Updates for Feb 2018

February is busy month with the CNY preparation consisting of spring cleaning, getting ready red packets, buying of CNY goodies and also an "exciting" period for the stock markets where we are seeing big dip in the stock prices and indexes. It could be quite a emotional time for some people especially those who just enter the market and never experience such huge drop in stock prices and indexes before. But it is a good thing that this “correction” ended rather quickly. 笨mummy guess that with automation, actions are taken much quicker and time frame for the “correction” is much shorter compared to the previous huge corrections that she has had experienced in the past. 

Here are the actions taken by 笨mummy this month: 

• Subscribed and received 20,000 of SSB for the Feb 2018 issue. 笨mummy treated this as a short term saving account since the first year interest of 1.55% is better than most banks FD. 
• Opened a DBS Multiplier Account in view of the higher interest rate. 笨mummy loves how DBS revamped this account. She has also blogged about it earlier. 
• Picked up 5,000 units of Ascendas REIT at S$2.57 this month using up about a portion of the fund 笨mummy reserved for stock purchases. It is always more prudent to buy in slowly as we would never know when the stock market would bottom. But 笨mummy is a bit sad that she did not manage to get ST Eng at $3.21 even though she entered a buy order for it. All she can do now is to wait for the boat to come back again so she can board. 

Dividend / Interest for the month of Feb 2018

Capmall Bond - S$ 77.63
Suntec REIT - S$ 260.40
CDL H Trust - S$ 542.72
Ascott Trust - S$ 410.30
Aspial Treasury Bond - S$ 52.93

Dividend received in Year 2014	S$ 8,241.99
Dividend received in Year 2015	S$ 8,978.59
Dividend received in Year 2016	S$ 12,145.15
Dividend received in Year 2017	S$ 12,964.44
Dividend received in Feb 2018	S$ 1,343.98
Dividend received in Yr 2018 to date	S$ 1,343.98

Spring cleaning for saving accounts, fixed deposits, SSB and debts

笨mummy always do a spring cleaning of her saving accounts, fixed deposits and SSB on an annual basis. Her way to do it is: 
1) List down all your saving accounts, fixed deposits and SSB 
2) List down your outstanding debts. 
3) Review - 

• Your reason for having the saving account and whether is the need for the account is still valid or relevant now. 
• Consider whether are there better saving accounts out there that could offer you something better for your money. 
• If the interest rate from the saving account is lower than your outstanding debt interest rates, then you may consider whether you are better off using the money from the saving account to pay off the debt. 

4) List down action items and act on them within the next 1 month. 

笨mummy has done her review and include it in this blog for sharing purposes below: 

1) List down all saving accounts, fixed deposits and SSB
Saving accounts and the prevailing interest rates (all figures round down to nearest hundreds) 

• UOB One Account - $50,000 @ 2.46% 
• UOB One Account - $1,000 @ 0.05%
• DBS Multiplier Account - $50,000 @ 1.90% or 2.0% 
• POSB Joint Account with hubby - $500 @ 0.05%
• POSB eMSA Account - $200 @ 0.05% 
• POSB Passbook Account - $11,000 @0.05%
• OCBC Frank Account - $3,400 @ 0.20% 
• SCB eSavers - $57,300 @ 1.05% (based latest promotion rate) 
• SSB Sep 17 - $10,000 @ 1.15% 
• SSB Feb 18 - $20,000 @ 1.55% 

2) List down your outstanding debts. 

Debt and the prevailing interest rate 

• Housing loan - $240,400 @ 1.30% 

3) Review
$120,000 (in UOB One account, DSB Multiplier & SSB Feb 18) out of $203,400 is earning higher interest than the outstanding mortgage and 笨mummy is fine for them to remain status quo. For the remaining $83,400 that are earning less than interest rate below 1.30%, need to do an in-depth review and see whether to close the account, reduce the balance or remain as it is or use them to pay off the housing loan. 

a) UOB One Account - $1,000 @ 0.05%
The $1,000 in the UOB one account is meant to be a float for the 3 bills payment by GIRO so 笨mummy does not need to constantly monitor the balance of her account. 

b) POSB Joint Account with hubby - $500 @ 0.05%
The $500 amount is the minimum amount to prevent any fall below fee for this account. The account is meant for salary crediting to hit the criteria for both her and her hubby's DBS Multiplier accounts. 

c) POSB eMSA Account - $200 @ 0.05% 
This account is opened during a DBS/POSB promotion and there is an early closure fee if close within 6 months of opening. So 笨mummy has to keep this account for another 2 more months. 

d) POSB Passbook Account - $11,000 @0.05%
This account is being used for accepting payments for Carousell sales and other ad-hoc online sales. The minimum sum to maintain is $500 to prevent any fall below fee. Having $11,000 in this account seems to be high given that this account is meant for receiving payment and would not have any outflow. However, 笨mummy wants this account keeps trace of her sales income from non-employment and does not want to have it mixed up with other saving accounts. Though tempted to switch to OCBC Frank account, most people in Singapore have POSB or DBS accounts, it is definitely better to use a POSB account for this purpose.  

e) OCBC Frank Account - $3,400 @ 0.20% 
The amount inside this account is meant for personal spending. Every month after receiving salary, a fixed amount is transferred to this account. Daily expenditures, such as transportation, meals, personal handphone bills, insurance premiums are funded by this account. 

f) SCB eSavers - $57,300 @ 1.05% (based latest promotion rate) 
笨mummy is unlikely to touch this as the money is meant to fund her investment in shares when there is a bargain that come about. She needs the money to be in a SCB saving account for its liquidity and ease of transfer to the securities settlement account for online equity trading. This is by far the best account she could get from SCB. 

g) SSB Sep 17 - $10,000 @ 1.15%
The interest rate for the SSB Sep 17 is only 1.15% for first year, 1.32% for second year and an average of 2.12% for 10 years.  It makes better sense to redeem this SSB and reinvest in the next one - Mar 2018 or Apr 2018 to get a better rate. 

4) List down action items and act on them within the next 1 month

• Redeem SSB Sep 17 and reinvest in the coming SSB
• Close POSB eMSA account in Apr 18 when it passes the 6 months period where the early closure penalty no longer apply. 

Have you done your spring cleaning yet? 

On board DBS Multiplier Account

笨mummy knew that she is going back to the workforce and being a salarywoman, she did some research on what saving accounts offered by the banks would be best for her salary crediting. Currently 笨mummy has a UOB one account which she earns an interest of 2.43% on her $50,000 by meeting the minimum $500 credit card spending and 3 GIRO debits per month. To maintain the UOB one card, all household expenses are charged to UOB One card - home internet, insurance premium, town council conversancy charge, the purchase of groceries, milk powders, diapers, etc and she also set up GIRO debiting for expenses that cannot be pay by credit card - child 1's school fee, her monthly donation to community chest, and payment for NTUC union. She is happy with the current status of spending via the UOB One card and does not wish to change as this is the highest interest rate she can attain for her $50,000 saving.

Given she now has a salary crediting, she was actually looking at OCBC 360 account ('360'), DBS Multiplier account ('MA'), BOC SmartSaver ('SS'), Standard Chartered Bonus Saver ('BS'). Based on her preliminary review below, MA seems to offer the best rate based on her need.

Account	Salary crediting (>6K/mth)	Other criteria	Comment
360	1.20% (no need to hit other criteria)	·       OCBC Credit spending > $500 (0.3%) ·       Investment – purchase of eligible investment products (0.6% or 1.2%) ·       3 bill payments > $150 in total (0.3%) ·       Account balance >$200,000 (1%)	笨mummy does not want to spend more money just to hit a criteria to earn more interest so credit card spending is not attainable and purchase of investment products are out. Also on the wealth bonus offer, it is quite ridiculous as who would put 200K just to get an addition 1% on the first 70K, and the remaining 130K just earning 0.05% interest. However, 3 bill payments is still something that can be attainable. Maximum possible interest rate for 70K put in is 1.5%
MA	1.90% (plus one other criteria) 2.00% (plus two other criteria)	·       DBS/POSB Credit spending ·       Investment (include dividend credited from CDP) ·       DBS/POSB Home loan ·       Manulife Insurances purchased through DBS/POSB	Home loan and insurance are out.   Credit card spending seems attainable as only need to clock any amount – buying a pack of Fisherman from Watson once a month should do the trick. Plus Investment allows dividend credited from CDP which is superb as 笨mummy has dividends inflow almost every month except for Jan and Jul. Maximum possible interest rate for 50K put in is 2.0 %
SS	1.2% (no need to hit other criteria)	·       3 bill payments >S$30 each (0.35%) ·       BOC Credit card spending > $500 or $1500(0.80% /1.60%) ·       Extra saving for meeting more than one criteria	3 bill payments is still something that can be attainable. Maximum possible interest rate for 50K put in is 1.55 %
BS	1% (no need to hit other criteria)	·       SCB Credit card spending > $500 or $2000(0.88% /1.88%) ·       Eligible Insurance Policy/ Unit Trust (0.75%) ·       3 bill payments > $50 each (0.25%)	Spending and purchase of insurance policy/unit trust are out. 3 bill payments is still something that can be attainable. Maximum possible interest rate for 100K put in is 1.25 %

笨mummy did more reading up on DBS MA by browsing the FAQ and T&C on its website and forums. To her pleasant surprise, she discovered that MA allows joint account is counted for hitting the salary credit and crediting of dividend by CDP (investment). This can be considered a huge advantage or "competitive edge' that the MA has over other banks products. For those who do not see why she is so excited, please continue to read on. For those who got it, you can close the browse now. 

笨mummy takes advantage of this above to open a joint account with her hubby and use this joint account to be her salary crediting account as well as the crediting account for CDP and both she and her hubby opened one individual DBS MA each and switched the monthly utilities bill from GIRO to hubby's POSB everyday credit card. 

In this way, her hubby can continue to earn the 1.2% under OCBC 360 for his own salary crediting and yet he can qualify for DBS Multiplier by levering on 笨mummy's salary. Now she has 50K plus 50K (hubby money) earning 1.90% or 2.0% from just one salary crediting account. 

So now 笨mummy's family has:

- $50K earning 2.43% in UOB one account

- $100K earning 1.90% / 2.0% in DBS Multiplier

- $70K earning 1.60% in OCBC 360 (as 笨mummy's hubby can only hit the bill payments critera)

by hitting:

- two salary crediting

- monthly spending of slightly more than $500

- 3 GIRO

- 3 billing payments