2023 Review – How is Miss Niao after 8 years?

2023 marks the 8th year since the birth of this blog, and the first year of life of my baby girl. Life is different when two becomes three. Life seems to be more… colourful. And yet, exhausting – and yet, satisfying – all at the same time. Am I making any sense? Could be the lack of sleep typing out these words… Hahaha…

So how is Miss Niao doing after 8 years of being niao?

For starters, I managed to get the stock portfolio back up to a 6 digit figure. I ended 2023 with an overall XIRR of 7.39%. I’ve slowly gravitated back to the SGX with quite a number of high yielded dividend stocks on hand, though it is worth noting that I didn’t buy them because they were dividend stocks at first. With a long holding power, some of my stocks have returned me 4-6% of dividend yield. It was only during the yearly 2023 review that I’ve realized the total amount of dividends I’ve collected has crossed more than $20,000! What a nice surprise – even considering the fact that I pulled out most of my funds in 2021 to put the downpayment for my first property. So cheers to that!

Net worth wise, I am conflicted on how to display my numbers. On one hand, if I were to just look at assets alone, I have increased the most in terms of quantum. However, I do have an outstanding mortgage which will be spilled out as liabilities on my balance sheet. If I take Assets – Liabilities to get my Net Worth, I am still in the green – for now. In time to come, I hope to be able to continue staying green for the next 4-5 years.

Not only that, I would have cleared the Seller Stamp Duty (SSD) period in 2024, and I can always choose to exit from this property through a sale to get rid of the mortgage and get back the bulk of my capital. The best choice though, would be to continue holding it and collect rental as passive income for a few more years, as calculated from my Excel property calculator which would give me the best ROI.

There are a few benefits for doing so. One, I can use the monthly rental to pay off the monthly installment for the mortgage. I still need to assess the rental yield that I am getting and also the full net-net of the actual return (minus away all the MCST fees, sinking funds, property tax, etc). But until then, I’m assuming that it’s a net positive.

Secondly, I can unlock the liquidity of my OA funds while leaving SA and MA funds untouched. Once my MA has reached BHS and SA has reached FRS, my additional MA funds will start to flow into my OA, which will then allow me to use more of my CPF OA to pay for the monthly mortgage, eventually leaving me with more cash on hand.

This was the supposed plan, but I have stopped topping up my CPF with extra funds. I did use part of my MA for my delivery fees, and they did not come cheap as I had a long and hard labour and had to deliver by emergency C-section which was totally not anticipated for but fortunately LO was well and safe and healthy (thank God for that). Sidetracked – but because I am a working mother so I was almost about to hit the $80,000 yearly tax relief cap and my tax bracket was already brought low enough that topping up my CPF didn’t make good financial sense to “save” more, so I didn’t do it in 2023. Not only that, there’s the Parenthood Rebate which will allow me to not pay any taxes as all if I use it.

So well, no income taxes payable for me for 2023.

Anyway, back to the OA SA MA thingy. Assuming that I do achieve the BHS and FRS and depending on when I’ll achieve that – or should I say, how FAST I want to achieve that, I can use the additional cash on hand to either top up the CPF again for tax relief the next year, or use it for stock investing, or just keep more warchest and emergency funds on hand.

Speaking of emergency funds, I do keep slightly more funds here because I have 1 dependent with me now. Somehow having more money that I can immediately deploy just seems sound and makes me feel more at peace. I’ve been avidly contributing back to the home and things like bills and daily essentials are inevitable expenses, so I have closed 2 eyes and been more liberal with the spending. I want to give credit to my hubs here as well for being very financially supportive as well, and he has been also helping to provide for a substantial share for food expenses, so thank you hubs!

Lastly, both hubs and I have been contributing to our joint account ever since 2-3 years back. I am the one actively managing it and have been buying SSB and short-term super safe bonds with the money. I have more limitations with how I can use this money because it belongs to the family and not me, so I’ll stick to the super safe options until requested otherwise. Let’s see how much the account will grow by next year.

Here’s hoping you had a great financial year in 2023 as well!

Miss Niao xoxo.

Why Setting a Budget is Silly – Here’s a Better Way to Save Money

If you were to ask anyone what’s the best way to save money, it is quite inevitable that the conversation will somehow lead to the word “budget”.

What does budgeting really mean anyway? In my definition, it is to place certain boundaries around different portions of your paycheck to know where the money is all going to. And if you cross those boundaries, it means that you haven’t been disciplined enough to have done what should be best for you.

Imagine yourself going on a diet.

Financial Literacy Starts From Home

My parents aren’t exactly the brightest bunch when it comes to their finances. I certainly was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and they did the best that they could to bring me and my brother up with whatever that they could afford while surviving from paycheck to paycheck. This includes being able to provide for my education up till my degree. I can’t express how much gratitude I have to them for allowing me to graduate debt-free.

With just a few more years left until the end of their housing loan of 30 years, both of them are far from retirement.

The Power of The No Spend Day

After a long hiatus of 7 years, I have decided to devote myself to tracking my expenses again for September with the newly updated application, Expense Manager. It is now made more robust with added features. It even included visually appealing graphs to show the allocation of my expenses to different categories and their percentages!

There is also this feature on Expenses Manager which I love the most – setting a monthly budget. You could even go one step further to set different budgets for different categories. It would also tell you how much money you are left with for the rest of the month so that you can do some planning for your future expenditures. Yummy!

The problem with reading investment books – 401(k) plan

 I have a big problem when it comes to reading investment books. More often than not, the books are written by authors from the USA and many of them include the option of using the 401(k) as a tool to improve their finances, as like what a typical Singaporean would do with her CPF system. It is such a pain because I don’t know what are the actual benefits of the 401(k) and the limitations of it. I also can’t relate to the tips that the books are trying to convey no matter how many times I read it, and because of this, the usefulness of the books isn’t 100% brought out.

Thus, the birth of this post. I’m done with this. And since Miss Niao has quite a few readers from the US, I hope that this post would benefit them as well.

Cheap and Good – 5 Money saving tips for Malaysia/Thailand trips

In continuation to my previous post on my travels from Singapore to Thailand by land, I’ve decided to also blog about some money saving tips that I found out by accident during my vacation while they are still fresh in my memory. This feeling is a bitter sweet one because it made me realize how much money I have “lost” during my previous travels to Malaysia and Bangkok.

Oh well, I guess it’s never too late, only later. >_<

Anyway, since this trip isn’t a conventional one as I traveled by land and it was also my first time visiting Ipoh, it offered me different alternatives on how to get what I need as compared to arriving at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Counting the number of actual hours of traveling, it amounted to almost 30 hours! Phew!

Cheap and Good – How I spend $111 on Make-Up Every Year

This is the first blog entry for “Cheap and Good“. Yay!!!!! I have decided to share with my female readers (and male ones if you happen to be interested :p) about the different make-up that I use. Other than being a financial blogger, I am also secretly a make-up geek that probably watches too many make-up tutorials for her own good. :p

I don’t use make-up everyday but I do have a basic routine that I follow religiously if I want to look better on a particular day. The brands that I use are pretty generic and most of them are actually drugstore brands that are easily found locally.

The Ultimate Shopping Contract – How to stop yourself from spending unnecessarily

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Date: ____________

The Ultimate Shopping Contract

I, ____(insert name here)____, promise that I will not buy anything without thinking twice. I will ask myself if the product I’m holding in my hand is something that is a “want” or a need”. If it is a “want”, then I will promptly put the product back on its shelf. If it is a “need”, I will ask if there are alternatives. Then, I will choose the one that brings the most value in terms of price and quality.

It’s hard to save money as a girl

Guys are so lucky.

Guys don’t get periods. They don’t get creeping insecurities within their guts to want to look better. They age like wine. Parts of their body sag but it somehow becomes attractive to certain younger women.

Sigh. 😦

When I say it’s hard to save money as a girl, I don’t see a reason for you to doubt me. The constant need of having to compare yourself to your peers, and to look your best at all times. It’s emotionally and mentally draining. When you see the advertisements of models with killer hot bodies, you always aspire to be like them and think to yourself if you’ll ever get there one day.

So you go get more make up to cover up your flaws. And maybe even thought about spending a few thousand dollars on that slimming package that would help you to look awesome and gain that kind of confidence that you once had before.

Well, I’m no exception. Trust me, I’ve been there before.

But I found a way to cope with it. I found ways to look good with minimal cost. It took me a few years to get to where I am, but I’ve managed to do it. The best part? It doesn’t cost me a bomb. In fact, I spend less than $500 a year on make up and clothes every year. All you really need are just a few simple tips.

I have opened up a new category called “Cheap and Good“. If you want to gain more insight on how I save money, look good and pick out bargains, check out my blog for future posts!

Thanks for reading!

Miss Niao xoxo

How BF and I save more than $3000 per month – Top 5 saving tips for couples

Many of my male friends have made comments about them spending more money after getting a girlfriend. It seems like love and money has an inverse relationship. It is not uncommon to see more and more people choosing to be single, and it may not necessarily be a bad thing, if your main focus is to accumulate as much wealth as you can. Being a couple means having to go out dating, dining at nicer restaurants, buying gifts for one another on monthsaries and anniversaries. It may impede you in reaching your financial goals earlier if your partner does not want the same eventually.

Well, I’m here to tell you that not all relationships are like that. Not for BF and I, at least.