Eating Healthy vs 'Longevity powder?"

 

After reaching FIRE, many investors are understandably concerned about health and willing to spend on it. I just read that this blogger spent $200 to buy the special longevity powder marketed by the billionaire that wants to live forever.

https://treeofprosperity.blogspot.com/2026/07/personal-update-cheating-death-and.html

Maybe one day there will be such a elixir, but based on the current science, we are not there yet.

I just eat health(ier) and enjoy my food. In order to compensate for my next Wagyu steak meal, I ate a vegetarian Kitsune udon meal with tofu (in the salad and as aburaage) and some mushroom today as the protein source, very tasty. And as always, Matcha Latte.

For information on longevity, its a crowded field with many people pushing their own theories (and maybe marketing products). I strongly recommend the following books as being science-based:

• Out Live by Peter Attia
• Food for Life by Tim Spector

TL:DR?

1. VO2 Max is the no.1 physical metric for longevity
2. Protect your gut health and this will strengthen your immune system
3. There's no magic pill to cheat your way to high VO2Max. You have to put in the work.
4. For gut health you might think you can cheat your way to good gut health by eating probiotic pills but eating health(ier) is the best way to good gut health.

Going on holiday soon

 

I am missing Japanese cuisine so I went to Mashi no Mashi in the CBD area for some A5 Wagyu Tsukumen. It was really good and there was 15% off with Grab Pay. One of Singapore's strengths is that the Ramen brands that they 'import' from Japan tastes 'just as good' as the Japan version, perhaps a little more expensive.  I say that having eaten at two different Afuri Ramens in Tokyo and Yokohama respectively, and fondly remembering Afuri Ramen in Funan before it closed. When I'm next in Tokyo, I will try the Mashi no Mashi there and compare. I suspect SG shops use "Australian Wagyu" rather than Japanese A5.

Its obviously way too hot to go to Japan in July, so I'm off to Australia to enjoy the cool weather. I shall report back on any good food I find, and of course, good coffeeshops for Matcha Lattes.

Unless something exciting happens like a major crash, my blogposts will be on food instead of investing for a week or so.

Managed to catch up with S&P500

 

Finally caught up with the S&P500.

Hopefully can keep up till the end of the year 

Experimental Unit Trust Portfolio: Update 1

 

In May 2026 I decided to start an experimental unit trust portfolio on POEMS focused exclusively on Amundi Unit Trusts with the following target allocation:

• 40% MSCI World
• 20% Prime USA
• 20% Emerging Markets

This is a 2 month update. I have been steadily adding to it. As the market has been going up, the means that the average buying price of these funds has gone up and the percentage return has gone down.

On the bright side, the absolute $ profit has doubled from $1.6k to $3.6k.

This shows that while a high % return looks good, the actual $ profit is also important. Previously, I like to buy after a crash, but when the market started improving, I was reluctant to buy because this meant that I am buying for higher and higher prices. That was the wrong way to think about investing. As long as you are confident that the market is going up, continuing to buy is always good as that maximises your $ return even though your % return looks lower. 

This is subject to the usual portfolio construction rules like asset allocation percentages and concentration limits.

May 2026 post: https://buyaftercrash.blogspot.com/2026/05/experimental-unit-trust-portfolio.html

Dividends Collected: June 2026

 

About $10k+ dividends this month. YoY 10% higher than 2025 so still on track for $20k/mth.

1 out of 7 chance of household income >$30k

 

The Straits Times on 30 June 26 reported that in 2025, 13.4% or 1 out of 7 resident households have a monthly income of $30,000 or more.  

Having a 1 in 7 chance that you are living in a household earning more than $30k a month is not super common, but at the same time not super rare as well. 

Just posting this info here for my reference.

Which Dividend ETF? VHYD, WQDV, QDIV, UDVD?

 

Kyith in Investment Moats did a review of London listed Dividend ETF UDVD. As a Dividend lover, I am always on the lookout for good dividend ETFs. I had looked at UDVD but it honestly did not seem as good as the alternatives, including Vanguard's VHYD and iShares QDIV. The "requirement" that a company keeps on increasing its dividend seems to be a bit 'off' to me.

Google finance graphs, which don't do dividends reinvested, indicates that UDVD is the worst performing of the 3. In order to figure out what happens when dividends are reinvested, I turned to Claude Sonnet 4.6 set at High Effort. It confirmed that ranking in the basic Google finance chart that UDVD is the worst performing of the 3 dividend ETFs over 1, 3, 5, and 10 years. 

However, it is important to point out that the divergence in performance appears to have occurred mainly in the last 3 years 2023-205, which illustrates the point that a 'strategy' works... until it doesn't.

The main reason I buy VHYD is for diversification. The second reason is dividends 😀Claude appears to agree (even if I tell it not to be too agreeable) that adding VHYD to VWRD diversifies the portfolio in terms of sectors and geography. Whether diversification is a good thing, is of course another question.

I am also investing in another dividend ETF WQDV and according to Google finance simple charts it also outperforms UDVD by a large amount. In fact it outperforms VHYD but that could be partly due to it holding more Tech than VHYD.

However, I have not included it in the comparison because it changed the index it follows twice in the time I have held it so its performance would have been affected by that, so not a good comparison. It changed to an ESG dividend index sometime back, but after ESG fell out of favour it changed to the current MSCI World High Dividend Yield Advanced Select Index (what a mouthful...).