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. 

Negative and discouraging remarks

Dealing with negative and discouraging remarks are often what make the FIRE journey harder than what it may seem. The casual remark of “what is so great about getting that extra $100 or $200 from a high interest yield saving account. If you are so great, you should be earn few hundred thousand from trading in properties or stocks like those reported in the papers”, “that extra dividend or interest of that few hundreds cannot even pay for that xxx”, or “not buying that ‘good-to-have’ item does not make you rich”. It is especially hard when it comes from your significant others or your family members.

It is so hard to make someone see the “light” at the end of the tunnel. Maybe this article is in a way right. Sometimes a person may want something like financial freedom and able to have time to do his own stuff,  travel around, etc. But the question is how much pain / suffering you are willing to take to achieve that. 笨mummy is a person who can live without the latest gadgets, the fancy new clothes ranges from some fashion house, latest branded bags, etc. and if this is what it would take to reach Finance freedom, it does not bother her very much since she can live without them.

But looking at her hubby, she knows that he is not willing to “suffer” by depriving himself of these things. He always said that he spent some much time at work and being so stressful, he needs to buy stuffs to help reduce the stress otherwise he does not know why he is working so hard for. However, after getting these stuffs, it does not make the stress from work to go away and the worst is after he got these stuffs, most of the times he does not bear to use them. These stuffs would be kept in the drawers, cupboards or anywhere he can find space to store them. After a while, these stuffs would be spoilt due to long storage and cannot be used.

It is very tiring to deal with someone who keep complaining about having to suffer at work, yet unwilling to bear some pains to get yourself out of the suffering forever. The little bit of extra income counts toward the end, it is a journey and not a shortcut and you would not see the result immediately.

笨mummy has gave up on trying to convince her hubby to join her in her pursue of financial freedom and passive income as it is very tiring to deal with negative comments when your intention is to help and you ended up being attacked for what you are doing. 

Updates for Nov 2018

One more month to go before the end of 2018. Time really flies especially when 笨mummy is back at work compared to her SAHM time. It is a joy to see the bank account figures moving up due to input from monthly salary, dividends from shares and also interests from the high yield savning accounts. 

With the new year approaching, 笨mummy is picking up speed on projects that she has put on hold due to lack of time. She spent her weekend on tidying and cleaning the cupboards, wardrobes and also the windows. She also kicked start her mini re-model of the spare room to an official playroom for the two kids. Hopefully everything can be completed by the end of the year. 

She is looking forward to the Christmas holiday when she has more time to spend on these tasks. 

Dividend / interest for month of Nov 18:  
Ascendas India Trust - S$ 358.00  
Mapletress GCC - $ 192.60 
Ascendas REIT - $ 146.97 
Suntec REIT - $ 249.10 
DBS Pref Share - $ 473.86 
FCL Treasury Bond- $ 184 

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 Nov 2018	S$ 1,604.53
Dividend received in Yr 2018 to date	S$ 14,345.11