Wrapping up my 17th Month of Financial Independence

I just finished my 17th month of FI (Financial Independence) in Oct 2024.

Below is what I ate and did for fun, and a record of my expenses.

Eating

My usual home-cooked avocado meal.

Can't remember where this was, but it looked fancy so I took a photo.

Good to see, too sweet to drink more than a few mouths.

My usual home-cooked avocado meal.

Trying to eat healthy.

Fun

A simple month where I spent quality time with the kids.

Spotted this chicken at Pasir Ris.

Spotted this otter family at ECP!

Went for a walk here after dinner.

Found a free time slot to cycle around Kallang River.

Cycled all the way to Kallang basin.

Expenses

In terms of expenses, all green this month!

 

Eating Out Target: $650

Eating Out Actual: $549.81

Household Target: $600

Household Actual: $152.43

Travel Target: $100

Travel Actual: $4

Entertainment Target: $50

Entertainment Actual: $65.48

Personal Target: $250

Personal Actual: $94.80

Onwards to the next month of FI! 

Dividends for Oct 2024 - Towards 5000 a month

The dividends I collected for Aug 2024 were the biggest ever.

Here are my dividends for Aug 2024:

                                    

So I collected only $584.48 in dividends for this month. Traditionally, Oct is a lousy month :(

 
In case you are wondering, some stocks are repeated because I have 2 brokerage accounts.

Here are my monthly dividends over the last 6 years:

                                 

Oct's harvest has dropped a bit from the Sep harvest.

Here are the dividends I collected every year until the current day

                                

I have already surpassed my total yearly dividends in the previous year of 2023. 

For the year 2024, my average monthly dividends per month is now $2,566.47. 

Here is the progress of my average monthly dividends over the years:

                         

I plan to first receive $2500, then finally $5000 in dividends every month on average.

Additionally, I share the interest I received from the various banks for the deposits in this month:

                                        

So I collected $846.44 in interest payments this month, the largest came from UOB. The bonus interest from UOB includes the Q3 Salary Promo and Q3 CDP Promo, where you get a one-time bonus if you credit salary and credit CDP dividends into your UOB account. More details here:

https://forms.uob.com.sg/personal/save/salary-credit.html

Onwards!   

 

  

Portfolio Snapshot - Returns and Breakeven Price Nov 202

I decided to capture a snapshot of my portfolio once a year around this time.

Here's a snapshot of my current SGP portfolio:

The column 'cagr' represents the compound annual growth rate of that stock.

The column 'cagr_inc_div_drp' shows the compound annual growth rate including dividends paid out and additional stocks obtained through distribution reinvestment plans.

The column 'cagr_benchmark' shows the compound annual growth rate of the benchmark. The benchmark is the SPDR STI ETF, stock code 'ES3'.

The column 'cagr_benchmark_status' shows yes if we beat the benchmark.

The column 'returns_one_year' shows the returns in the past year.

The columns 'cagr', 'cagr_inc_div_drp', 'cagr_benchmark', and 'returns_one_year' are shown in percentages.

Here's a comparison of the stats with previous years:

                            

For this year 2024, 12 out of my 20 stocks managed to beat the benchmark. 

Here's another snapshot of my portfolio based on the breakeven price:

The column 'price' indicates the current price of the stock.

The column 'breakeven_price' indicates the breakeven price of the stock with dividends and stocks from the distribution reinvestment plan included. As long as the price of the stock is above the breakeven price, I can sell the stock for a profit.

The column 'breakeven_price_status' indicates if the stock price is above the breakeven price.

Here's a comparison of the stats with previous years:

Out of the 20 stocks I hold, I managed to break even 15 of them. 

Here are the returns of my portfolio versus the benchmark:

Importantly, I beat the benchmark (portfolio 5.7% versus benchmark 2.49%).

2024 can be considered a better year than 2023. This year's theme is geopolitical tensions between China and US. Wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon. Donald Trump just recently got re-elected as POTUS for a 2nd term. Time will tell how things will turn out, but for now stocks saw a jump and STI reached all-time high!!!

 

My FI status after 17 months of FI [Financial Independence]

I have achieved FI status in Mar 2023:

https://financeopti.blogspot.com/2023/03/breaking-free-i-have-achieved-financial.html

Now it is timely to re-evaluate whether I am still FI.

I did my spreadsheets and arrived at the following:

                            

As long as the cell in the red box is negative, I am FI. 

I will do this analysis at the beginning of every quarter. 

So watch out for a similar post at the beginning of 2025 Q1!

From the above, it seems I am still FI. 

I have also attached a chart showing the % change in my total investable assets over the years.

                       

It is fortunate that most of the data points are positive, which means I am still able to grow my assets.

Portfolio Returns for Oct 2024 - New All-Time Highs Again!

I felt it would be good to track the returns regularly since they fluctuate occasionally depending on the stock market.

Here are the movements for this month. Most of my funds reached all-time highs after the Fed lowered interest rates by 50 basis points to the range of 4.75%-5% in September 2024.

                                

Same graph as above but converted to column chart.

For the Robo-Advisors, it did go up but the gains were not as significant as my pure stocks portfolios. What is relieving is that Syfe Reit+ fund is finally positive (for a 2nd month). 

                                

Same graph as above but converted to column chart.

                                  

Additionally, I think it will be interesting to see the breakdown of my portfolios in percentages (below). There is a component 'X' which I do not want to disclose for now. The concentration of 'X' is now 12.1% but is still too high. 

                                

Market events over the last month: 

The headline for this article says it all:

Dow, S&P 500 close at record highs and mark the year’s longest winning streak

SP500 is at all-time high of 5864.67.

Some analysts are suggesting SP500 may reach 6,000 by end of 2024:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-s-p-500-rising-to-6-000-is-hardly-a-stretch-as-stocks-attempt-new-record-45172729

Let's see about this. Anyway I am invested.

Meanwhile, war on the 3 fronts are not letting up:

* Ukraine - Russia

* Israel - Gaza

* Israel - Lebanon (just started)

Hope the situation can get better soon. 

Onwards! 

 

Dividends for Sep 2024 - Towards 5000 a month

The dividends I collected for Aug 2024 were the biggest ever.

Here are my dividends for Aug 2024:

                                    

So I collected $2,369 in dividends for this month.

 
In case you are wondering, some stocks are repeated because I have 2 brokerage accounts.

Here are my monthly dividends over the last 6 years:

                                 

Sep's harvest has dropped a bit from the Aug harvest.

Here are the dividends I collected every year until the current day

                            

I have already surpassed my total yearly dividends in the previous year of 2023. 

For the year 2024, my average monthly dividends per month is now $2,712.03. 

Here is the progress of my average monthly dividends over the years:

                         

I plan to first receive $2500, then finally $5000 in dividends every month on average.

Additionally, I share the interest I received from the various banks for the deposits in this month:

                                        

Oops, I only collected $254.30 in interest payments this month. This was because I missed the required $500 spend on card to unlock the bonus interest. I missed it by a few cents!! The mistake was I assumed the transactions that count towards the card spend are based on calendar date of transaction, whereas it is actually based on POSTED date. The POSTED date can be as late as 5 days after transaction date! E.g. transaction date is 26 Sep, but POSTED date is only 1 Oct! This means then that transaction is only counted towards the card spend of OCT. 

This is a mistake that cost me a few hundred dollars and should NOT be repeated. 

Onwards!   

 

 

Wrapping up my 16th month of Financial Independence

I just finished my 16th month of FI (Financial Independence) in Sep 2024.

Below is what I ate and did for fun, and a record of my expenses.

Eating

Some restaurant in Malacca.

Some restaurant in Malacca.

Avocado, Egg with Pita Bread.

Egg with Pita Bread.

Avocado Egg with Pita Bread again!

Egg Mayo with Pita Bread.

Fun

September school holidays! Went with the kids to Malacca. 

Malacca river.

Kuala Lumpur.

Mid-autumn display at Gardens by the Bay.

Gardens by the Bay.

Went for a weekday jog at Gardens by the Bay one morning.

Expenses

In terms of expenses, did OK this month. 

 

Eating Out Target: $650

Eating Out Actual: $719.77 (Sep school holidays, had to feast a bit)

Household Target: $600

Household Actual: $269.85

Travel Target: $100

Travel Actual: $108.03

Entertainment Target: $50

Entertainment Actual: $45.23 

Personal Target: $250

Personal Actual: $52.41

Onwards to the next month of FI!