Cory Diary : Life getting to Normacy

2/17 is Special. The Day we carried Younger Rei to Nanny Place. She is almost a year old now and we feel comfortable she is ready to survive out there. Taking care of baby Rei the first year has been an Arduous journey as she was pre-matured and need much more special care. This make me realised that we have been fortunate on our first and never fully walked away with a "Credited Parent Badge journey" till now.

Interestingly, when we first has Xin, I thought bringing her up is not easy. Schedule is really full. The only truly rest time I have is like a midnight 5 min walk to a local 7-11 to take a sip of coffee while browsing through the internet. Rei up my time management capability that feels like "Tripled". So Xin is really a walk in the park actually. This further reminds me again that we should never take things for granted as it can be a lot worst. ( "Trembling laughter" )

Rei is slow in learning to crawl so Doctor recommended that she goes for some therapy to let her catch up physically. Each time I am there, there is sense of guilts to remind us that we did not provide equal amount of playtime for her that a Good Nanny plays. And this can further be attest when just a few days under a Trained Nanny care, Rei shows significant improvements in her phys.

As for Physical Therapy, not often seen and hidden from social visibility, there is group of children of various disability undergoing therapy as well who needs much more help than we are. And here I am feeling fortunate and uncomfortable to take some time away of the trainer the unsung heroes, and high praise for those parents who never give up on their child. Some of their journey is really tough and will need a lot of helps from Relatives, Friends and the Society.

With Nanny helps, now we all have more time for ourselves and another monthly budget cost of  $1,000. But I can tell you, every cent is well spend. One of best investment even for working Stay-at-Home parents. 

Humbled.

Cory

2021-0220

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

 

Cory Diary : Investment Strategy

Today topic is a little broad as it covers overlapping action, strategy and performance of myself due to my personal circumstances. So I thought a new header is needed that best summaries the scope. When I first embarked to learn more about CPF never do I know it can become one of my segment to replace my bond investment. There is always misgiving because the governance is by our Government, that we can't trust them. 

This is best summaries by Tan Choong Hwee, a Guru in CPF on below viewpoint.  And I wanted to take pain to emphasis the non-partisan perspective that we need to look at when come to our financial well being. And I wanted to share this such that everyone has an opinion that we can listen and need not necessarily agreed such that we all grow as a better person.

CPF

"Look at this in another angle. Do we realize that we are trusting someone/something where we park our money?

- Deposit in bank:   we are trusting the bank to do its job well of keeping our money safe and paying us interests.

- Invest in stocks/bonds/unit trusts/ETFs/crypto:   we are trusting the counter party in handling our investment and paying us when we liquidate our investment.

- Invest in insurance policy:   again we are trusting the people involved (insurance agents, financial advisors) and the insurance company who offered the policy.

- Invest in property:   we are trusting the agents/lawyers to do a proper job and the transactions are genuine (not fraud).

- Keep in Milo tin:   we are trusting that nobody steals it nor losing it to termites and fire.

Do you think we ever have full control of our money? Trust is paramount in the whole monetary system.

And who do you trust more? Government, companies or individuals?"

Here's my Asset allocation.

Past months I have actioned quite an amount of steps to ensure baseline plan is done for my CPF which I have neglected for long time. Here's the page link. On another perspective, CPF in total is less than 10% of my asset today. So there is also mitigation in-place if I am wrong like any investment plan. I hope to do another 4 years of VC3AC to the max limits allowed. And in my case due to continue employment and investment, the percentage may not grow in term of asset.

Equity

Equity has come down slightly to my surprise as I started Growth Journey in US market. In my personal opinion, the market is really elevated and quite high risk to buy now. My early article on 5 steps strategy is to allow me to have a toe in there while I took profits on some local shares increasing my investment cash account by about 2 points. Saving account by 1.5 point.  My concern is that if the US market is to crash, SGX will do no better and I can utilize Warchest to benefit from it hopefully.

Performance

The first month of Year 2021 is interesting. At one point STI is well ahead before it pars down by early Feb. Market continues to be listless even after Trump as Market seems not really excited with Biden as everyone has hoped for despite democrats holding all the cards now.

In term of currency exposure, I now have more Euro, US and Pounds denominated stocks. This is more due to local reit asset yield is low for those strong Reits. To bang the buck harder, reits with oversea asset looks more attractive. However I have to make sure the amount of each allocated is not significant enough to cause me worries.

Core sectors such as DBS, Vicom, SGX, OCBC and Netlink BNB Tr are holding up well. Growth segment wise is still relatively small and currently has a slight positive in net. I hope the market allows me to grow some more before the omega happens if it does. The growth gives the portfolio edge in worldwide diversification and more long term growth.

With that my portfolio now consist mainly of Core, Reits, Growth and Transition-in-process from Company Bonds to CPF.

Cory

2021-0206

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.