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

Updates for Jan 2018

January is a tiring month as 笨mummy returns to work and there are lot of things to get used to. After eight long months of not working, Microsoft Outlook now looking completely alien to her, so do all the other Microsoft Office Applications. Due to the nature of the company she  joined, she is required to dispose some SGX traded shares. 

Hence, she disposed her positions in the Netlink Trust and ComfortDelgro and decided to reinvest these funds to STI ETF (G3B), Singapore Bond ETF (A35) and VWRD (initially wanted to get IWDA but it is restricted due to the company policy). This is mainly inspired after reading the e-book written by a guy known as "Shiny Things" on the hardwarezone forum and coupled with the fact that the new company policies imposed  certain restrictions on the owning and disposal of SGX shares and investing in ETF is a better way of investment at this moment for her. She is committed to pump in $1000 a month to grow this portfolio and she added a new page to track the progress of this portfolio (decided to call it "Project X") 

She is also required to dispose her Singtel share purchased using her SRS account and resulting in a cash balance in the SRS account of S$30K+. Now she has a headache on how to use up the money sitting in her SRS account. 

January is a quiet month with zero cash in flow from dividend or interest. Let’s look forward to February where the majority of the REITs are issuing dividends. 

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 Jan 2018	S$ 0
Dividend received in Yr 2018 to date	S$ 0

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