Keep Yourself Busy – Financial Planning

05 Apr 2019

There is this toxic millennial mentality of the “hustle culture” that has spread to even Gen Xers. This toxic culture which is what our Lord and God Jesus had in mind when he made it a sin to work on Saturdays.
We live in a society. This toxic society that forbids anyone from resting. That every moment of your time should be filled with activities be it working or vacationing. Richard Dawkins said:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly, those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?
We are placed on this earth above all odds. Placed instead of greater minds. They could’ve achieved great things. But we are not in the position. Why do we attempt to be someone we are not?
Let us get a grip on this. I have gotten back my A Level results. It was wonderful. I have applied and gotten a placement in a decent course in a decent local tertiary education institute. I have gotten a decent scholarship offer that potentially cuts my education expenses in half.
My work contract has ended and I haven’t screwed anything up, I hope. At least, I haven’t been scolded too severely. And in my eyes that is amazing. Some people I know still have yet to complete junior college and they are older than me. Many people in the same level of academic achievement and is older than me by a whole year or two. Some people are dead. Some people are hikikomoris. Sure, there are others my age and others much younger who have lofty dreams. Who have astronomical achievements and are in line for a Nobel peace prize.  But why do we compare ourselves with those who are greater, instead of being contend with what we already have? This doesn’t help at all, it merely brings us pain.
I should be relaxing. I deserve to relax. Yet here I am, shoving fucking crackers in my mouth like a demented anxious and anorexic bitch. While watching fucking reddit compilation videos about MLMs and indebted people. In no way is this life. I am awake at 3 am wondering what the hell to do. My heart is beating out of my chest and I fear for my life. And I am mildly intoxicated. This is not life. I shouldn’t be in this state. When people say that all my life, I have been merely listening to my parents for what to do and all my life I spend it studying. But reddit, it is only partly true. Yes, I have no mind of my own. But no, I also have no capacity to motivate myself to study because of how senseless I am. I waste my life away. Watching musicals and playing games the week of the A Level exam.
I need a break from doing things. Yes, y’all say I have had breaks enough. But no. Those are in no capacity breaks. Breaks where I am constantly told to do things. Criticised for inactivity. That is hell. I need a break. A break where nothing needs to be done. A break where lying in bed the entire day doing nothing is acceptable. I need a break too. To finally travel like never before. Because the very irony that my lack of experience travelling is the very reason I am not allowed to travel.
Doing things does have its merits I must admit. Though little. But I have earned a little 2 thousand dollars in three months. And that is inconsequential to be honest. I have ten times that in savings. I intend to invest my money starting soon. It is probably a good time to do it now. It looks like an impending bear market. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but if one uses dividend stocks it is very possibly to just continue profiting. And also, according to the index today it is actually rising so I don’t know. Lol.
I have received a scholarship offer in university and will get 6000 of spending allowance per year. And have another 10 k SGD per year which my parents will be giving. Which I hope to invest most of it because well I’d rather hope to make my money work for me than to work myself. This makes it 16 k a year and I expect to spend about 500 a month, and that is not including a bit extra for housing, which will bump the sum up to about 8k a year of spending, and I get to save or invest the remaining 8k, or blow it on big ticket items. I predict that I will spend another 10k on exchange expenses, but I will still end up with a gain of 22k over the course of 4 years. Which will make my total net worth 40k upon graduation.
According to some kinda calculation, in an 8% per annum return, just 75k will give me 6000 of dividends a year, which is enough to live on a shoestring budget. Which is not much but it also means potentially not having to stress about having enough money as long as you have over 75k. But ain’t nobody has a 8% per annum return that is stable. Just this recent 1st April, I have just completed setting up my CDP and brokerage accounts. It will be ready to use I think three days after that day, and I can start buying stuff on the exchange then. Of the current 20k I think I will need to spend about 5k of it, as I want to learn some stuff in these three months. And maybe buy some frivolous things. Get the Pelikan M600. And the Karas Kustoms Full Copper. The M600 is just shy of 400 dollars. And I hope I can get it soon before Singapore starts taxing overseas purchases. Whereas the Karas Kustoms will be just under 300. Similar situation. But wait why the hell am I talking about fountain pen purchases when I should be talking about investments lol.
Anyway, since I have accounts ready to use, I want to start investing. Maybe 15k invested. 5k in the STI ETF. And 2k of bonds, which I want to but the SSB when the 10-year interest rate increases to at least 2.3% or 2.4%, because the recent few have been very very low. And a variety of REITS. Maybe I will choose 2 REITS that have a good record and place 2.5k in each. But I’m not sure if there’s a maximum limit on the amount I can invest. Because I have a Young Investor account. Also, since I am using cash upfront the commis is minimum 10 dollars. That will leave me with another 3k. I think I will buy two company stocks. I will take inspiration from my father’s portfolio. He has 1 million in stocks that’s fucking crazy. But he buys and sells very often, so I’m not sure if that’s the best method for buying stocks for the long term. For REITs I am thinking Parkway and maybe Ascends or Capital. For stocks maybe Singtel and Genting. I think it is a good idea to buy small cap companies that I think have potential to grow based on their business model. Something like Grab should already be on the SGX. But that seems like a gimmick and unsustainable. Or something like LiHo but I don’t think it has a large enough capitalisation to be on the stock market. For the US it is 30 million for a month to be listed. But I am not sure about Singapore. And if I have any excess at the end of this maybe but the Bond ETF. That’s stable AF. Then again that is low reward for a risk, and just getting the SSB is safer for the same interest rates. I want to get dividend stocks. But honestly small cap growth stocks are better for capital gain. But dividend seems safer. But this is life and the cake remains uneaten.
Honestly fountain pens are also a good investment.
Yeah so anyways I’ll place whatever I designate as my emergency fund in the SSB because it is pretty liquid, like one-month liquid. Its like a better version of fixed deposits, where you get approx. 2 percent interest rates, but on top of that you get to withdraw at any time. A dude on Seedly recommended to buy REITs. And also, that if I wait till after graduation to invest it will be wasting a good three years of growth and dividends. Also, that it’s good to start earlier and make mistakes earlier so that at least if I get burnt early, I will learn from it when the possible loses are not so big yet. And well will I be that college kid in the corner of the library trying to pick out the best stock.
So, what I know is that I will definitely be buying some investment products, like very soon. Maybe after I attend the talk at SGX on next Tuesday. So far, the shortlisting is REITs for max profit, Bonds for emergency fund, Index for long term growth, and if I have spare cash maybe some company stocks for possible AGM invitations. I have also heard that for the purposes of the STI ETF it is actually better to just buy global or US indices, such as the Vanguard funds or the S&P 500 fund. But the thing is Vanguard and S&P 500 doesn’t pay dividends and I’m a dividend kinda person. Oh, ya and also you have to pay taxes for US investments regardless of whether it is dividends or capital gain, and also there is a high currency conversion rate, and high commission rate, and high risk. Which fucking sucks. But if I am able to figure out these calculations, I can actually buy it and get a 9% gain instead of a 7% gain for Singapore. I’m not sure but it is quite different. I don’t know if those comparison of STI and NASDAQ/NYSE/Dow actually take into account dividend income. I think they do, but I am not sure.

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