One more year... and 6 more to go.

Adding one more year to my investing and trading journey... 60% more to go! After 4 years of wins and losses, I have to say that I am still very much in the red. Could I have done better after 4 years of losses? A resounding YES!!! Will I ever see my portfolio go green? I certainly want it... if time can help me to learn and experience, I have 100% gone leaps and bounds from where I first started. We learn and we earn!

It seems apparent that I am still at the learning stage and at some point, I will have to reach the earning part. While all of these can be easier said than done, I have set my sights beyond a mere 4 years. When I first started this journey, I wanted it to be a 10 years trip. Without a doubt, I sincerely hope to end this trip earlier and turn my losses into wins but there is just so much to pick up in the financial world. Hopefully one day, if I stay long enough, I will also be able to live enough to spend the wins! Fingers crossed.

Happy 4th Year Anniversary, Ben. 4 years ago on this day, I started this adventure like a headless chicken running around figuring out how to best make money out of money. Today, I am glad that I have taken this decision to start. 1 year ago, I made 5 changes that I have hoped for myself so let's take stock:

1) Diverse into dividends play, likely into REITS or Singapore banks. Important to grow a safe haven going into retirement. How safe is Singapore?

Invested 12K into REITS and so far, they have been working out fine with a slight profit. My aim was to hit 30K for REITS so I still have a long way to go. As for Singapore banks, I never had the opportunity to "get in" as they have been rising ever since.

2) Increase my capital outlay by another 200K in 2024. Simple formula = Spend less, save more.

I have increased my capital for investment but not through stocks. Instead, I invested through T-bills and money market fund. With the FED announcing a possible interest rate cut (happening coincidentally in less than 24 hours of this posting), I am pretty certain that T-bills and money market will be a thing of the past. Did I increase the sum to 200K? I think so...

3) Develop another source of passive income through online sales.

Yup, sold more gel blaster guns this year and all returns went back into investment. Not a dime is put to rest. Let your money work hard for you so that you don't have to work for money! It ain't much but it is still something decent.

4) Sell more CALL option on value stocks as a form of passive income. Selling cash secured put option on highly valued stock on dip days seem to work out pretty well in 2023. Need to allocate more time to screen and monitor price action.

For some reason, it didn't happen... but if I follow this closely and in hindsight... I could be making a lot more! Maybe selling puts and calls are not as exciting as buying puts and calls. In this, I need to do a full self reflection on my appetite for risks.

5) Fund my CPF to meet the Full Retirement Sum of $198K. This will eliminate "shifting of goal post" as CPF interests will help defray the rising inflation.

Been hard pumping in 2024 and I am delighted that I will be hitting my FRS this year, $208K.

I grade myself 60/100 for 2023/2024. Got marks for hitting FRS, online passive income, capital injection and REITS but I could have done more, especially on managing my options trade better. Leaving this quote for myself: "If I want a change, firstly I have to make the change by myself."

What are my 2024/2025 goals?

1) Build another 30K investment into US stocks (15K) for growth and Singapore stocks (15K) for dividend. I really want to owe some Singapore banks shares. For US stocks, I will cover technology stocks in the AI realm and consumer discretionary stocks on the daily essentials and services.

2) Regularly invest a small portion (looking at another 3 - 5K) into cryptocurrency. I have a portfolio of BTC and ETH but they are just a tiny portion (less than 5%) of my overall investments.

3) Continue topping up my CPF and SRS, ensuring to achieve maximum tax relief and at the same time building on retirement. I have an account with roboadvisor, Endowus which takes care of my CPF OA and SRS investment, so far, the annualized return is about 5% so I will continue to fund this account regularly.

4) With the business side of things taking shape, I am also hoping to accumulate some savings and deploying them when the next financial crisis hits. I will take this time to slowly accumulate more savings. Ideally, it is recommended that savings for emergency funds should be up to 6 months of your current earning so this is going to be a long process as all of my investible funds are allocated as soon as my paycheck comes in. Probably doing more private hire and allow me to achieve this goal faster. Surely wouldn't mind adding another 20K to deployable funds.

5) With this blog being about financial health, I would also like to take a side step into achieving better physical health for the year. Money is not the most important however one can make a better decision if money is out of the way. While money can't buy health, love, memories, relationship, trust, knowledge, passion... it can make these journey less torturing. So this year, I am hoping to build better health by exercising more regularly and be conscious so what goes into my body, as they say: "You are what you eat".

About The Contributor

Ben is not financially trained. He is not a certified financial planner and he does not sell any insurance or investment plans. He is not financially motivated by any entities to produce this blog. He just want his friends to know more about money management and not have anyone fall between the social cracks. Nope, he is not a millionaire though he aims to be financially free before 50 years old.