Update for May 2019

May is always an exciting month to look forward to due to the influx of dividend. 

Dividend / Interest for the month of May 2019

Ascendas REIT - $1,466.28 

Ascendas India Trust - $375

DBS Pref Share - $233.07

FLC Bond - $181

Keppel Corp - $300 

Kingsmen Creative - $75 

Mapletree GCC - $195.60

NERA - $75 

SPH -$110 

ST Eng - S$1,100 

Suntec REIT - $323

The amount of dividend received for the same period last year was much higher. The decease are mainly due to the sales of M1 shares which used to contribute $900 plus to the dividend in Apr and the sales of the corporate bonds middle last year. 

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 Year 2018	S$ 14,709.91
Dividend received in May 2019	S$ 4,433.95
Dividend received in Yr 2019 to date	S$ 5,924.24

Update for April 2019

Same as March, this is also a month without any dividend received. 笨mummy had divested half of her ST Eng shares after ex-dividend for $3.90 to lock in the profit before May. 

Things are chaotic at home as the weight of handling most of the kids stuff and the household eventually break the camel’s (笨mummy's) back. It is so tiring to deal with someone who so self-center and think he is doing the things for you when most of things are for the kids which he is a parent of too. But honestly, is there any laws or rules that indicated that the wife should be the one to do the household chores and settling the kids stuff? Is there a job scope that defined what a wife or mother should do and what a hubby or father needs to do?

A father who rather wait for the mother to come back from hospital to bath the kids than doing it himself. A father who refuse to change the diaper of the child when it is soiled with poo cos he thinks it is dirty. A father who rather spend money to buy “toys” for himself than money to sign up for enrichment class for the kids. A father who never know what things that kids are doing in school and rather take leave to go for a movie than taking leave for school activities. A husand who told the wife that he has no money and just leave it to the wife to pay the hospital bill and the bill for the gyna for both kids. It is always about him and never about them. 

Sometimes 笨mummy does regret getting married and life without him would be a breeze. The sad thing is one cannot turn back the clock. 

Let hope for a better month in May onward and continue to the path to a more financially stable future. Cheers!

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 Year 2018	S$ 14,709.91
Dividend received in Apr 2019	S$ 0
Dividend received in Yr 2019 to date	S$ 1,490.29

Updates for Mar 2019

Another month with no dividend. Investment has taken a back seat as 笨mummy was totally occupied with work. It was a crazy month trying to balance the increased amount of work and also the need to focus more on Child 1's learning before he goes primary school next year. 

Evenings are spent on teaching Child 1 on the "Sight Words" that Child 1 should by right know at his age. Morning before work are time for Child 1 to do his hand-writting practice.  

Time at work is equally stressful as there are too much work that need to be completed but still sitting in 笨mummy's inbox. There is also other administrative work that take up a lot of time.  

Let hope for a better month in April onward. Cheers!

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 Year 2018	S$ 14,709.91
Dividend received in Mar 2019	S$ 0
Dividend received in Yr 2019 to date	S$ 1,490.29

Updates for Feb 2019

笨mummy loves the Feb because it is a short month and also there cash inflow from the dividend from the shares she owned. 

As mentioned in last month post, the price of some REIT that 笨mummy holds have increased and she was thinking of offloading some. She took action and sold 5K shares of Ascendas REIT at $2.78. She would wait for the price to come back down to $2.63 - $2.65 to buy back. 

Dividend / Interest for the month of Feb 2019

Capmall Bond - S$ 77.63

Suntec REIT - S$ 259.00

CDL H Trust - S$ 524.70

Ascott Trust - S$ 436.26

Mapletree NAC - S$192.70

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 Year 2018	S$ 14,709.91
Dividend received in Feb 2019	S$ 1,490.29
Dividend received in Yr 2019 to date	S$ 1,490.29

Updates for Jan 2019

笨mummy starting to feel the impact of the “peak” at work as she took over more cases from her colleagues who are away on secondment at clients’ place. January just went by like a flash and Chinese New Year is coming. She has no time to even go to SGX website to check on the price of her holdings and those stocks on her watchlist. . 

The only stock action 笨mummy took wasto sell her balance holding of M1 on the open market at $2.08 instead of waiting for the GO. Overall, she has lost a significant amount even after accounting for dividend. On hindsight, she regretted not selling the shares in the past when the price hit $3.90 and continue to hold all the way till now. It is a good lesson to her to not let emotion rule the thought process and also dividend yield is not everything. One can learn to ride the up and down of share price. 

This brought about two thoughts in 笨mummy’s head: 

1) should she buy back M1 at a lower price when the GO did not go though? The price of M1 was trading around $1.60 before the GO was announced and pushed the price back to the $2.08 to $2.10 range. Assuming the dividend yield remains, the price of 1.60 seems to give a relatively good yield. 

2) since the price of some of the REITs that she owns went up significantly this month, shld she ride the up trend and offload some and wait for a down trend to pick up these stocks . 

Maybe this Chinese New Year is a good time to ponder over the above 2 thoughts she has. 

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 Year 2018	S$ 14,709.91
Dividend received in Jan 2019	S$ 0
Dividend received in Yr 2019 to date	S$ 0

Updates for Dec 2018

Finally it is time to hand in the result for 2018.  Total dividend for the year is 14,709.91. Still $300 short of the $15K target set. Let's try hard in 2019.

As for overall comparison with last year figures: 
- 54K increase in cash component (i.e. cash in balance and the value of stock held)
- 27K increase in non-cash component (i.e CPF OA, SA and MA balance plus SRS investment and balance)
- 9.5K increase in the joint investment account with hubby

Overall, 笨mummy is happy with the amount of money she has managed accumulated this year with her employment income. Of course, she hopes that she could have better control over her spending, especially the portion on foods and coffee. 

Dividend / interest for month of Dec 18:  
Ascendas H Trust - S$ 224.80
SPH - $ 140.00

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 Dec 2018	S$ 364.80
Dividend received in Yr 2018 to date	S$ 14,709.91

High interest rates - a pro and a con

Interest rate is a double edged sword except when you have cash earning bank interest and outstanding mortgage with the bank.

笨mummy just received a letter from the bank that her interest rate is going to increase from 1.6% by another 0.6% to 2.2%. She was surprised to receive the letter from the bank announcing this considering that the rate was increased from 1.3% to 1.6% around Aug/Sep 2018 and in less than 6 months another increase announcement.

Although the terms and conditions allow her to re-price her mortgage, the current housing loan rate offered by the same bank is of a relatively higher rate. She is seriously considering whether to start to pay off the outstanding loan using cash Nov 2019 when her lock-in period end as it seems the trend of higher interest rate is here to stay.