Monthly Expense: 2021 January

Finally my favorite day of the month! Where I compile my expenses and match them to the forecast and see how in-line I am. This month is a good month for expenses even though I restarted working in the office, I'm actually back to a low compared to the last 6 months. 

Expense 2021 ~Jan 

Special highlights for specific categories..

Food&Groceries

This low figure actually surprised me.. considering my food usually averages around ~SGD1k especially that I need to eat out for lunch working in the office. However, I can expect late next month for my expense in this category to shoot up a little considering that I've been subsidizing my grocery fees with the government-given vouchers.. been using SGD30~40 every weekend. I still have some left for probably the first two weeks of Feb and we can expect to see the expense start crawling up.

Transportation expense is non-negotiable.. however, I always give a little buffer in case I need to take Grab or cab.. 

The rest of the expenses stay pretty low.. starting the year good.. and I've actually shopped quite a fair bit so this year I don't really have much to splurge on.

Cheers~ And looking forward to a good Feb!

GameStop (GME) - What's happening? It's a war!

I've actually decided to write on this topic at 4AM today.. but I prioritized my sleep and decided to do it after. This morning I saw that Seedly wrote on GME as well and it's quite extensive.. so if you want more info, do look up here. 

I was actually losing my sleep over a paper loss of 30% on GME as I jumped in the train a little too high without knowing the stories.. and this is after some effort of averaging it down to make it more bearable.. however, last night's rally put me back neutral as I limit sell my position slightly above cost. I will be lying if I said that I don't regret selling there but then again I am glad I walked away from there in one piece. 

Backstory

I hopped on to the band wagon to do some trend trading seeing the volatile in GME on Monday.. earned some fast cash on that day.. and saw it rallied past 150.. my itchy hand had the better control over my rational brain and it touched 159 briefly and came down. I tried my best to average down and ended the day with paper loss over 30%.. which was quite stressful. 

GME War

I went on to read what started all these in the subreddit of r/WarStreetBets and it helped me through the tough day seeing how supportive the crowds are. 

So long story short.. what started all these was hedgies were shorting the hell out of GME because they can.. while shorting you borrow stocks that you don't have to sell but you incur a borrowing cost. As of latest figures, we are seeing outstanding of ~138% of the overall stocks being shorted around USD20. One of the two prominent hedgies that are aggressive is Melvin Capital who have lost 1/3 of his AUM of USD12.5bn since the year start (many speculate is because of GME's movement on Friday). Which led to him getting bailed out by his old boss at Citadel for a USD2.75bn bail out (including Point 72's 750mio). 

Where are we now?

GME closed at 147.98 (92.71% up on the day) and this is a whooping 685.46% up YTD. Many of the soldiers in WSB are looking at USD 4XX as a target.. but while many hold a meme optimism at USD1k. This is really interesting to see how it pans out especially since the big squeeze has yet to arrive considering that Melvin Capital gotten more capital to cover their bleeding~ 

I currently stand as a proud WSB soldier with ready-capital to buy the dip and hold for the team there! Won't be touching it if it continues rallying, but I will be glad for my fellow WSB who put in every single cents they can afford. Do look over to their reddit.. it is really supportive if you're bleeding on paper loss (which is unlikely at this point of time). 

While many people seems to say one thing.. pls be careful that what they write might not be actually true but then again I wouldn't call this a "Pump & Dump" strategy.. as authorities aren't clamping them down.. and there're many valid reasoning behind this. I will continue helping the team over WSB with my small capital when needed because I like GameStop and by all means, this article is not a financial recommendation/advisory. 

Interesting Highlights

Personally I feel that retail won't have the capability to win institutions usually.. but the hedgies have the cards stacked against them and this is a global movement with many strong support. 

Michael Burry (star of the big-short movie)'s Scion Asset Management owns 1.7million shares at end of Sept 2020 which ballooned from 17mio to 250mio as of Tuesday close, putting it a 1400% up in 4 months. 

Elon Musk tweeted "Gamestonkk!!" along with WSB's reddit link which helped GME jump further in after-hours trading.

Chamath Palihapitiya (billionaire investor) asked in Twitter for stocks recommendation, and if anyone convinced him.. he will dump a few hundred Ks into it.. while many from WSB try to convince him to bet on GME, the main pusher I guess was when Reddit's owner tweeted for the push! He ended up buying 50 Call options on GME with 19 Feb expiry and a strike of USD115 when the price was floating around USD90.. this puts the purchase around $125k... but seeing the stock so strong now.. he is definitely in a lot of profit. 

Screenshots

I will try to share some screenshots that got me through and I thought might be interesting highlights in future posts. Can't seem to get the photos onto my work computer for that.. 

Conclusion

Ultimately.. this is not a trading strategy nor a recommendation for investing.. but is more of a movement for the usual me and you to get back at the hedgies who have been profiting at other's expenses. Do your own DD before hopping on anything! I will try to keep update on GME for sure.. 

As of writing. I don't hold any GME positions but queued a GTC order at lows to support the army! I can't wait to see how this pans out even if I am not holding anything! 

Investing with your CPF-SA (CPFIS)

This has been a topic that I've been thinking about for quite some time.. and I'd just thought of writing about my thoughts. Inb4 I get flamed by financial advisors/CPF investment platforms.

Basically, CPF has a scheme where it allows you to invest using your SA/OA monies, read more about it here. TLDR; you can invest anything above the first SGD20k in OA and SGD40k in SA, ultimately you can just take a look on the CPF platform to see how much you can invest under the "Investment" tab. 

Ultimately, this scheme enables financial-savvy you to maximize your retirement amount rather than just earning the basic CPF interests. However, there are very limited things you can invest in as the CPF board tries to limit the investment varieties to the safer ones 

This post is actually targeted to spread some awareness for people who are thinking of using your CPF to invest, and there's no one right answer. Different strategies suit different people, but I hope to point out something to make sure most people avoid these!

Bonds and Fixed-Deposit (FD)

In the current low-interest-rate environment, you'll be crazy if you invest in low-yielding instruments such as Singapore government bonds or fixed deposits and forgo your current minimum 2.5% yield. 

Equities and Gold

For the more savvy peeps, you'll likely look at equities or even gold to hedge out inflation. Maybe buy DBS and hope it will go up even more in 10 years so you get capital gains along with dividends. 

Unit Trusts and ETF

If you're not keen to self-pick, look at unit trusts/ETF that might be performing or has potential.. you will earn gains from payout as well as capital appreciation. This will give you access to invest in instruments that are not available directly to you in CPFIS but you'll be paying very low management/fund fees to the respective unit trust or ETF managers.

Investment-linked Insurance Products (ILP) and Endowment

This is where I want to highlight, insurance products offered by insurance agents/financial advisors..

Honestly, I've not much exposure nor knowledge of this space.. but mostly my take on these. I've friends who taken up normal ILP or endowment plans, and my 2cent after hearing such policies. 

While ILP works similarly to normal funds provided by fund managers.. most of such underlying funds in Insurance firms have other fund managers' funds as an underlying component.. which means you're better off investing in the individual funds directly. For example, AIA Global Balance Fund charges you 1.5%pa for you to invest indirectly in; PineBridge (US Large Cap Research Enhanced Fund, International Funds - Singapore Bond Fund), Nikko AM (Shenton Japan Fund), Capital Group (European Growth and Income Fund (Lux)), Legg Mason (Western Asset Global Bond Trust), and Aberdeen Standard (Pacific Equity Fund). 

On another note.. Endowment plan's returns are very low mainly because it also has an insurance component.. in my own opinion, one should not mix the two products and such products usually give you half-baked products in both fields. 

Endowment plans are actually structured in a very smart way where they give you 2 figures in the investment component; guaranteed return and non-guaranteed return. Usually, these guaranteed returns can be pathetic ~2%pa rate or even worst while the non-guaranteed returns can go up to ~5% or even more... While I personally know some fund managers in insurance firms and they work hard to maximize returns to you.. there's a limitation; investment mandate, market condition, etc, etc..

That's why we've been seeing news on endowment plans holder receive peanuts at the end of the journey. 

Summary

For myself.. I look at SA as a safe retirement tool.. ignoring the step-up on the first SGD40k.. you earn a risk-free rate of 4%. Why take the risk of investing even in the safest instrument tool (even the safest tool fail in the worst market), and just let it grow safely in your CPF.

On another hand, for OA.. I take it as my means to pay for a mortgage.. as I rather invest/trade with my readily available cash which I can reap the benefit immediately instead of waiting for god knows how old to withdraw my CPF gains. Sure.. you have accrued interest to pay back CPF.. but if you plan to stay in your home forever.. you will not sell down your property thus no need to pay back the 2.5%.

All-in-all, my belief is when you invest.. it must give you a good return for you to take up the risk.. why give up the safe 4% on your SA and bet on some unreliable endowment plan.. but this is the way of our economy.. to re-package and market the product as something new. 

I'd say just leave your CPF alone.. at most I'm moving my OA to SA to make sure I reap more returns. I will also be looking to do voluntary contributions to reduce income tax in the near future when I get paid more.. 

This is a very brief round-up of such products.. please read up more before taking up any investment schemes and if you have questions or will like me to cover more topics~ shoot it away in the comments

Cheers!

Tencent Rally 25Jan2021

Tencent (700.HK) - closed HKD691 (22JAN2021)

• Citigroup increased the price target to HKD876 (up 19%)
• Consensus stands at 93.7% for Buy rating
• Focus on Weixin and Gaming growth 

As of writing, TENCENT opened up in HK at HKD707 (up 2.3%) and maintain a strong rally reaching a high of HKD735.5 (up 6.4%). 6.4% up is a good record that has not been recorded since July 2020. 

It is interesting to see how a price target from a bank right before the opening bell of HKEx will drive the stock price. 

I tried digging around to find any other big significant news that might be driving the the price higher.. and other than the price target by Citi.. nothing really stood out other than... 

Kuaishou IPO

Kuaishou Technology (main rival to ByteDance Ltd) is seeing to raise as much as USD5.4billion putting it as the world's biggest internet IPO since Uber. This startup is backed by Tencent Holdings <-- highlight. The better the IPO does, as we've seen in recent times.. mostly will perform way better from their IPO price.. it will drive Kuaishou's valuation up.. in-directly driving up Tencent's balance sheet. 

Kuaishou is looking to sell 365million shares at HKD105~115 each.. which puts its valuation at USD28.6billion.. expectations are valuation could double or more after the IPO which will put Kuaishou at USD55.6~60.9billion. 

Tencent has about 21.6% stake in Kuaishou.. so you see the link here.. 

Tencent is currently trading at HKD720 (4.2% up) putting it around 29% up on the month and 27% up YTD. 

What's your take on Tencent? Buy at high and wait till the price target? or try to get a piece of Kuaishou before it doubled? Personally, I won't jump straight into a bull market, especially not for a slightly longer term unless I am looking to trend trade.. will try to pick up some if it drops.

Cheers~ Happy week ahead!

Equities/Stocks Options - Introduction (Theory)

Decided to touch on equities/stock options as I'm sure many people out there might not be clear or even know what these do. Personally, I've only known the concept of call/put options but in truth, I wasn't sure how traders make money from these or why they do it. However, I've started to trade US equities and options as well, so I thought of sharing my strategies as I go. As usual, I will try to go through these as layman as possible, else it'd be pointless for me to cover it and I should just paste some website link.. lol

Introduction

There're 2 types of options; the Call Option and the Put Option. Typically a Call option gives the holder the right to buy the underlying stock while a Put option gives the holder the right to sell the underlying stock.

Will like to touch on some terms widely used in options trading; 

• underlying; the underlying stock of the options
• exercise; when the holder of the option decides to "execute" it
• strike price; where an option will be exercised upon expiry if the underlying stock price reaches there
• expiration date; the specific date when the option is rendered useless
• styles; American (can be exercised anytime between holding and expiration date) or European style (only can be exercised on the expiration date), most widely traded contracts are American
• contracts; per option contract represent 100 underlying stocks
• premium; the price you pay or get for the option (easily mean the price of the option)
• in-the-money (ITM); when the option gives you a profit when exercised 
• out-of-the-money (OTM); when the option doesn't give you any profit and if the exercise you lose money
• expired; losing the contract without exercising

Call Option

Basically, it gives you the right to buy the underlying stock at the pre-decided strike price before the expiration date. If you sold a call option, you give someone else a right to buy your stocks at a certain price before the expiration date. 

Traders buy a call option when they're bullish on the underlying. For example (figures used are est); 

• stock A is trading at 10USD, and you're bullish on stock A going higher and higher
• trader A buys a call option at 12USD that expires in 2 months at 0.20USD/stock which puts the contract at 20USD (per contract = 100 underlying)
• at the expiration date or close to, the underlying stock is at 15USD now meaning the trader is right on his call and the option is ITM
• by exercising this option, you can own the underlying at 12USD despite that it is trading at 15USD where the trader can either hold or sell it for a quick profit
• if the trader is still bullish, he will hold onto these stocks and wait for a good time to sell
• if trader wants to book profit, he can sell at the market price of 15USD and you earn 3USD per stock making it a whooping 300USD 
• however, the trader has to deduct the premium he paid for the option which is 20USD.. thus the trader earns 280USD
• if the stock price goes the other way or if it didn't hit 12USD, it will be expired (rationally, you won't exercise as you can buy the stock in the market for whatever price it is), so the premium is lost

A valid argument I'll hear is probably, why not buy the stock outright and if the stock didn't hit 12USD, you will still make the excess from where you bought it at 10USD. 

However, it is a good way for you to bet on bigger stock price names such as Alphabet (GOOGL) trading around 1890USD or Amazon.com (AMZN) trading around 3292USD. You can bet on these names at a fraction of the cost. 

Put Option

This is the opposite of the call option, it gives the holder a right to sell the underlying stock at a pre-determined price. 

This is usually executed when the trader is bearish of the stock and thinks that it will go down. 

• stock B is trading at 10USD, and you're bearish on stock B going lower
• trader B buys a put option at 8USD that expires in 2 months at 0.20USD/stock which puts the contract at 20USD (per contract = 100 underlying)
• at the expiration date or close to, the underlying stock is at 7USD now meaning the trader is right on his put and the option is ITM
• by exercising this option, you can sell the underlying at 8USD despite that it is trading at 7USD and the trader need to buy back the position at market
• by exercising the option, the trader will have a negative 100 stock of the underlying which he will be required to buy to close it at 0 position
• technically, the trader sold 100 stocks at 800USD but he needs to buy back at the market meaning paying up 700USD which puts his profit at 80USD (subtract the premium he paid for the contract)
• as usual, if the stock doesn't hit lower than 8USD, the contract expires and the trader loses the premium

While in the call option, it is possible to hold the stocks outright as long as you can afford them but to do it similarly to bet it going down, you'll need to short the positions (meaning to sell stocks that you don't own). This will give you cash as technically you're selling.. but you will be subject to interest and fees for shorting the underlying as technically you're "borrowing" the stocks to sell now and buy back later to return it.

Summary

I tried to keep this as basic and as easy as I can share.. do ask me anything in the comment. I will be back to post more basic knowledge here (it also helps me to serve as a refresher to see how I am learning as well). 

I'd like to post some widely use strategies and also my take on them.. and most importantly how I make money on a daily basis on Tiger Broker. 

Hope everyone had a good weekend, and I'll be off polishing my work shoes. 

Cheers.

Food Deal: Wok Hey

 If you're following me for a bit (although, I'm still new), you'll know that I love food and my expenses are usually towards food. While I try to eat affordable, I also don't limit my upside for yummy food. 

Starting another section under my blog, "Food Deal", on yummy food that I eat and also deals that come along! Wanted to start posting my food reviews.. but then again, who will be interested? Personally, also don't think I have that much time.. 

Anyway! Wok Hey! Was thinking of getting this for lunch but the queue is always a pain and to my joy, they actually have a proper website that allows you to order online for self pick-up.

But why is this on my deal feature? Because it saves you time! Kidding.. Apparently I might already be late to this.. but they have a Member Rewards system. 

5% Returning Voucher

Woot! 5%! But still, every cent saved is every cent that can be compounded. 

However, they're smart to limit the redemption to 30days after your transaction. 

Maybe share your food deal with me~ always love to save an additional cent! 

And do head over to their website and order away here. Btw, I am not affiliate to Wok Hey nor this is a sponsored post. I also don't get any referral, just sharing for everyone's joy!

New Credit Card - Maybank Platinum Visa Card

I am always on the hunt for a new credit card deal; satisfy the condition and get free cash.

Maybank Platinum Visa

Apply Now & Get S$100 Cash Credit

Terms as per their website, as long as you're a new to bank customer; register for a new Maybank Credit Card & CreditAble. You just have to charge SGD250 to your cards for 2 consecutive months and get SGD100 back. 

Why I picked this over other Maybank card? 

This supplements my UOB One card which I plan to spend SGD1,000 on it monthly, and my monthly credit card bills hover around SGD1,300~SGD2,200. Instead of the inconsistency of whether I can hit SGD2,000 on my UOB One, I rather just allocate SGD1,000 to it and charge the rest to my back-up cards. 

Maybank Platinum has upto 3.33% cash rebate as long as you charge a minimum of SGD300 every month for each quarter (3 months), and you'll get SGD30 back. For bigger spender, you can spend SGD1,000 every month for the whole quarter to get SGD100 back.. which doesn't really incentivize you to spend more with Maybank. 

However, concerns I have over this card is mainly if I can get the SGD100 if I don't use the CreditAble account which isn't stated very clearly in the terms and also when will I get the cash credit after 2 consecutive month spend. 

In addition, this card doesn't seem to work with my GPay even though you can use Paywave. 

Honestly, I'm only hopping around credit card deals to get the bonus and will cancel them eventually to return as a "new customer" again. On another note, HSBC rejected my credit application without quoting any valid reason, you can say good-bye to my pathetic business (but still business). 

What's your take on credit card deals? And I still believe best deals come from sites such as SingSaver/SingPromo where you get money/items above the bank promotions. Will be looking forward to hop back into Citi credit card and get some big cash or a new earphones for myself. 

Btw, if anyone is interested in the Maybank card mentioned, do check it out here (not a sponsored post).

Live Market Update - China Economy Growth (18 Jan 2021)

Personally, I am a more macro and news driven trader, I decided to start a new segment; Live Market Update. However, this segment will only be available when I have a bit free time to write during my work since it is live (or as much as I try to be quick), it will also be brief takeaway from me. Do look into the internet if you're keen on the exact details and not rely on this. 

China's Economy Grew

• Economy grew 2.3% versus 2.1% est. in 2020; Q4 GDP up 6.5% versus 6.2% est. 
• China economy rebounded strong after controlling their virus cases and they saw strong consumer demand for their goods; medical equipment + WFH equipment
• Industrial output is strong (up 7.3% in Dec YoY)
• Retail sales growth slumped; attributed from lower restaurant sales
• Jobless rate hovers around 5.2% by end Dec

Onshore CNY strengthened to 6.4779 against dollar after data release. 

Economist expects China GDP to be up 8.2% in 2021.

HKEx jumped on the back of China data, with Tencent up 2.33% and Xiaomi up 3.24% (despite sanction) at the point of writing. 

Personally, hope that this Chinese rally gets carry over into the US markets tomorrow (US holiday today) as I am bullish on Chinese names with my trading account exposure >50% in Chinese name. 

Hope this is short and sweet, as my first time writing up this segment, will appreciate if I get feedback on where to improve or what might be too excess. 

*Key is brief and detailed (oxymoron). 

Cheers, have a good week ahead.

Google Pay (GPay) Update 2021

A little late to the scene but I realized that I've yet to write about GPay which I use on a daily basis ever since transiting to an OnePlus phone that I bought in last year's 9/9 sale. 

This might be more oriented to Android phone user rather than iPhone but if you're using iPhone, you can still reap some benefits from it (Apple is smart to not allow you to change the default payment). 

Something sad is that GPay is getting less aggressive in attaining new customer-base, where we see Google giving less rewards (scratch cards). I will be going through the current rewards available and how best you can attain them. The rewards are instant, if you're using Android and not using Gpay.. you're missing out free cents.

Earn $2.5 cashback on your next movie at Shaw (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Purchase a movie ticket on Gpay App from Shaw and get guaranteed SGD2.5 back; once a week.

Earn $2.5 cashback on your next movie at Gold Village (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Purchase a movie ticket on Gpay App from Golden Village and get guaranteed SGD2.5 back; once a week. It was actually a whooping SGD5 reward last year... thankfully I reaped the reward once.

Order food on Google Pay and get $2.5 cashback (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Spend a minimum of SGD10 on any food place in GPay App, and get a guaranteed SGD2.5 back; once a week. This is a really good reward as I usually go for cheap lunch at work but this helps me get a yummy lunch once a week (especially last year where it was giving SGD5 cashback).

Tap or scan to pay in stores and earn up to $10 twice a week (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Spend a minimum SGD3 by GPay (paywave), online Google Pay, or QR scan (this works for Apple users) and you will get a scratch card; twice a week. It used to be 3~4 times a week or actually up to 7x cause they split the scan and tap components.

Send money to friends & earn up to $10 twice a week (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Send your friend a minimum of SGD10 on the GPay (via paynow/PayLah) to earn a scratch card; twice a week. There's a major change to this component, previous rewards you can send to same group of people every week but now you can only send to a different person even if it's the next week. TLDR; instead of the same 2 person every week you send for the scratch cards, you need a whole bigger group of different people in a month.

Refer a friend and get $3 cashback (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Earn $3 for yourself and your friend if they register through your code and once they done their first SGD10 transaction on Gpay; max 80 referrals. Shamelessly, you can use my referral if you're not on Gpay yet, we can be send money buddies. - Code (ch4yj0v) or click here.

Save $2 with HSBC and Golden Village (ends 31st Jul 2021)

Get $2 back for paying for your movie ticket at GV in GPay App using HSBC credit/debit cards; only off 2D standard seats.

Save up to $3 with DBS and Golden Village (ends 31st Dec 2021)

Get cashback when you use DBS/POSB card to buy ticket on GPay App; SGD3 off Gold Class, SGD2 off Gold Class Express, SGD1 off other movie tickets

Free Upsized Meals from Burger King on Google Pay (ends 31st Mar 2021)

Gets free upsize to any Burger King Ultimate Selection meal when you purchase Burger King on GPay App.

Hopefully this will help people new with GPay App! I will be back to update if there's new changes (probably from 25th Jan 2021). I really love how they integrate all the payment, food and movie into one platform, so far I've earned SGD70++ across 4 months.. what about you if you've been a GPay user?

Cheers~

Migration to Blogspot

I've finally completed the migration to Blogspot this afternoon, which is another lesson learned; start with the right mechanics or location else you'll end up with the hassle to re-do many things. 

Hopefully going forward, I can share more interesting notes and my thoughts. Do feel free to comment and ask for anything! As usual, I will try to make my content bite-size so it is easier for people to absorb; attention span is really limited heh!

I already have a few ideas in mind which means more posts coming up next week~ 

Hope everyone had a good weekend, even though no weekends are long enough for us to re-charge but let's hustle on!

BTO/HLE Eligibility & CPF Update

I started the year with a big question mark and concern. Luckily, I managed to get a good queue number when I first started working, meaning that we are able to get a little grant (SGD5k) that can be use during the first down-payment. On the reason why it is only SGD5k, it is due to my HDB location is in the matured estate, I’d pay the premium for location.. and it’s not like value of the house will fall drastically; “HDB resale prices climb 4.8% in 2020” posted by CNA on 4th Jan 2021 (https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/hdb-resale-prices-2020-q4-flats-bto-launch-flash-estimates-13888448)

Concern on HLE Eligibility and Loan

As many know that HDB loan has a combined income ceiling of SGD14k, not a difficult figure to hit tbh. While being able to get a grant for BTO, also mean that the assessed income was low. I was only given around 50~60% loan of my BTO value which was my main concern. I was afraid that if HDB might reject our HDB loan application if our incomes were to be above the SGD14k ceiling meaning I have only 2 choices;

1. Get a bank loan, which means you need a bigger down-payment of 25%, meaning that we have to pay 20% instead of the addition balance of 5% for the total 10% down-payment for HDB loan
2. Continue with HDB loan and pay down the 40~50% differences, which is impossible for us, and personally I don’t like to waste the opportunity of my cash earning more money elsewhere

So I googled, like what most of people will do, but I didn’t get much answers. I think this is a fortunate problem since most problems revolve around “loss of income”, “loss of job”, etc which people are concern about getting their loan lower after re-assessment.

I then went on to proper channels and reach out to HDB via e-mail to voice my concern, and they actually called me back within 3 working days (surprising for Government board entity).

SOOO.. the answer I got was income ceiling for HDB loan is only accessed when you apply for HLE during your BTO to “check” your eligibility to apply for “budget housing”. Regardless of how little (the less the better, since more grant), you’ll get reassessed nearer to the key collection date whereas HDB will require you to submit documents to prove your “earning ability”.

The short answer I got was; regardless of how much income you earn above the ceiling, you are still eligible for HDB loan. I decided to write about this because I didn’t manage to find any proper answers online. (wipe my sweat)

HDB Loan vs Bank Loan

As many people already knows, I value the opportunity of my capital so why did I opt for HDB loan?

HDB loan has a lower outlay, 10% versus 25%, do your math and it’ll make sense. I also have intention to eventually move to bank loan hoping that the low interest rate environment will last much longer (Fed expects no interest rate hike until 2022). My key collection will be in late 2022… however, while Fed starts hiking interest rate, it is not an immediate action, especially it won’t jump back to pre-Covid rates which allows me to lock in some good bank loan rates in the future (fingers crossed). However, I haven’t really gotten down to do the math on my estimated timing of transition to bank loan.. will get back to this in future posts once I gotten to it.

CPF Update

After getting the answer from HDB.. I’d continued to transfer my OA to SA, I actually keep my OA under SGD20k because my SA is still way under SGD40k.. which I’d love to leverage on before growing my OA up. I only keep around SGD15~20k in my OA to prep for any early key collection.. but I intend to max out SGD40k on SA, then I will keep the HDB down-payment requirement buffer above the SGD20k on OA.

In case you don’t understand why SGD20k on OA and SGD40k on SA;

• SA basic interest is 4%pa, but on the first SGD40k, you get additional 1%pa meaning a whooping 5%pa
• OA basic interest is 2.5%pa and on the first SGD20k, you also get additional 1%pa putting it at 3.5%pa
• In addition the excess interest rate will actually flow into your SA instead of OA, even if you earn 3.5%pa on your OA, you’ll only get 2.5% in OA and the other 1% goes to SA

Conclusion

Ultimately, my goal is to share the message to people in similar situation with me for BTO.. you can trust me on this!

I will come to posting what I am doing to earn excess money as well.. keeping me up at night.

Cheers~

CPF EOY 2020

My thoughts on CPF might not click with many regular Singaporeans, but on the other hand, I also don’t agree with many financial bloggers who include their CPF in their net-worth since you don’t have liquidity on it (but still it belongs to you, and you need to optimize it for the best performance).

Personally I view CPF as these;

• MA is a bonus saving for medical emergencies as well as covering some insurance premium
• OA helps with mortgage in the future, however no real point to keep a large sum here
• SA best retirement platform which gives yourself a good bonus once you hit 55/65

While many Singaporeans complain about their money being locked up in the CPF, but to be honest, it is the best “force saving” platform that the government has given us along with the amazing interest rate. I also understand the reason why the Government require us to keep a minimum amount to draw out for the rest of our life rather than giving us everything. We can only blame black sheep who can’t manage their finance well in that case (imagine these black sheep draw out all their money, and finish it, it’s us who need to pay for them in the future).

On the other hand, I strongly believe that we should view CPF as a surplus or a bonus rather than it being our net-worth unlike other bloggers because as much as you don’t have access to it, you don’t really own it now (fight me, kidding).

Interest

The key to optimize your CPF starts with understanding the interest rate you’re entitled upon each and every sub accounts. I only plan to go through the “Under 55 Year Old” interest rate, since if you’re above 55, I don’t think there’s much room for you to optimize it.

As many of you know, the interest rate for the following sub accounts are; 2.5%pa for OA, 4%pa for both SA and MA.

There’s an extra 1% on the first $60k balance, this only applies to the first $20k in OA so effectively you can only gain 3.5% on the first $20k and the excess interest actually gets credit into your SA/RA. While the remaining $40k will gain 5%pa can be from your SA and MA (in this exact order).

CPF Plan

CPF Balance
EOY	OA SGD	SA SGD	MA SGD	Total SGD	PSEA	YoY
2018	$    1,095.85	$        352.26	$    1,369.26	$  10,097.01	$      7,279.64	0.000%
2019	$  12,942.01	$    2,742.92	$    6,139.91	$  29,104.48	$      7,279.64	188.249%
2020	$  19,550.62	$  17,411.76	$  11,774.80	$  56,558.18	$      7,821.00	94.328%

CPF as of 3rd Jan 2021

As you can see my CPF started building up in year 2019 because that’s the year I started working, and we can expect YoY growth to slow down. I’ve made a transfer of $10k from my SA to OA which I’ll go through later. In addition, I’ve not touched my PSEA account, so I will be looking forward to it getting transferred to my OA in 2-3 years time.

5 Year Plan

Currently I plan to go along with this plan for the next 5 year as I have my BTO coming in late 2022. As I’ve mentioned I view CPF as a bonus, I plan to continue transferring from my OA to SA to tap on the risk-free higher interest rate (first goal is to hit $40k, but also plan to continue after since 4%>3.5% on the first $20k on OA). I will maintain OA’s balance under $20k for now just to prep my 2nd down-payment for BTO and also future mortgages. In addition, I have the PSEA fund that will be coming soon, which is the main reason why I don’t see a need to maintain a high OA balance.

Aside from this, CPF allocation to OA will always be much higher so you have to manually do the adjustment. Do look at the table below for allocation.

https://www.cpf.gov.sg/Assets/Employers/Documents/Item2w_FAQs.pdf

This plan might change in the future, most probably after 5 years once my MOP is up and thinking of upgrading to a bigger unit, or even a better location.

Do let me hear about your CPF plan, and if you have any feedback on my strategy/view. In addition, by all means, this only applies to people who are employed with CPF contribution, and I can’t comment for those free-lance people.

As usual, I try to be brief.. if anything you might want to hear more in-depth, feel free to shout out and I might make another post.

Google Opinion Rewards

As I always say; every cent saved, is every cent that can be compounded.

Google has been rolling out with amazing apps that enable you to earn some money, as I’ve covered in my expense post, I bought a new android phone to replace my 3 year old iPhone 7.

Today, I’d love to share a good app that help you earn a little money that can be used on Google play-store. To be honest, I am not sure if iPhone can use this but if iPhone users can use GooglePay, they should also be able to install this as well.

This app will allow you to take some very short survey (less than 1 minute) to earn a few cents which you can use in Google play-store or as money.

I’ve used this to buy “Battle Pass” in Genshin Impact as well as paid for premium for some of my Apps. In actual fact, these are money that I won’t use if not for this but this enable me to indulge in a bit of more fun without spending money.

Hack

If you really plan to capitalize on this; highest return, is from selecting that you’ve dropped by any location in the survey, and mentioned that you paid via credit card (doesn’t matter if you purchase in store or ordered online).

Wrap-up

While I’ve used my android phone since I bought it on 9/9, monthly bonuses I’ve gotten from the app is around $8 which is still good for free money.

Get paid for answering short surveys. Download Google Opinion Rewards now: https://googleopinionrewards.page.link/share

Disclaimer: by all means, I am not sponsored by Google nor I will get any referral fees from this.

2020 Expenses + 2021 Forecast

Today is actually my favorite day of the year (not my birthday, not any day) but it is not due to being NYE but actually it is the last day of the year.

In Feb 2016, I began my journey to track all my expenses and I’ve been really diligent in doing it, I am proud to say my tracking has minimal error (definitely less than ETF’s tracking, lol). I’ve also progressed slightly as a human, cutting corners on some of the tracking to make my own life easier;

• track top-up to Grab wallet as “Food Expense”, save effort on tracking Grab as a separate wallet (inclusive of YouTrip/Revolut/etc)
• put aside a small wallet for hawker food where I “top-up” physical cash
• no longer count the small cashback/promo on my expense, I just look at it as bonus money in my “Expenditure” bank account

Disclaimer: I don’t track my expenses to limit myself but for me to know where my money is going to, and from there I can forecast a budget for the upcoming year.

Budgeting Excel

In addition to easing my tracking, I also lessen the categories to make life easier thus the above categories. As it is still my first post, I will go through the rationale of my grouping. Basic (Food/Groceries, Transport, House/Personal), I view these as the basic need to my life. While I put the excess (Travel/Entertain, Shopping/Misc) as something that is more controllable. Lastly, I don’t really include Insurance and Mortgage (pardon the typo) into my basic expenses mainly due to I view these as future asset/needs, and by no means have any control in them as well.

Basic (Food/Groceries, Transport, House/Personal)

As you can see that my food/groceries expenses are pretty high, as my current enjoyment in life is mainly in eating (my goal is to go to any restaurant and not care the price tag while ordering), so I’ll allocate high budget to this category; taking into consideration of inflation and increasing standard of living, I accounted for a slight increment. Transport is one of the best performer in the budget but it was due to 3 months worth of Circuit Breaker (Singapore locked down) that I am able to WFH thus transport expense is less than SGD20 in these 3 months; while I budgeted for this year with the thought that I can still buy student concession fare till August, thus I’d keep the same budget for next year and see how it goes. Lastly, on house/personal, it ranges from the monthly contribution I put at home along with personal therapy, medical and etc. However, start of the year was harsh.. as my kitten required some excess vet support which caused it to go over budget (no regret there, hope you’re having fun at the rainbow bridge my lovely kitten) as well as some household goods breaking down; going forward I reckon chances of such one-off expenditure will not incur (touch wood) thus the lower budget.

Excess Expenditure (Travel/Entertain, Shopping/Misc)

While I budgeted quite a fair bit of travel, I only managed to visit Johore Bahru (JB) once due to the Covid19 pandemic but I plan to set aside similar budget for next year, hoping that travel might resume in 2021Q3. On another note, my shopping expense has overshot the budget (2 years straight) but this year was mainly due to a one-off purchase of my new phone at SGD1k which I expect to last me for a minimum of 3 years (based on my iPhone 7 lifespan). Honestly I feel that the budget is slightly higher than what I really need, but I’d love to buy things from sales (especially work shirt, etc).

Expense Wrap-Up

This year, surprisingly I am in the green (thanks to Covid19), however I still plan to set aside a higher budget; not to restraint myself too much and I also got a pay bump from job hop. Ultimately, my goal is total less “mortgage&insurance” can factor less than a certain percentage of my basic take-home pay (currently in 40~50% range, not revealing because it will be easy to reverse engineer my gross); goal will be eventually hitting less than 25% of my take home through both way of earning more money and spending less.

“Don’t let what you earn dictates how much you spend” -Me

Tracking App

I understand there’s many apps out there that will help with your tracking including app from Seedly, Gpay (allows you to track all expenses that is paid via card etc), banking apps and etc. Personally I use Monny, I like the flexibility and ease of usage of the app. Few note-worthy points are; allow you to create multiple accounts (for different accounts such as investment/spending/travel expenditure), create of categories, and recurring expenses. You can find the app in the following link – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.greamer.monny.android

Disclaimer: I am not sponsored to share the app, nor I will get any referral fees from this.

And Happy New Year to everyone, hopefully 2021 will be a better year to achieve all of our goals!