September Summary

 

These are my September investing activities

• Directed donation to charity doing overseas work. No tax deduction unfortunately but my money goes a lot further (the charity shared with me how the money will be used).
• Used SRS + Cash to buy GE 1.3% 2-year policies
• Regular DCA of various ETFs during the brief China-related dip:
• LSPU
• VWRD
• VDPX
• 2801.HK (RSP)
• Added a little bit of HSBC because of China related correction. Currently its only up 1% from my buy price so maybe my timing was off.

• My RSP was 2800.HK was unsuccessful because I didn't have enough HK$ for both the 2800 and 2801 RSP. So interestingly, FSM deducted for my 2801 RSP first. I guess there's some sort of system logic (eg: whatever ETF appears first in my account's RSP list).
• I'll probably RSP both 2800 and 2801 again this month.

OCBC Premier Banking

 

I signed up for OCBC Premier Banking recently. One of the push factors is that I needed to get a "free" Mastercard (preferably with no fees/permanent waiver) quickly because Amazon was threatening to impose a 0.5% surcharge on all Visa payments in September which was like a few weeks' time. As it turns out, Amazon has since postponed the 0.5% to November.

Like most other banks, there are no charges for signing up but conversely no real benefits. Not really enough to make me sign up earlier, but since I needed a Mastercard I guess it was time.

The Mastercard in question is the Premier World Elite Debit Card. Since its a debit card, why wouldn't it be free?

So far, if I were to rank the benefits, it would be Standard Chartered no.1 due to online trading have lower comms + no minimum commission and the USD account. Their Visa infinite is only 2 years fee waiver and after that you have to request the card department to waive the fee. My SCB RM says he is powerless to do anything regarding card waiver.

UOB privilege banking would be no.2 because their Privilege Banking Visa Signature has half decent rewards and is lifetime fee waiver.

In the meantime, I am looking out for a better Mastercard. My key criteria are:

• Lifetime fee waiver or very easy to waive fees
• Good petrol discounts (not SPC pls 😂) - at least until I get my EV. But with COE hitting $70k, I may want to hold on to my ICE car with $30k COE for a bit longer.

 

Update: I received a letter from OCBC saying that I will also be receiving an OCBC Premier Visa Infinite with no annual fee and that I can contact OCBC if I don't want it. The RM didn't mention this to me. Anyway, since its lifetime fee waiver I'll just keep it and lock it up somewhere together with my OCBC Frank card which is also lifetime fee waiver.

September Strategy

 

I put in $10k+ to accept most but not all of my entitlement for the 3 for 2 Sembmarine rights issue. I got the shares 'free' from the Sembcorp demerger so hopefully I'm not throwing good money away, but oil prices and demand appears to be picking up.

Other than that, I'm spending a little bit of my free cash flow to buy ETFs.

For SRS, I put this years' contribution of $15,300 plus accumulated dividends into Great Eastern's 1.3% for 2 years. Application was done easily online with Singpass. I wouldn't waste time with any plan that can't be done online.  

While 1.3% is not fantastic, it really is much better than letting it sit in my bank account. Furthermore, I have to look ahead and see that I might have various 2.5% 3-year plans maturing over the next few years plus my sizeable holding of Frasers 3.65% bonds matures next year as well.  So there is a certain amount of liquidity that I need to roll over via these short term plans to avoid ending up with too much cash in a saving account that hardly earns anything.

Dividends Collected: August 2021

 

One of my biggest holdings, STI ETF paid out dividends this month.

Dividends Collected: July 2021

 

Not much S$ dividends this month, but steady increase in US$ and £. 

July Strategy 2: Continued buying more ETFs

Nearing the end of July, China's crackdown on various tech firms and the education centre was an opportunity to continue to accumulate more 2800.HK and 2801.HK.  Also added more VWRD and VUKE.

I do not think that prices are 'cheap' at the moment, but I felt that the small dip was as good a time as any to put some spare cash to work. If market keeps on going up, I won't be buying as much in August.

I am avoiding Singapore stocks for the moment because I feel that there are financial risks in Malaysia that could well have a spillover effect in the region. Nobody wants another currency crisis but one should be aware of the risks.

Mid-year Dividend Review

 Now that the first half of 2021 has passed, I did a review of my passive income and discovered that my 1H2021 dividend income is +18.5% vs 1H2020. 

I have mentioned previously that my aim is for my dividend income to recover to pre-Covid levels by end 2021. Next year, I hope for further dividend growth and to achieve Financial Independence by end 2022. 

Financial Independence occurs when passive income is sufficient to meet your current standard of living.

However, that doesn't mean early retirement for me. Unlikely many who seem to hate their jobs (or those who hate their jobs probably surf internet forums during office hours to complain about their job), I'm happy with my job. Getting a salary and being able to work from home a few days a week (all that savings in transport time), I count myself fortunate. 

I guess it also helps that I live in a spacious enough condo that I have my own 'home office.' Those who are cooped up in a shoebox condo might well prefer to be in the office.