Updates for Dec 2017

Finally we are reaching the end of 2017. It have been a great year for 笨mummy which she had experienced being a SAHM for 8 months (May to Dec) and through this, she had also gain valuable lifeskills such as: 

(1) basic cooking - able to cook 4 different varieties of soup, have 2-3 steam dishes that she could whip up in less than 10 minutes). 

(2) budgeting skill - working with little budget and needing to feed the family, 笨mummy learnt to find ways to maximise the budget and get more out of her grocery shopping.

(3) housekeeping skill - sweeping, mopping and cleaning as well as laundry are everyday tasks for a SAHM. And 笨mummy can proudly say that she is doing better each day on these tasks. Tuesdays and Fridays are mopping day, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays are laundry days for dirty clothes and used towels while Thursday are days to replace used hand towels, kitchen clothes with clean ones and washing of those used towels and clothes. 

A first family trip was planned and executed this year. Although it was a rather tiring trip traveling with two children, aging one year old and three year old, it was overall an enjoyable trip for the little ones, especially for Child 1. He still remembered the characters he met in Disneyland Hongkong as well as the stay in the hotel. 

With 2018 in sight in a few more days, 笨mummy had set her resolution for 2018 to be a wealth accumulation year as she is going back to the workforce on 2 Jan 2018. Hopefully she could still keep her spending at the same level during her SAHM period while having extra income from her work. Jiayou. 

Here is the final installment of dividend for 2017: 

Dividend / interest for month of Dec 17:  

Singapore Press Holding - S$ 180.00
Ascendas Hospitality Trust - S$ 218.40

Let's hope 笨mummy can hit the $15K dividend target in 2018. 

Dividend received in Year 2014	$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Dec 2017	$ 398.40
Dividend received in Year 2017 to date	$ 12,964.44

Updates for Nov 2017

November is a busy month with most stocks paying out dividends and also the start of the school holiday for Child 1. Time is spent entertaining the demanding Child 1 and handling the increased mobility of Child 2 as she is now one year old. 

笨mummy went on a 4D3N family trip to Hong Kong and there was so much preparation work as she brought two children and Child 2, just passed her old year birthday, is still having special dietary requirements - no salt, no processed food. It is good to write a post to record down this for reference for future family trips. 

 

In term of financial wise, 笨mummy had:

• Added 6,500 units of Ascendas REIT at S$2.73 before XD. 

• Subscribed to Keppel-KBS US REIT IPO and wasted $2. But 笨mummy is still looking out to add this via the open market at a later date. 

• Opened a USD high account with SCB. As 笨mummy just got her priority status with SCB, she could now open this USD high account to deposit USD. The benefits of this account is that there is no minimum deposit required and one can deposit physical USD with no commission once a month. She can now look at investing in some IWDA. 

• Received a substantial dividends of S$2,724.07 this month. But she is still fall short of her target of S$ 15K

Dividend / interest for month of Nov 17:  

Oxyley Bond - S$ 126.03
DBS Pref Share - S$ 236.93
FCL Treasury Bond - S$ 184.00
Hyflux Pref Share - S$ 151.23
Ascendas REIT - S$ 1,459.44
Suntec REIT - S$ 248.3
Ascendas India Trust - S$ 281.00
Mapletree GCC Trust - S$ 37.14

Dividend received in Year 2014	$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Nov 2017	$ 2,724.07
Dividend received in Year 2017 to date	$ 12,566.04

Updates for Oct 2017

笨mummy had taken some actions in Oct:

• She sold 1,000 units of Keppel Corp shares at $7.10 on 19 Oct 2017. After the sales, she still has 2,000 unit of Keppel Corp shares with an average cost of S$ 7.90. On hindsight, she should have wait for a few days before she sell as the price went up all the way to $7.6. 

• She received $10,000 cash from the redemption of Genting Preference Shares. She was upset that the company decided to recall the preference shares, otherwise the payout of 5.125% is rather attractive compare to the current deposit interest rate from banks.  Meanwhile she is still exploring where to put this additional fund. 

Dividend / interest for month of Oct 17:  

Genting Perf Share - S$ 256.95
Perennial Bond - S$ 139.88
Hyflux pref share - S$ 90.25

Dividend received in Year 2014	$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Oct 2017	$ 480.08
Dividend received in Year 2017 to date	$ 9,841.97

Updates for Sep 2017

September seems to be a bad month for 笨mummy. Most stocks that 笨mummy holding and seeing a lot of red in her excel record. She also has quite a bad pick of stocks this year, with most of her recent purchases seeing the most percentage of paper losses. She bought 5,000 of ST Eng in the first week of Sep and the price started to drop by more than 17 cents from her buying price. Her husband is sick with a rare condition caused by inflammation of the thyroid and this condition could take a few months to recover with some chance of developing into a permanent thyroid condition. 

With one quarter left till the end of the year, 笨mummy has only managed to accumulate S$9.3K worth of dividend /interest payout for 2017, and she still needs about S$5.7K more to hit her $15K dividend target for 2017. Let's see how the rest of the quarter work out for her, especially Oct and Nov where most stocks she holding are paying out dividends. 

Dividend / interest for month of Sep 17:  
Nera Tel - S$ 50
Kingsmen - S$ 50
HPH Trust - S$16.51

Dividend received in Year 2014	$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Sep 2017	$ 116.51
Dividend received in Year 2017 to date	$ 9,354.79

Carousell experience

笨mummy has been using Carousell for a while now and thought that she could share some of her personal experience on using the platform. 

1) People do not always read the descriptions 

After selling items on Carousell for close to 3 months now, 笨mummy realised that a lot of people do not bother to read. There was one instance where the buyer complained about the condition of an item sold despite 笨mummy had very clearly detailed the condition of the item. As pre-caution and to avoid unhappiness from buyers, she always take time to re-state on the condition of the item in the description during her chat with the buyers. 

2) There are still people in Singapore in need of help / financial assistance 

Singapore is a developed country, however, there are still some group of people who need help and less well-off So before you throw away anything that is still useable, try blessing away on Carousell to someone who needed it. Try listing anything that you want to throw away for 3 - 5 days once Carousell under the word "BLESS", if there is no buyer by them, you can go ahead and throw it away. If there is a buyer, you end up doing a good deed. 

There are baby clothes that had milk stain (which she intended to throw away) and 笨mummy still managed to bless them out. A lot of us would throw stuff away that are still usable but aesthetically unpleasing. But to those some people, it is more importance to have something that they could use and save the money to buy a new one.   

3) Dealing with lost post or mail

笨mummy had encountered one lost mail where the buyer informed that she did not receive the parcel sent out to her after one week. This is totally surprising for 笨mummy as she has never encounter a lost mail or parcel since the day one of her online shopping journey. Being a SAHM with pocket of time when Child 1 is in school, she tried to tracing the location of this so called missing parcel and 皇天不负责任苦心人, 笨mummy managed to locate the parcel with some efforts and she still has a zero missing mail record. 

笨mummy decided to share with you all on what she learnt from this whole experience so that it could be benefit some of you that regularly purchase stuff online or sell stuff online and you do not need to go through what she did.  

As a general tip: 

For a seller 

• Always take a photo of the parcel before you mail out the item so that the buyer can used the photo to show to the post office staff in the event no delivery advice is received.

• Always put the returned address so that the item can be returned to you if it failed to reach the buyer.

For a buyer 

• If you did not receive your parcel via normal postage after a week, you can proceed to your designated post office (normally the one where your undelivered mail or registered mail is returned to) to check if the post office has your item. Why one week you may ask, this is because, delivery time for bigger items via normal post is 3-5 working days instead of the next working day as normal mail. 

• You can collect the undelivered item without a delivery advice - NRIC showing the address and a picture of the parcel /item would allow you to collect the item. You may wonder why the delivery advice took so long to arrive. As understand from the post office staff and Singpost customer care, for normal postage that are too big to put into the mailbox, the postman would go to your place and if nobody at home, the item would be return to the designated post office (may not be the nearest one) and no delivery advice would be left at door. The delivery advice is prepared by the designated post office and mailed out to the buyer address and this would take another few working days. This is unlike a registered mail where a delivery advice is available and attached to a mail for the recipient to sign or to be left at the door in the event of non-delivery. 

Updates for Aug 2017

A number of stocks paying out dividends in August, 笨mummy received a whooping S$2.7k for this month. No action taken this month for stocks but she looking to offload the 5K units of M1 shares purchased in July when the price pick up. 

The paperwork for the refinancing from UOB to OCBC is more or less done. Lawyer had served the notice to UOB, valuation report received (valuation actually drop compared to one and half year ago) and would be visiting the lawyer in early Sep to sign the documents. Hopefully everything done before end of the year as the UOB rate is going to move from 1.58% to 1.78% on Feb 2018. OCBC rate of 1.30% for first three years is the best rate 笨mummy has seen so far for an outstanding balance of 240K. It also comes with a cash back of $1,600 which fully covered the legal fee and a $100 takashimaya voucher. in total, 笨mummy only need to fork out $250 for the valuation report for the refinancing. 

She had subscribed for her first Singapore Saving Bond (the one for the month of Sep 17) using some of her fund in the eSaver account as currently the interest from eSaver that she is getting is around 1.05% (for balance less than $50,000) and the Sep Singapore Saving Bond is offering 1.15% for the first year. The great thing about this Singapore Saving Bond is that you could cash out any time at a cost of $2 and the interest would be Pro-rated. Going forward, if the interest rate from the eSaver pick up significantly, she may consider to switch back. If the interest rate of the Oct Singapore Saving Bond is higher than the Sep one, she may move another batch of her fund in eSaver to subscribe for the bond. 

These past weeks were tiring as both Child 1 & 2 are sick (still not recovered yet) and it is so hard to get a good night sleep and also getting anything done as Child 2 is especially whinny when she is sick. Ironically saying, 笨mummy had reaped the benefits of a SAHM. She can focus to take care of her children when they are sick, does not have the guilt of going to work while the children are sick and also no need to see boss' black face when applying for leave to take care of children or colleagues' black face for cover her work when she is on leave. 

Dividend / interest for month of Aug 17:  
M1 - S$ 780
Keppel Corp - S$ 240
OCBC - S$ 195.48
CDL H Trust - S$ 434.60
Suntec REIT - S$ 249.30
Ascott Trust - S$ 369.16
Asprial Bond - S$ 52.07
Capital Mall Bond (3.08%) - S$ 76.37
ST Engineering - S$ 300
ComfortDelgro - S$ 43.50

Dividend received in Year 2014	$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Aug 2017	$ 2,740.48
Dividend received in Year 2017 to date	$ 9,238.28

Saving on childcare expenses - applying for childcare subsidy

As mentioned in an earlier post, 笨mummy received a call from a childcare centre that there is an infant care vacancy for Child 2. She visited the childcare centre and had a rather positive vibe on the environment as well as the teachers. 笨mummy went ahead to register for a two week trial that would commerce in Sept.

笨mummy is quite shocked by:

(1) how expensive infant care fees are in Singapore

The one which she registered was quoting a monthly infant care school fee in the range of S$1,364.25. She also did a check with the other big names and noted that the fees are also within the same range.

(2) the big difference between the government subsidy amount for a working mother and a non working mother.

Being Singapore citizen, there is government subsidy available depending on the working status of the mother:

• For working mothers - $600
• For non-working mothers - $150

The difference in the subsidy between the two is S$450, which is quite substantial.

In her attempt to find ways to reduce the childcare expenses, 笨mummy did some research on the subsidy and these are what she found out:

• All parents with Singapore Citizen children enrolled in child care centres licensed by ECDA will continue to be eligible for a Basic Subsidy (either S$150 for families with non-working mother or S$600 for infant care and S$300 for families with working mother )
• To be eligible for the basic subsidy as a working mother, one need to be working at least 56 hours per month (i.e 1.86 hours/day)
• For a freelance or self-employed, one's income will be based on the monthly income derived from the last available net trade income assessed by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) in the latest Notice of Assessment. If the Notice of Assessment is not available, a Statutory Declaration on the working hours and monthly income will be needed to supplement the application for subsidies.

Though 笨mummy is a SAHM, she spends time at home to generate income, such as selling stuff on Carsouell, as well as some freelance assignments that she could find. Given that the requirement is a minimum of 56 hours per month, which is something that 笨mummy could easily meet since she already spent a 1 to 2 hours a day to sort out the pre-loved/used items, taking photos, listing them on carousell, communicating with buyers and arranging to mail out the items. 笨mummy decided to give ECDA helpline a call to check if she could qualify for working mother subsidy for childcare as an online seller on carousell. 

To her surprise, the officer from ECDA informed her as an online seller she could qualify for the working mother subsidy and she needs to make a statutory declaration with the Commissioner of Oath that she has met the required working hours of 56 hours per month. It also does not matter whether her online business is registered with ACRA.

笨mummy arranged for Child 1 to her in-law in the afternoon while she made a trip with Child 2 to the Commissior of Oath located at the level 3M of Supreme Court Building. Details of the Commissior of Oath as follows:

Level 3M

Supreme Court Building

1 Supremel Court Lane

Singapore 178879

The whole process was fast and took less than 10 minutes:

• Once arrived at the office, inform the person at the counter that you are here to make a statutory declaration for working hours for childcare subsidy.
• Request for the declaration form from the person, fill it up accordingly
• Make payment via NETs of S$25 at the counter
• You would be call into one of the rooms available and the Commissior of Oath (i.e. The officer in the room) would instruct you to read a paragraph to make the statutory declaration. 
• The Commissior of Oath would then sign and stamp the declaration form and pass the copy to you once it is done. 

The original declaration form needs to be submitted to the childcare for the subsidy application.

CDL H Trust Right issue result update

As mentioned in her earlier post, 笨mummy has subscribed to the right issue of CDL H Trust - her full entitlement of 1,600 units as well as excess rights of 6,400 units. She received a total of 2,600 consisting of 1,600 of her entitlement and excess of 1,000. 

 After the right issue, 笨mummy now has a total of 10,600 units of CDL H Trust.

Updates for Jul 2017

笨mummy was expecting July to be a quiet month like in the past since it is not a period where much cash inflow is expected from any of her stock holding. But things turn out rather differently, 笨mummy had:  

• Divested Ascendas REIT shares that she bought in Dec 2016 at S$2.30 at S$2.60. She gained a decent profit. The cash free up from this sales were used to fund the Netlink Trust IPO and CDL H Trust right issue. 
• Purchased 5,000 units of M1 at S$1.86 and this average down the buying price of her M1 holding which now totalled to 15,000 units. 
• Subscribed to the right issue of CDL H Trust. She had subscribed to her full entitlement of 1,600 units as well as excess rights of 6,400 units. 
• Subscribed to IPO of Netlink Trust and managed to be allocated 3,000 units of the new shares
• Managed to secure a letter of offer for refinancing from OCBC for her HDB housing loan. Currently she is enjoying a fixed rate of 1.58% from UOB till Feb 2018 and thereafter the rate would move to 1.78% and the offer from OCBC is a fixed rate 1.30% for the first two years. 

On personal matters, 笨mummy had been busy this month. She was approached by two recruitment firms and attended two interviews arranged by the firms respectively. She also received update from a childcare centre that there is a vacancy for infant care and she could enrol Child 2 if she needs to go back to work. 

While she enjoys her time being a stay at home mum, she still yearn for the recognition and financial benefits from working. She shall see how things work out in the next few weeks. Maybe things would remain status quo if no favorable response from both interviews.  

Dividend received in Year 2014	$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Jul 2017	$ 0
Dividend received in Year 2017 to date	$ 6,497.80

Updates for Jun 2017

Six months has passed and the total dividends received to date is only S$ 6,497.80 and 笨mummy is S$ 8,502.20 away from her target of S$15,000. This seems to be an unattainable goal based on current result, but we shall see how things go. 

Following Ascott Trust, another of 笨mummy's shares (CDL H- Trust) is announcing rights issue. 笨mummy would likely to be subscribing to her full entitlement plus excess rights depending on how much spare cash she has at the moment. As she has both holdings of this stock in SCB and CDP, more admin effort would be expected. 


Dividend / interest for month of Jun 17:  
Ascendas REIT - S$ 293.85
OCBC - S$ 195.48
Ascendas H Trust - S$ 240.80

Dividend received in Year 2014	$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Jun 2017	$ 730.14
Dividend received in Year 2017 to date	$ 6,497.80

Saving tips - part 1

Having a new role as the CFO of the household, 笨mummy needs to improvise and learn a few new tricks to manage her expenses well. Here are some of the "tricks" she picked up in the recent weeks for sharing. 

1) Looking out for samples before checkout

Before she checkout of her groceries shopping on online websites, such as Redmart and  Fairprice online, 笨mummy would always do an additional step to search for the keyword "sample" to see what items are being offerred as samples for 笨mummy to pick up before she completes her shopping. 

In the recent shopping on Redmart, she had picked up 

• A Nescafe Gold Latte Coffee Sample pack for S$0.25 which consists of 4 packs of the Nescafe Gold Latte Coffee (which a packet of 12 could cost around $6.50).
• A sample 370g tin of Enfagrow A+ Gentlease stage 2 stage for Child 2 at $0.10. This is a real bargain considered how expensive milk powder can be, and being, older and starting to weaning, Child 2 has no problem drinking milk powder from other brands)

Below is a printscreen of what are offered on Redmart that you can find: 

2) Qoo10 Gift card

As a regular shopper on Qoo10, it is only now that 笨mummy discovers the gift card. Qoo10 allows a shopper can actually buy gift card of $100 value on Qoo10 at a discount of 3%. If you are a regular buyer, like 笨mummy, you can actually save $3 for every $100 you spent when you purchase the gift card and use the gift card to top up your Q Money. 

That's all 笨mummy has to share for now. If anyone has any saving tip, do share with her. Saving is caring. :)