Life and Finance

Dividends CDL Hospitality Trusts: $40.96 CapitaLand Mall Trust: $11.60 Nikko AM STI ETF: $40.89 Singtel: $58.80  Total dividends so far in 2018: $152.25 Average dividends per month: $12.69 Current Portfolio Stock Shares Current Market Value (Based on closing prices on 9/3/18) Total Paper   Return(dividends and capital gains/losses)  CapitaLand Mall Trust 1000 $2020.00  +$86.89 CDL Hospitality Trusts 800 $1344.00 +$335.06 Singtel 600 $2016.00 -$159.20 Nikko AM STI ETF 686 $2420.55 +$430.73  $7800.55  +$693.48 Update:  Purchased 600 shares of CapitaLand Mall Trust at $1.98 on 14/2/18, therefore increasing the total shares owned to 1000.  Overall Portfolio Value increased by $916.18 as compared to the  previous Portfolio Update , mainly due to purchase of CapitaLand M...

In October last year, I tabulated my investing portfolio for the first time and wrote about it here:  My portfolio at 23 years old . I started investing because I wanted better returns on my extra cash(it's not the cash in my emergency funds) than just leaving it inside the bank account while I was going to be in National Service. I did not start investing because I wanted dividend income but as I read on, I was inspired by the financial bloggers in Singapore. So how much did I receive for 2017?  CDL Hospitality Trusts: $66.10  CapitaMall Trust: $44.56  Nikko AM STI ETF: $46.35  Total dividends: $157.01 Average dividends per month: $13.08 The dividends are currently kept in my CIMB FastSaver bank account with 1% p.a. I will be buying the Singapore Savings Bonds (fully backed by the Singapore government) with the dividends along with some of my emergency cash to obtain a slightly higher return while still maintaining flexibility.  Scr...

It has been a little over 2 years ago that I started reading into stocks and bought a few stocks. As a university student now, I lack the financial capital as before and priorities are now different. As such, I don't find myself trying to read as much as before, but I'm glad the habit of reading the posts on thefinance.sg has stuck with me.  So these are my current stocks:  Stock Shares Current Market Value  (19/10/2017)  Return (dividends and capital gains/loss)  CDL Hospitality Trusts 800 $1296.00 +$255.30  CapitaMall Trust 400 $820.00 +$75.44 Singtel 600 $2250.00 +$26.00 Nikko AM STI ETF 686 $2369.03 +$342.32 $6735.03 $699.06 Individual Stocks So long as I felt that the new growth engines were reasonable, a PB ratio that was lower than 1 and the companies could afford to pay or reservice debt, I bought it. An e...

About 1.5 years ago, I signed up for Japanese language classes. Due to NS, I could only commit weekly classes but I was always looking forward to the class on the weekend.  In April this year, I went to Japan. No, you don't have to actually learn Japanese to get around in Japan. That was not my real purpose in learning Japanese. Instead, I wanted to learn something new and exciting to get over the mundane routine in NS. I also viewed it as building resilience as attitude to learning is always the biggest factor.  Some Japanese was still necessary if you do not want to use Google Translate, especially in the suburbs of Kyoto. In an unfortunate situation, I did use it when my friend lost his wallet but I couldn't catch up with the native speaker's speed. The wallet was found eventually and every single yen was accounted. There had been very honest and upright staff. Kudos!  In July, I took the most basic proficiency exam (JLPT N5) and while it was a very easy c...

When we were asked what we look forward to in the new year, all of us (NSFs) in the unit replied in unison, "ORD!".  The first month is coming to an end soon. It's been also a year since I started this blog and tracked my finances. In that process, one observation was clear.  Your career is the single most important source of building wealth We are told by our parents to study hard and get a degree. Nobody says getting a degree guarantees will give you high income, but nobody is going to deny the fact that working for $1000 isn't a lot and not going to bring you much savings, let alone to do investments.  While I have been saving diligently from the NS allowance I'm getting now, it does feel painfully slow relying on just one, small stream of income. My friend crafted leather goods, puts it up for sale and it is now another stream of income other than the NS allowance. That will boost his savings and give him more money for investments, provided he does ...

*Apologies to everyone who read double. I have made a serious mistake of leaving the other 1st draft inside the post. It's now corrected." 2017 is coming in a little less than 1 month! Hence, it's time for a reflection to see how I fared throughout 2016. It's also time to take stock of all my growing up years and plan ahead for 2017.  On human capital, In 2016, nothing has changed.I graduated from polytechnic in 2015 and I have less than a year now to completing my National Service. I have been thinking about furthering my studies and it's an answer that I am still unclear of even after a year into NS. Do I apply for full-time university or join the grind and study part-time? To be honest, I won't have to face this dilemma if my grades were good enough for full-time NUS or NTU. I believe a few other factors hold me back from even trying for the other university,  SIT.  The age factor is always at the back of my mind. I'll be more than 25 years old...

Meet Kinokuniya and Books Depository.  The former has physical brick-and-mortar and online stores while the latter is solely an online retailer.  For all the book lovers out there, I am sure these are some of the places we go in order to satisfy our book cravings. Kinokuniya was where I picked up my first book on investing. I summarised some of my thoughts on that book here . Since then, I have bought at least 6 other books on investment and other genres that cost at least $200 in total from Kinokuniya.  Book lovers should also know that Kinokuniya is not the cheapest for pricing. I came to know Books Depository  recently, and boy is there a huge difference in price.  Let's compare an investment book, say  Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings.  On Books Depository : $18.56, original price: $30.03  On Kinokuniya : $37.40, member's price: $33.66    If we are to compare prices only, then we h...