Square 1

Haven't been blogging much, and i actually missed the Brexit drama, as I exited all my holdings prior to that.

I don't profess to have good foresight. I simply needed the money for the down-payment of my new home, so basically I have to sell off everything to come up with the cash requirements.

I got to say, it means i am starting all over again... no retirement portfolio, starting from scratch again. I consoled myself thinking that it's like giving up everything to be an entrepreneur, like Dividend Warrior selling off everything to open a tuition center, and rebuilding his portfolio from scratch.

At this time of uncertainty, why did i enter the property market? A lot of people are still very cautious, am i being foolish to be overweight on property?

(edit: and just nice one of my long time friend just posted about property http://investmentmoats.com/wealth-building-2/singapore-home-condo-landed-and-hdb-property-prices-grow-over-time/ and i quote "I came out of this exercise reinforced why wealth building through properties will always be a better option for many because of the low probability of people losing money.")

Prices have slightly cooled (though definitely nowhere near a crash have happened). It is a brand-new unit as it was unsold by the developer when it TOP 2 years back. To push sales this year, discount was given to buyers this year for them (or us) to bite. Effectively, I got it cheaper than those who purchased it earlier.

Also, I did not view it purely from an investment perspective as I am buying a home to live in. It really does check the boxes we are looking for for a home, being near good schools, quiet residential environment and being near MRT.

On the positive side, I am glad for this chance to clean up my portfolio as well. Going forward, i will be building up a pure ETF portfolio.

Starting from last month, I placed $300 into STI ETF (100 shares, with some leftover), and would be doing that every time I get my pay.
I did not choose to pay off the loan with the extra 300 as it would really not reduce it all that much, and building up some portfolio provides me with flexibility for liquidation next time.

In any case, it's back to square 1 from now on! After being debt free for some time, it's back to having a mountain of debt on my buttocks!

Up, up, up and away

Been a furry of news these 2 weeks:

Singapore car park rates up $0.10 to $0.20, season parking up $15 to $25

Malls, office buildings set to charge higher parking fees

Cab firms hit by higher operating licence fees

Electricity tariffs to rise by 4.3%

Found a picture that adequately describes this:

I guess the most direct impact would be those driving cars (3 of the news pertains to car park charges). However, there would definitely knock-on effect to businesses - transportation costs etc. Rising costs would eventually be passed on back to the end-consumers.

There's a limit to how much expenses we can save (short of being a hermit) - look to ways to increase income to cope with the rising costs.

(1) Increase salary (easier stated than done sometimes)

(2) Start a 2nd line of income (part-time tuition maybe?)

(3) Passive income (what I am trying to do) - dividends, rental etc