neither am I good in investing in properties.  This is just a sharing of my personal opinion, so if anyone intends to invest in Malaysia properties, kindly do your own due diligence.  For heads up, I am a Malaysian.  Hence, I am not restricted to certain policies that foreigners have to adhere to when buying properties in Malaysia.  However, to make this discussion fair and as unbiased as possible, I will be discussing the following points from the perspectives of a Singaporean/ foreigner who currently owns a property or multiple properties in Malaysia. I decided to write about this topic because I am in a Whatsapp group together with many other Singaporeans who have bought a property in the same project in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.  A couple of them has expressed their concern with the depreciating Malaysia Ringgit (MYR) against the Singapore Dollar (SGD), and are worried about the outcome of their...

As we enter the month of July, the FED continues to be hawkish towards the raising of interest rates.  I am also adversely affected as closer to home, the mortgage rates in Singapore has risen with no ceiling in sight for the past year.  Since August 2021, 3-month sibor rates has increased more than 4.4 times from 0.43% to 1.91% in July 2022, while just within the past one month, we saw the steepest increase from 1.34% to 1.91%, an alarming 40% jump.  With this increase, one can't help but wonder when is the peak going to be? The whole situation is definitely aggravated by the newly released June CPI numbers in US, where inflation comes in at a red hot 9.1%!  This probably pushes the FED further into the corner, and I am no longer surprise if they intend to raise interest rates in July by 0.75%, or even by 1.0%!  When all seems doom and  gloom, one thing to note is the fact that this CPI data is backward looking.  The current ray of hope presents itse...