A maisonette flat in Sengkang caught the attention of the Singapore public when it was sold for $1 million dollars. This would be a sale that would have grabbed my attention in the past if I was still hunting for a flat after I turned 35 and could buy an individual flat as a single. Housing is becoming unaffordable for most, certainly for singles who just emerged from serving as an important pillar for their own family and are planning to secure their own dwelling away from their family. A large majority of my generation, millennials, move to Sengkang and Punggol as their starter homes. Sengka ..read more

You know… I have been explaining to people I talked to about the default low-cost, diversified portfolio setup that they should have. Depending on your risk capacity (how much volatility you are able to take when you really experience volatility), you will have different percentages of equities to bond: X% invested in an unit trust or ETF that tracks MSCI All Country World Equity Index (E.g. VWRA traded on the LSE). 100% – X% invested in a unit trust or ETF that tracks the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Bond/Fixed Income Index (E.g. AGGU traded on the LSE or the Amundi Index Global Aggregate Fund ..read more

Here is a safe way to save money that you have no idea when you will need to use or your emergency fund. The 10-yr and 1-yr Singapore Savings Bonds rates since the first issue in Oct 2015 The June 2024’s SSB bonds yield an interest rate of 3.33%/yr for the next ten years. You can apply through ATM or Internet Banking via the three banks (UOB, OCBC, DBS) However, if you only hold the SSB bonds for one year, with two semi-annual payments, your interest rate is 3.26%/yr. The one-year SSB yield seems to be heading down, showing a less flat curve. $10,000 will grow to $13,341 in 10 years. The Singa ..read more

A Singapore Treasury Bill issue (BS24109A) will be auctioned on Thursday, 9th May 2024. If you wish to subscribe successfully, get your order via Internet banking (Cash, SRS, CPF-OA, CPF-SA) or in person (CPF) by 8th May. You can view the details at MAS here. In the past, I have shared with you the virtues of the Singapore T-bills, their ideal uses, and how to subscribe to them here: How to Buy Singapore 6-Month Treasury Bills (T-Bills) or 1-Year SGS Bonds. The Tbill cut-off yield in the last auction is 3.74%. If you select a non-competitive bid, you may be pro-rated the amount you bid a ..read more

I am not sure how many of my readers would need something like this or didn’t know about it, but my experience tells me that some less IT-savvy ones may find this useful. What if you have a laptop and would like to extend it to two more screens so that you can be more productive? Most of our laptops are equipped with an external HDMI port to help you to connect and extend to one external monitor. Some may think if we can do it for one, we should be able to do it to two or three. If so, what is the lowest cost that we can do this? I found this USB-C HDMI and VGA hub on Shopee. This is the swe ..read more

By all accounts, Boustead hasn’t developed into a consistent grower of earnings since I got to know this Singapore stock in 2005. A part of Boustead’s business deals with the design, build, and delivery of industrial real estate in Singapore and water-related projects. As long as they have these segments of the business, the revenue and earnings will be volatile. Their real estate leasing and geo-spatial business provides more consistent earnings. From early 2000 to 2010, Boustead missed the opportunity to throw their industrial property into a REIT when it was popular to do so to unlock the v ..read more

Shortly after I wrote that we could buy Irish domiciled corporate bond ETF that has a fixed maturity half a year ago, I decided to buy a distribution class of the iBonds that will mature in 2028 to see how the dividends behave. Although there is a dual taxation treaty between the US and Ireland, there should not be any withholding tax on dividends from government Treasury bonds. Since ID28 or the iShares iBonds Dec 2028 Term $ Corp UCITS ETF owns a portfolio of corporate bonds instead of government bonds, I am not so sure about the underlying tax treatment. There is a recent distribution and ..read more

My co-worker shared with me a 2023 Morningstar Investor Returns Around the World report. This report should rename how investors often invest exactly at the wrong time. The Mind the Gap report measures the investors’ returns against the performance of the fund or ETF. This is the more international edition. If you are interested, you can fill in your details and get the report here. Here is some information about the methodology used by the Morningstar team: Morningstar (MS) measures based on total returns (capital gains + dividends) published by funds on their factsheets and website. They me ..read more

Seven and a half years ago, I let readers into my world of meal prep. We basically meal prep what we eat later in the day, the week or the month in a few batches. In this way, we are able to control what we eat and save time. My old post was really comprehensive, and many have feedback that the detail allows them to contrast against their cook or reduce the mental challenge of starting. You can read the post here: Frugal Life: How do I Meal Prep for 7 Days Lunch in Half a Day in Singapore That article was written so long ago. Almost a year before my mom passed away. I thought it was time to up ..read more

JPMorgan came up with a nice slide deck showcasing their data collection about things related to retirement planning. If you are interested in planning for your own retirement, this slide deck might interest you. I reviewed this slide because I am interested in this area for myself and for work. I picked out some of the slides that I find interesting or resonated with me. This slide resonated with me because I think many think that if they can get one or two things right then they can have the kind of retirement they want. It may not be one or two things but a breadth of areas. The challenge ..read more