StashAway - December 2018

Do take a look at our New Strategy: StashAway + Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) which was pretty timely as I will be in the 11.5% income tax bracket for the year 2019 after receiving my new compensation/salary!

1. ACCOUNT SUMMARY (as of the last day of the month)

Based on the statement (31 December 2018), we lost $451.42.

As of 30 January 2019, the market has recovered quite a bit and the total return became -$75.42. We lost -$90.25 from investment returns with a currency impact of  $14.83.

2. PORTFOLIO DETAILS 

3. TRANSACTIONS

I realized that there was a USD to SGD conversion. I always had the impression that since 1% of SGD is not converted to USD and the fees are only 0.8%, as long as I continue to invest/pump in fresh fund, such conversion should not happen. Guess I have underestimated the fees and took the percentages too literally.

SGD $990.00 converted to USD $721.55 (USD $716.69 last month)
Exchange Rate: 1.3720 (1.3813 last month)

USD $2.41 converted to SGD $3.30
Exchange Rate: 1.3693

4. FEE CALCULATIONS

The fee stated is based on the monthly-average assets SGD $13,643.19 x 0.8% / 365 days * 31 days = $9.27

StashAway VS STI ETF
Since there is no way to compare the performances among the robo-advisors, I came out with a spreadsheet to track our StashAway portfolio performance (General Investing - Risk Level 28) against that of STI ETF which I will be updating on a monthly basis. For simplicity, I shall assume that one can either invest in Nikko STI ETF using POSB Invest-Saver or invest in Nikko STI ETF/SPDR STI ETF using SCB Priority Online Trading (no minimum commission). These would be the opportunity costs while we continue to invest in StashAway.

Apart from the absolute P&L, we should also look at the Reward-to-Risk Ratio where risk/volatility is taken into account. For more information, do read StashAway Clarifications - Reward-to-Risk Ratio. StashAway has the highest ratio of 1.25 which is significantly higher than the other 2 STI ETFs (< 0.4). Let me quote Freddy Lim (Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer of StashAway), "for every dollar of risk taken, StashAway P28 is producing 1.25 times the return".

This month commentary: 
All of the investments are still in the red. For the same amount of money invested, one will be losing lesser money in StashAway which is due to its diversification into other assets (bonds and gold). Going forward it will be even more interesting when the commissions/fees incurred by StashAway exceed that of POSB Invest-Saver. This will be a battle between cheaper/lesser fees and asset allocation/diversification...

StocksCafe

Looking at the time-weighted return, we can see that StashAway is "outperforming" the STI ETF (both excluding fees). In addition, it has lower volatility and max drawdown.

Which is the best? Only time will tell :)

This is the link to our spreadsheet - KPO & CZM StashAway Portfolio VS STI ETF which I have also added to Our Portfolio page.

StashAway Referral Link for Our Readers
Here you go: KPO and CZM Referral Link

You might be interested in previous months update too:
StashAway - January 2018
StashAway - February 2018
StashAway - March 2018
StashAway - April 2018
StashAway - May 2018
StashAway - June 2018
StashAway - July 2018
StashAway - August 2018 + An Unpleasant Experience
StashAway - September 2018
StashAway - October 2018
StashAway - November 2018

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Honeymoon to the United States - Total Expenses

The initial plan was to let CZM finish all her itinerary posts first before ending it with the big question - how much did we spend in total? Unfortunately, CZM is getting busier with her work so I shall share the total expenses for the honeymoon trip first.

A quick recap - we spent 15 nights 15 days in the United States and 1 day (~7/8 hours) in Japan during the layover.

Transport
Surprise, surprise. This was actually our highest expense. We rented a Mercedes Benz Convertible for about $2k. The rest of the expenses were fuel, subway, coach/buses, and Uber.

Souvenirs
We went to 3 different outlets and bought quite a lot of stuff either for ourselves or our family. Brands such as Coach and Kate Spade were having 70% sale due to the Black Friday week. We also went to Google Store and bought some shirt and bag. lol. This includes food items such as Tokyo Banana and CZM's favorite - Shiroi Koibito (白い恋人/白色恋人).

Accommodation

We spent about an average of $163 per night. Could have been more but I was able to find and make use of the BRG (Best Rate Guarantee) policy to bring down some of the prices slightly. We tried asking if they can waive the resort fee if we don't need/use the additional services they provide such as Wifi, water, swimming pool, etc. and were rejected.

IMPORTANT: None of the hotels provide water kettle. It was damn annoying because we like to boil water (Asian culture?) to drink/make tea/milo or even cook cup noodles (yes, we brought some over). In the end, we always had to go down to the reception/kitchen to ask for hot water and that means giving more tips -.-"

Flight
The cost of our flight was relatively lower because we redeemed Singapore Airlines Suites to New York and flew in Economy back. Hahaha.

Singapore Airlines Suites, Singapore to New York - 240,000 KrisFlyer Miles + $259.60
Alaska Airlines, New York to San Francisco - $403.70

American Airlines & Japan Airlines, Las Vegas to Japan to Singapore - $1,286.60

Food
It includes the 15% (lunch) or 18% (dinner) tips. Considering we spent 16 days there and 3 meals each day, I would think it is pretty reasonable? ~$65 per day and ~$22 per meal for 2 people! I think the best/most memorable dining experience would be the Beef Wellington from Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen in Las Vegas! We spent about $176.73 there.

Attraction

Klook is a pretty good place to lower the cost of the various attraction. In addition, it can be combined with ShopBack or KrisFlyerSpree to get more value/lower the cost further! If you do not have an account, can consider checking out our Referrals page :) Unfortunately, we lost money in Vegas! Was hoping we would win back the money we spent in Hell's Kitchen. lol.

Others

Random stuff such as data sim card in the United States and portable wifi device in Japan. KPO got slightly lazy and lost track of the cash. lol. We started with US$2,000 cash (exchanged our money in Arcade before the trip, hence the same FX rate) so >80% of the cash was still being tracked.

Cosmetic, Insurance, Tips and Visa
CZM bought Shiseido, Fancl, and Kose. The typical girl stuffs.

We bought FWD travel insurance.

Tips were mostly given to hotel staffs ($1 each time).

I blogged about the mistake we made when we were applying for our visa/ESTA here - Expenses - March 2018. We asked for a full refund and they honored it but due to the difference in FX rate, the bank "gave" us more money. Interestingly, I was monitoring closely but they did not proceed to cancel our ESTA so it became more than free.

To be honest, our total expenses were lower than expected (not complaining) and we certainly enjoyed ourselves (even though it was damn tiring)! If the above exceeds your budget, I guess you can try to cut down on the car rental and accommodation :)

Travelling to the US soon? You might be interested in these blog posts too:
- Honeymoon to the United States - 3 Days 2 Nights in Yosemite
- Honeymoon to the United States - 2 Days 2 Nights in San Francisco
- Honeymoon to the United States - 3 Days 2 Nights in New York
- Honeymoon to the United States - Renting a $275,888 Mercedes Benz Convertible with Hertz
- Singapore Airlines Suites Experience - SQ26 Singapore to New York
- Singapore Airlines Suites Experience - The Private Room

- Singapore Airlines Suites - Book the Cook

- Redeeming KrisFlyer Miles for Singapore Airlines Suites = 38.6% Cashback!

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Expenses - December 2018

It has been a very sad and dramatic week for many especially the family. It is extremely difficult to come to terms with death when it happens so suddenly and even more so for the parents (白发人送黑发人 - to see one's child die before oneself). RIP Aloysius Pang.

I am lagging in some of my updates, shall try to publish them before the month ends!

Current Profile: 28 years old male who got married recently and is still living with his parents. Staying separately with his wife while waiting for the BTO project to be completed this year.

You can read more about how we manage our finances here. Removing our shared expenses which come out of our mutual fund (KPO Expense Fund), my expenses for December would be $4,354.30 - ($2,340.65 / 2) = $3,183.98.

Got to generate this to lie to myself that I actually did not spend so much money >.<"

Gift
Attended 5 weddings on December:
- W Singapore Lunch Banquet: $500 (with CZM)
- Andaz Singapore Lunch Banquet: $200 (solo)
- Resorts World Sentosa: $180 (solo)
- Regent Hotel Singapore: $500 (with CZM)
- Hilton International: $180 (solo)

Before I started working, I hated getting "bombed" because my pocket money was $50 per week. I either try not to attend or I will give $50 which was 25% of my monthly allowance. When we got married, I told my siblings gf/bf to just come and don't need to give red packet because I knew how painful it was. lol.

Nowadays, I will attend the wedding as long as I am not travelling/working. I tend to give slightly more based on the cost of the banquet referencing this site - Wedding Ang Bao Rates while $500 is the standard rate for our best friends regardless of the venue.

Insurance
This is a fixed monthly cost for the basic coverage - term life and hospitalization.

It is higher this month due to the annual premium of CZM's hospitalization plan from Aviva - MyHealthPlus, Plan 1 - Opt C.

Parents
I previously blogged about my promotion and increment - Salary - You Are Your Best Investment and it was only effective from February so I gave my parents more allowance as well.

Me
I bought DJI Osmo Pocket!

Vacation
Bought 2 return air tickets to Bali from Jetstar. Yes, we will be travelling shortly on Feb again. Haha.

Tried out honestbee laundry (2 of our winter coat) and it was an extremely bad experience. They delivered CZM's winter coat to someone else and took like 2/3 weeks to get it sorted out before returning to us. They gave $10 laundry credit as a form of apology but I rejected them and told them in the face that I will not be using their laundry service again. So they refund the cost of 1 winter coat.

The transport cost was the taxi ride back home when we came back from our honeymoon.

Food

My food expenses are exceptionally low because I stay with my parents! Most of it is incurred when I am out with CZM.

Treat

Treated CZM's family to Dian Xiao Er and colleague to drinks.

Transportation

Public transportation seems a lot lower because of 3 reasons:
1. I am no longer using EZ Link Auto-Reload. Account-Based Ticketing (ABT) is a much better choice as you pay what you use instead of triggering top up where the money is stored in the EZ Link card. The best part is miles can be earned too (using BOC Elite Miles Mastercard)!
2. $0.50 Discount for commuters who enter stations before 7.45am on weekdays.
3. We went vacation for 2 weeks!

Entertainment

Watched some movies (Bumblebee, Aquaman and Mortal Engines) and ate some popcorn.

Unknown
Missing cash from my wallet which I cannot explain/never track. lol.

Summary
January 2018 - $2,256.43
February 2018 - $1,759.01
March 2018 - $5,049.79
April 2018 - $1,572.54
May 2018 - $1,863.74
June 2018 - $2,282.07
July 2018 - $2,197.94
August 2018 - $2,130.01
September 2018 - $3,011.75
October 2018 - $6,500.97
November 2018 - $4,796.14
December 2018 - $3,183.98

Total expenses for 2018: $36,604.37
Average expenses per month for 2018: $3,050.36

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Honeymoon to the United States - 3 Days 2 Nights in Yosemite

Continued from our previous post - Honeymoon to the United States - 2 Days 2 Nights in San Francisco

Day 5
7:00AM - Free buffet breakfast at hotel :) checked
8:00AM - Collection of car rental at Hertz checked
2:00PM - Miners Inn at Mariposa checked
2:30PM - Lunch at nearby vicinity checked
3:00PM - Yosemite National Park skipped
7:00PM - Dinner checked
8:00PM - Stargazing at Sentinel Dome, Yosemite National Park checked

Reality:

Woke up feeling super excited that we can finally eat buffet breakfast! The buffet spread at the Park Central hotel was good - there was free flow smoke salmon!

Feeling satisfied with the breakfast, we went to the Hertz near our hotel to collect our convertible car. We initially rented a Ford Mustang, but we eventually managed to get an upgrade to a Mercedes-Benz C class convertible. You can read about it here - Honeymoon to the United States - Renting a $275,888 Mercedes Benz Convertible with Hertz. Yay! However, it took us more than an hour to figure out the functionality of the car as it was a brand new car. I couldn't even find the hand brake, how to move off?! Eventually, we figured out the basics from the user guide such as how to open the roof, how to release hand brake, activate headlights etc and moved on to our next destination - Yosemite.

Yosemite is about 270 km away from San Francisco and took us about 3 hours to reach there. We checked in at the Miners Inn, which is a fairly huge and cheap place compared to our past few accommodations, probably because it is far away from the city. We paid around SGD 188 for two nights and the accommodation comes with free breakfast as well. The breakfast is delicious too! Highly recommend this place to anyone who intends to visit Yosemite.

After we checked in, we decided to have our lunch at Don Rubens restaurant for Mexican food. We thought the food was not too bad and the staff was pretty friendly and helpful. As the sky started to darken, we decided to head back to our accommodation to rest a while before we head out again for stargazing.

At around 8pm, we headed out to the Sentinel Dome, one of the recommended stargazing area which we researched online. However, we realized that it wasn't exactly accessible by car when we reached. Our GPS eventually led us to the Yosemite Valley Trailhead parking and we were expected to hike up to the Dome. How are we supposed to hike up in the dark?! We took some disappointing photos and left the place in the end.

The disappointing photo. lol.

Tips: for anyone who intends to stargaze, it is better to hike up the Dome in the day first (but I wonder how to hike down at night too...). Alternatively, I recommended driving up to Glacier Point (however, this road will be closed during winter) for stargazing.

Day 6
7:00AM- Free buffet breakfast at Miners Inn checked
8:00AM - Visit Yosemite National Park checked

Reality:

We managed to visit quite a few places within Yosemite. Started with the Bridalveil Fall trailhead and moved on to the Lower Yosemite Falls. We also visited the Yosemite Visitor Centre and learnt about Yosemite history.

How Bridalveil Fall looks in winter @_@"

We completed most of what we wanted to do at Yosemite at around 2pm, and KPO thought we have enough time to visit the Glacier Point. I was a bit hesitant as I thought the road will be closed in winter and wanted to give it a miss. Eventually, we tried calling the National Park hotline to confirm and were lucky to learn that it was still open. And we were so glad we drove up there as it was by far the most scenic place of our trip and we fell in love with it immediately! Highly recommend anyone visiting Yosemite to visit this place if possible!

Day 7
7:00AM - Free buffet breakfast at Miners Inn checked
9:00AM - Mariposa Grove checked
4:00PM - Drive to Corporate Inn Sunnyvale, Silicon Valley checked

Reality:

After our breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and headed to Mariposa Grove which was approximately 2 hours drive away. We have to park our car at an open space carpark quite some distance away from the Mariposa Grove, but there is a free shuttle which brings us there directly.

That's not KPO, just a random person next to a sequoias tree

When we reached, we were amazed at how tall the Mariposa trees can grow to (height of 26 stories or the height of the Statue of Liberty) and some were more than a thousand years old! The whole trail took us around 2 hours and I really enjoyed walking in the serenity in the woods with KPO. It felt like time has stopped at that very moment.

Once we are out of the woods, it is back to the hectic crazy schedule that we have. We have >300 km to cover before reaching Silicon Valley, our next destination.

That's all we have for Yosemite. For anyone who intends to visit this national park, we would recommend staying there at least for a day as the Yosemite National park is huge! We love that place and it is so sad to learn how the environment was impacted due to the US government shutdown now.

Anyway, stay tuned to our next post on Silicon Valley!

You might be interested in these blog posts too:
- Honeymoon to the United States - 2 Days 2 Nights in San Francisco
- Honeymoon to the United States - 3 Days 2 Nights in New York
- Honeymoon to the United States - Renting a $275,888 Mercedes Benz Convertible with Hertz
- Singapore Airlines Suites Experience - SQ26 Singapore to New York
- Singapore Airlines Suites Experience - The Private Room

- Singapore Airlines Suites - Book the Cook

- Redeeming KrisFlyer Miles for Singapore Airlines Suites = 38.6% Cashback!

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

KPO's Salary 2018

Another year has passed since I got promoted with a ridiculously huge (>20%) increment which I blogged about here - Salary - You Are Your Best Investment. I was given my new compensation package last week and it was still pretty decent (exceeded our expectation of 5% yearly). Monthly/Annual salary increases by 8.6% while the bonus remains the same in terms of the amount but decreases when converted to the typical measure of x number of months (1.4 months vs 1.71 months). Sounds like some mathematical problem sum? lol.

With that, I have unlocked another achievement - a tiny step into the 11.5% income tax bracket and will be doing all I can to bring myself down to the next tier:

- New Strategy: StashAway + Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS)

- CPF RSTU - Is It Worth It?

To be honest, I am not even a top performer, just slightly better than average. Some of my peers/batch mates who are the top performer got promoted again or those that changed job/company all have a higher salary than me and I am happy for them! I was once very motivated too (imagine receiving >20% increment last year and was prepared to give it your all again) until your manager tells you that you cannot be promoted again at the start of the year during goals/performance setting because too fast??? #gottowaitoneyearfirst

The frustrating part is when there are other "senior" people in the team who are doing exactly the same kind of work and are less effective/doing lesser when it comes to improving processes/automation/initiatives but getting a lot more pay. I guess they are already in the cruising stage! Oh well, I can imagine a few years down the road and I become part of those "senior" people and the new graduates will come in thinking KPO is earning too much for doing the same work as them.

It is pretty interesting to read my previous salary article (above) and see how my thinking/opinion towards money/time/life has changed...

In my opinion, there will never be enough money and there will always be others that are poorer/richer than you. On the other hand, time is limited, we all have the same number of seconds, minutes and hours in a day. When you work, you are actually selling away your precious time to the company/employer. Why not sell it to the highest bidder?

We still believe that time is limited and we definitely do not want to spend the majority of our time working. One year ago, I used to think that money is everything. If I were to look out and get a higher offer, I should just leave because that will probably accelerate our plan for early retirement/financial freedom too. However, the highest bidder may not be as attractive as I thought it would be. My current workplace is really almost perfect except for the above rant. lol.

Salary Spreadsheet
I have a spreadsheet to project our salary increment and track the actual increment. Based on our starting salary and an assumption yearly increment of 5% (I thought this is conservative but CZM thinks otherwise), it would have taken me 10 years and CZM 17 years to reach our current salary.

Ministry of Manpower (MOM) published a summary table on Singapore Median Gross Monthly Income From Work (Including Employer CPF Contributions) of Full-Time Employed Residents. For the year 2018, it is at $4,437 including the employer CPF and we are well above that :)

I will be using the 2016 median income ($4,056) as an example in the spreadsheet (because it was created then and I am lazy to change the numbers), excluding the employer CPF portion ($3,467) because who does that! Imagine people negotiating with HR for a higher salary with X% increment based on their current salary including the previous employer CPF contribution. lol.

The cells highlighted in yellow are for you to input manually, everything else is formula linked. The spreadsheet projects your yearly salary based on an assumption of 5% increment. The "Salary Projection" projects based on your first drawn annual salary while the "Revised Projection" projects based on the latest "Actual Salary" specified by you. As you can see, it would have taken this imaginary person 6 years (31-25) to reach his current salary (27-25).

You can get the google spreadsheet here - $$$ Salary Projection $$$

All the best to our readers! Hope you get a nice increment too!

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Honeymoon to the United States - 2 Days 2 Nights in San Francisco

Continued from our previous post - Honeymoon to the United States - 3 Days 2 Nights in New York

Day 3

We took the domestic Alaska flight from EWR airport to San Francisco. Guess what, the flight duration from NY to SF is more than 6 hours! That's enough for us to fly from Singapore to Japan? I didn't know America is so huge (okay I am a sua ku). Thankfully, due to the time difference between NY and SF, we managed to "fly back in time" and reached SF around 10pm. We checked in at the nearby Four Points by Sheraton San Francisco Airport Hotel (free shuttle bus provided) and that basically sums up our first night in SF.

Effort A+!

Day 4
7:00AM - Breakfast checked
7:30AM - Check in @ The Park Central San Francisco checked
8:00AM - South of Market (SoMa) checked
9:00AM - Twitter HQ checked
9:30AM - San Francisco Cityhall checked
10:00AM - The Walt Disney Family Museum checked
12:30PM - Golden Gate Bridge checked
1:30PM - Lombard Street checked
2:30PM - Tony's Pizza Napoletana (award-winning pizza) checked
3:30PM - Coit Tower skipped
4:30PM - Fisherman Wharf / Pier 39 checked
7:30PM - Chinatown checked

Reality:

If you have been following from the previous post, you will notice that we have been waking up before 7am everyday. Yes, our travels are always highly ambitious as I always want to cover as much as we can. So I basically have to drag KPO out of bed every morning. Poor KPO CZM!

Back to our travels, we woke up and walked to the Dunkin Donut outlet near our hotel for breakfast. It was cheap - a burger + coffee only costs under $4 (and no need for tips haha). After that, we took a Uber from Four Points to our next hotel, Park Central San Francisco. We realized that Uber is much cheaper than Taxi because 1) the rate is generally cheaper, 2) no need for tips again. Furthermore, they have much more options/types of Uber - they have the normal Uber, Uber Pool, and Uber Express. Uber Express is something which we do not have in Singapore. It is cheaper than Pool but doesn't guarantee that you will be picked up and dropped off at the exact location that you requested. So you may have to walk a small distance so that it is more convenient for pick up/drop off. But the fares are really worth it! It is almost the same price as the public buses!

The view from our hotel room. The haze >.<"

Our initial hotel booking at Park Central did not come with free breakfast. However, KPO managed to find cheaper rate + breakfast from those OTAs (either Expedia or hotel.com) and did a Best Rate Guarantee claim with SPG. Before leaving the hotel, they also gave us free N95 masks due to the bad haze there. Good service indeed.

SoMa is just within walking distance from our hotel. Hence, we decided to explore the area by foot. However, it was probably too early so none of the shops were opened :( Tip: suggest people to only visit the area during afternoons/evenings. We then headed to Twitter HQ and Cityhall for some photo takings. Not that I have a Twitter account, but since we were there, why not.

Encountered hotel staffs protesting/on strike - One job is enough?

San Francisco City Hall

We took the local public bus to The Walt Disney Family Museum after that. The ticket costs $25 per pax. It introduces Walt Disney and his family, how he built his career and eventually the Disneyland theme park as well. It is quite interesting, but probably not meant for kids as the exhibitions can be rather wordy. We spent quite some time in the Museum and only left around 2pm.

Did you know Disney Snow White was created in 1938?

As Golden Gate Bridge is only round the corner, we took the free Presidio shuttle outside the Museum to the Golden Gate Bridge and took some photos there.

Limited visibility/view due to the haze :(

By that time, I was famished. Hence, we decided to try the Uber Express to the Tony's Pizza place. Tony's Pizza is home of 13-time World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani. Thankfully, because of the odd meal hours, we did not have to wait very long for our turn.

Yummy!

After our late lunch, we decided to give Coit Tower a miss, and head straight to Lombard Street - the street which is famous for a steep, one-block section with eight hairpin turns. Lombard Street is also a stone throw away from the Fisherman Wharf!

Lombard Street!

Fisherman Wharf!

As the sky starts to darken by then, we decided to walk further down to Pier 39 first to catch a glimpse of the seals lying by the pier. I was only expecting a few seals, but was surprised to see the entire pier filled with seals! I wonder why the seals are only attracted to this pier.. hmmm.. Anyway, I highly recommend this place!

Look at all the seals!

Fisherman Wharf, on the other hand, has the Clark Quay vibe. It is filled with restaurants and souvenir shops. Bought some souvenir for our colleagues before we took Uber Express again to Chinatown for dinner. I am addicted to Uber Express! We ate dinner at Hong Kong Clay Pot Restaurant which has one of the best ratings on Google. Sadly, we were disappointed again. The portions were huge, but the food was mediocre in my opinion. After dinner, KPO forbid me from taking Uber Express again so we had to walk back to our hotel! What a Kiam Pok indeed. :(

This pretty much sums up our adventure at San Francisco. Travelling down to Yosemite the next day. Stay tuned to the next post. :)

You might be interested in these blog posts too:
- Honeymoon to the United States - 3 Days 2 Nights in New York
- Honeymoon to the United States - Renting a $275,888 Mercedes Benz Convertible with Hertz
- Singapore Airlines Suites Experience - SQ26 Singapore to New York
- Singapore Airlines Suites Experience - The Private Room

- Singapore Airlines Suites - Book the Cook

- Redeeming KrisFlyer Miles for Singapore Airlines Suites = 38.6% Cashback!

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Portfolio Performance in 2018

Let's take a look at how our overall portfolio did for the year 2018.

If you prefer looking at a graph. Ideally, the red line should be above the orange line >.<"

For the year 2018, our portfolio time-weighted return was -10.37% vs -6.63% (ES3: STI ETF). The overall performance since 2014 is -1.56% (time-weighted return) and 0.35% (XIRR). This is pretty bad and I will go into details later. If you are wondering what is the difference between time-weighted return and XIRR, do read this article by common fund. In short, XIRR takes cash flows into account while time-weighted return does not so the way they are calculated is different.

Looking at the top 5 losers and you can see that these are huge losses:
1. APAC Realty (average price $0.862 vs current price $0.465). This was one of our best investment when it went up to $1.20+. Then the cooling measure came and everything became a horror show. Looking at its latest quarterly financial report, its fundamentals have not changed so we will not be selling it. The possibility of averaging down exists.

2. QAF (average price $1.333 vs current price $0.595). Fundamentally, QAF has been struggling qoq/yoy and I should have sold it earlier. Oh well, it is now on the "cold storage" list. Definitely not averaging down.

3. CityDev (average price $9.963 vs current price $8.34) - Similar to APAC Realty, its price tumbled after the cooling measure falling from a high of $13+ and we decided it was a good time to attend. You can read about it here - Portfolio - August 2018. The possibility of averaging down exists.

4. Thaibev (average price $0.86 vs current price $0.615) - I have blogged about Thaibev a couple of times and continues to believe that it will come out stronger after the extremely expensive Sabeco acquisition. The possibility of averaging down exists.

5. Geo Energy Resources (average price $0.233 vs current price $0.182) - I just average down last month. You can read about it here - Portfolio - December 2018. The possibility of averaging down exists.

Ignore Ezion warrant (those are "free"), TSH is now a shell company after it sold everything and did a capital distribution and Gold shares are from StashAway portfolio.

Looking at the top 5 winners, 4 of them are REITs and that is why I love REITs so much. lol. They are less volatile (apart from those that do ridiculous rights issues, typically the "weaker" REIT without a strong sponsor) and pay out dividends regularly!

Generally, the market sentiment has been pretty weak and we have gotten more selective/humji.

Together, we have a capital flow/injection of $93,466.73! Capital flow is the amount of capital that is being injected or withdrawn from your portfolio where the dividends collected are considered as capital withdrawn. Our rate of saving/investing has dropped due to higher expenses from our wedding and honeymoon. It is around 50-70% of our salary this year.

Our portfolio gave us a total dividend of $14,347.58 at an average yield of 4.20%. That is $1,196.63 passive income per month! Unfortunately, the yield of 4.47% is below our target/expectation of 5%.

StocksCafe is even smart enough to project the dividends we will be getting for next year assuming everything remains constant. Seems like it is still at a low 4%, probably need to go back and hunt for REITs.

Based on our 10 years plan to accumulate a $1,000,000 portfolio for extremely early retirement (age 36), our target for this year was $357,268 and we have failed to the target despite injecting more capital than expected :( The current market value of our portfolio is $354,145 (close enough?). Our next year conservative target is $431,301 with a capital injection of $53,865. Our yearly target is pretty conservative as we believe our expenses will be growing exponentially year on year. Just like how some babies are unplanned, we bought First Class ticket on the first day of the year and will be flying to the United States again thanks to Cathay Pacific. We will also be getting our BTO house this year which means more $$$ flying away... We have yet to budget for baby/babies too so plan will change! Plans are made to change :)

Let's hope 2019 will be a great and better year for everyone and your investment!

You might be interested in these blog posts too:
- 2018 Net Worth
- Portfolio Performance in 2017

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