FI Status after 2. years 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. 

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.

                        

For this quarter Q2 2025, total investable assets increased slightly to 0.60%. This is likely due to the good market bull run. 

  

Morgan Stanley predicts that Singapore stock market capitalisation will double by 2030

https://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/singapores-long-term-wealth-creation-set-to-boost-local-stocks-says-morgan-stanley

In this article, Morgan Stanley gives its assessment on the Singapore stock market.

Things look rosy indeed, where Morgan Stanley believes Singapore is "primed for wealth creation".

In particular, the statement below caught my eye:

The bank also predicts that stock market capitalisation will double by 2030.

I love bold statements like these from these 'experts'. 

Because we can easily verify if they are right or wrong. 

By 2030 we will know.

So as of today, 26 Jun 2025, the STI is at 3938.46.

By 2030, the STI is forecasted by Morgan Stanley to be at 7876!

Time will tell whether this prediction is accurate.

Interestingly, the 10 million population planning parameter is also projected for the year 2030:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/10m-population-not-really-a-ridiculous-number-for-spore-to-plan-for-liu-thai-ker 

The Government has said that Singapore's population is likely to be significantly below 6.9 million by 2030 - another number that drew consternation when first published as a projection in the Population White Paper of 2013.

Portfolio Returns for Jun 2025

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

Here are the movements for this month. Slight upward trend among my portfolios, except for cryptocurrency.

For the Robo-Advisors, there is a slight upward trend across all my portfolios.

                                            

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 2.5%, which is nearing my comfortable point.

Several factors appear to have contributed to the market movements over the past month: 

• Middle East Tensions: Escalating tensions in the Middle East, including a pre-emptive strike by Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities, have led to a flight to safe-haven assets and pushed oil prices higher. High oil prices will likely have a downward pressure on stocks
• US-China Relations: Renewed uncertainty in US-China trade relations, despite some preliminary agreements, continues to dampen sentiment. Discussions around trade, tariffs, and access for Chinese students to US universities are ongoing.

Dividends for May 2025 - Towards 5k a month

Here are my dividends for May 2025:

                                    

So I collected $3,024.81 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:

                                 

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

                                

Almost going to surpass the yearly dividends from 3 years ago.

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

                         

The value for 2025 is just based on 5 data points though, and it should decline as we get more data points.

I plan to first receive $2500 (achieved), 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:

                                        

Also, in this month I made $0 from my side hustle - Grabfood delivery. Didn't manage to find the time due to a new part-time gig I took up. 

All in, I made $3,754.40 this month from dividends, interest, food delivery.

Onwards!   

       

Portfolio Returns for May 2025

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

Here are the movements for this month. There is a general upward recovery across all my portfolios.

                                

For the Robo-Advisors, there is a general upward recovery across my portfolios, except for the Reits portfolio.

                                            

                      

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 4.4% but is still too high. 

Several factors appear to have contributed to the market movements over the past month:

• US-China Trade Relations: News of an agreement to temporarily slash tariffs between the U.S. and China provided a significant boost to market sentiment, particularly in the latter part of the observed period.
• US duties on imports from China dropped to 30 per cent from 145 per cent, while Chinese duties on US imports were reduced to 10 per cent from 125 per cent.
• Economic Data and Central Bank Outlook: Investors have been closely watching economic indicators such as inflation (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) data. While some reports indicated softening inflation, comments from Federal Reserve officials regarding the uncertain economic outlook continued to influence market sentiment. Expectations around potential domestic interest rate cuts in some regions, like India, also played a role.
• Geopolitical Factors: Easing geopolitical tensions in some regions, such as between India and Pakistan, were cited as a positive factor for specific markets. India and Pakistan almost went to war, but just as quickly as it started, it dissipated with some US intervention. 

Dividends for Apr 2025 - Towards 5k a month

Here are my dividends for Apr 2025:

                                    

So I collected (only) $550.84 in dividends for this month. Need to ramp up the dividends for this month so that I have a more consistent passive income stream. 

 
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:

                                 

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

                                

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

                         

The value for 2025 is just based on 4 data points though, and it should decline as we get more data points.

I plan to first receive $2500 (achieved), 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:

                                        

Also, in this month I made $91.90 from my side hustle - Grabfood delivery. 

All in, I made $1,157.48 this month from dividends, interest, food delivery.

Onwards!   

      

On the impact of GST by Prof. Paul Tambyah

I heard a rather interesting point about GST by Prof. Paul Tambyah at his rally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ormN-qUD46M 

Go to 2:31:50.

I quote him below:

The whole thing about GST is that it is really a regressive tax*.

The median income in Singapore is about 11,000 and the average household in Singapore spends about 6000 in Singapore for routine expenses.

So 6000 you pay 9% GST it ends up about 530 dollars, and that is actually 4.7% of your income. 

In contrast, you take the average minister earns 128,000. 

Even assuming he spends a luxurious lifestyle, spending 5 time that of the average Singaporean, 30000 a month, they still pay only 2600 in GST and this represents only 2% of their income. 

So basically what I'm trying to say with all that math is that the average person pays a far higher proportion of their income in GST than a high income person like a minister, and this is clearly unjust. 

And this is what we are trying to do, which is to get rid of GST for essential items and to bring the GST down to at least 7%, maybe 5%.

And we have done our sums - the actual savings or the reduction in income is actually even less than the budget surplus that has been projected now.

This is a rather fresh point for me, since all I've heard so far about GST is that the PAP's view that the GST taxes the rich by taxing people if they spend more. 

However, this view omits the high income of the rich. It will be a more substantial analysis if the high incomes of the rich are factored into the analysis. 

Going by his logic above, I ran the numbers in my spreadsheet and his numbers are correct ie. the average household does pay a higher percentage of their household income in GST compared to the ultra-high-earners (almost double).

What if we reduce the GST to 5%? While GST payment is definitely reduced, the problem I mentioned above is still there. In terms of percentage of income, the ultra-high-earners still pay half that of the average household. 

Now then, for this to be fairer, such that the ultra-high-earners pay as much as or more in terms of the percentage of their household income in GST, how much more should they pay if not 5 times more?

It turns out they need to spend 12 times more than the average household (see below), or 72k a month.

In other words, ultra-high-earners need to spend 72k a month for GST to hit them as hard as for the average household.

Granted, we are not living in a fair world. 

*What is a regressive tax?
A regressive tax is a type of tax where lower-income individuals pay a higher percentage of their income compared to higher-income individuals.[ChatGPT]