Mount Alvernia Delivery & Phototherapy Charges

Raising a child is definitely not cheap if one chooses to go the private route. If money is a concern, I believe the public route will be significantly cheaper. You can read about our experience here (Our Baby Journey) when we went to KKH as a public/subsidized patient. It wasn't too bad except that you don't get a fixed gynae and there's no ultrasound every visit (only listening to the baby's heartbeat).

Anyway, a rough estimate of our expenses so far since we discovered CZM's pregnancy is >$20k. To be honest, I lost track of our expenses since last year November. Shall try to resume it after the baby can sleep through the night. lol. Today I will be sharing one of the biggest expenses, the delivery charges!

Mount Alvernia Maternity Package can be found here and the one we got was a single room for normal delivery with epidural which is $3,812.41. Well, that is not even half the total cost. Our total damage: $11,214.48

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Yeah. About half went to the doctors (gynae, anesthetist, and PD). We could deduct $2,550 from my Medisave, hence the cash outlay is $8,664.48. Do note that this is just the delivery charges and does not include the consultation/ultrasound fees paid to the gynae. Estimated to be around/more than $3k.

In our previous post (1 Month as a Parent), I blogged about how Baby Ong has jaundice and was admitted to the hospital for phototherapy. Let's take a look at the bill!

One day of phototherapy cost us $967.92!

We were able to deduct another $450 from my Medisave, hence the cash outlay is $517.92. To be honest, I was a bit shocked by the bill. Never expected it to be near $1k. When the result of her blood test was out (290+) and the PD was saying it is near the risky level of 300. Money was the least of our concern and we just wanted her to be healthy and safe, so we immediately admitted her thinking that should be the best course of action. 

However, when we visited her later at night to pass the nurse some breastmilk, we could hear her crying from outside the nursery as though she was left there to cry the whole time. It could have been us overthinking it but it certainly broke our hearts. If we could redo it, we would have rented the phototherapy equipment and done it ourselves. It would have been much cheaper (~$200-$400 for 3 days 2 nights rental according to theAsianparent) and we could have taken better care of her. On the bright side, her jaundice level has already dropped to ~130+ when we visited the PD last week. Hopefully, in the next 2 weeks, it will drop below 100 and she can be "discharged" officially.

This also explains why we were not buying any/many stocks for the last 2 months.

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.)

Syfe - December 2020

After using Syfe for slightly more than 8 months, I really like their REIT+ 100% portfolio. Like I mentioned previously, I am pleased with the way they are handling the corporate actions. They are definitely more transparent as compared to a REIT ETF where you will be able to see all the corporate actions such as mergers, rights issues, etc. in your transactions. The monthly DCA ensure that I will always invest my money by taking my emotion out of the picture. I stopped investing in IWDA and 3067 a few months back because I thought the price was high but now they are much higher. Anyway, I am not too impressed with the Equity100 portfolio (explained below) as well as their inaccurate display issue (please stop using 2 decimal places). Hopefully Syfe will be able to fix the inaccuracy issue in 2021. Fingers crossed :) 

Our Syfe Portfolio
Composition: 100% REITs
Dividend: Reinvest
Monthly Investment: $1,000

Composition: 100% Equities
Dividend: Reinvest
Monthly Investment: $500

Account Statement (Lifetime)

Our current tier is Blue (<$20,000). This is determined by the size of the portfolio (currently $13,129.55) which in turn determines the fees to be charged. The statement lifetime return is $1,929.55 which includes a $1,220 referral bonus. The actual lifetime return would be $709.55. Thanks to our readers for using our code!

Account Statement (November 2020)

The return for the month is $374.30 which includes a $0 referral bonus. 

As of 22 January 2021, this is our portfolio performance:

Capital: $8,500.00
Current: $10,123.51 (24.71% - return is skewed due to referrals)

Capital: $3,200.00
Current: $3,884.63 (44.70% - return is skewed due to referrals)

Transaction Breakdown

There are too many so I will just share a snippet. Anyway, if you want to extract the transaction information from Syfe, do take a look at this article - Syfe Transactions Parser. Anyway, the parser will not work for the Equity100 and Global ARI portfolio when there are small transactions (<0.01). You can refer to this for more information - Syfe - July 2020. The parser will work if Syfe is willing to change its UI and display more decimal places...

REIT+ 100%

Equity100

After parsing them into a csv file, I pivoted the data to get the following view.

Management Fee

The management fee can be obtained by $11,826.70 x 0.65% / 366 * 31 ~ $6.47.

StocksCafe
In my opinion, the return captured by StocksCafe will be a more accurate representation of our portfolio return as the referral bonuses are treated as capital. Having said that, I can also understand why Syfe treats them as a return instead of a deposit too. Just a different perspective. 

REIT+ 100%

Anyway, looking at the time-weighted return (17.24%) for 2020, we can see that Syfe REIT+ 100% is outperforming STI ETF (including fees) but underperforming when compared against SPY or IWDA. In addition, if we were to look at the projected dividends till the end of the year based on the existing investment, we can expect $334.23 of dividends or $27.85 per month. Since the dividends >> fees, this is a pretty sustainable portfolio assuming if there's no capital loss.

Equity100

Interestingly, this is one of the rare times one would see STI outperforming all the other benchmarks. Unfortunately, the time-weighted return is just (8.34%) for 2020 losing to all the indexes. In addition, if we were to look at the volatility and max drawdown, the Equity100 is riskier but not performing better than STI. A huge contrast when we compare it against StashAway's portfolio which diversifies across different assets. Having said that, we have only invested in Equity100 for a very short period of time (since Aug 2020). I will continue to monitor and decide if we should continue with this.

New Syfe customers will have their first $30,000 managed free for 6 months when they use our new referral code (KPOCZM). We will be receiving a $10 cash incentive for our portfolio if you invest $500 or more.

If you are interested in the smart portfolio tracker (StocksCafe) which I am using as shown above, sign up using my link for a longer trial period :) Refer to our Referrals page for more information.

You might be interested in previous months update too:
- Syfe REIT+ (100%) Review
- Syfe - May 2020 - $1,135.43
- Syfe - June 2020 - $2,558.58
- Syfe - July 2020 - $3,872.68
- Syfe - August 2020 - $6,260.30
- Syfe - September 2020 - $8,019.86

- Syfe - October 2020 - $9,029.29

- Syfe - November 2020 - $11,255.26

- Syfe - December 2020 - $13,129.55

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.)

Leverage Performance 2020

I first blogged/explored the possibility of using it in 2018 (Leverage - A Double-Edged Sword) but only took the plunge and used it (SCB Wealth Lending) last year and it has been working well for us so far. I am not recommending the use of it but just wanted to share how we are using/risking to build wealth.

Anyway, there are 2 types of loans one can take - secured and unsecured loans. Unsecured loans are basically your credit card or a personal/renovation loan where you are borrowing without pledging any collateral. Since there's no collateral, the risk is higher for the bank, hence the interest will be higher. On the other hand, secured loans have a much lower interest because one is borrowing by pledging collateral which can be in any form (cash, insurance, stocks, private property, etc.). Ours is a secured loan where we pledge our stocks at an average LTV of 70%. What this means is for every 100k of stocks pledge, we can borrow up to 70k SGD at a fixed rate (1.5%) + 1-month SIBOR (~0.25%) or EUR at a fixed rate (1%) + 1-month LIBOR (~0.11%).

This is how much we have borrowed about ~15,000 euro and ~SG$85,000 (including $20,000 that is put into Singlife for 2.5% interest and ~$30,000 early this year to invest into ParkwayLife REIT, Mapletree Commercial Trust, and Mapletree Industrial Trust). Technically, we borrowed ~15,000 euro and ~SG$35,000 or ~SG$60,000 in total during 2020 to invest.

It is still relatively safe because our portfolio/the stocks we pledged would have to fall by ~59% before we trigger the first level of margin call where we will have to top up the account within the next 30 days before the stocks are being forced sell. Having said that, I think another risk that is not within our control is the bank changing/adjusting the LTV % of the stocks. I have seen it happening during March where some of them went from 70% LTV to 60% or lower.

Anyway, this is our current leverage portfolio. Let's just ignore ParkwayLife REIT, Mapletree Commercial Trust, and Mapletree Industrial Trust since they were invested only this year. The total dividends received is SG$1,936.03 while the total interest paid is SG$374.45. We get to keep the difference of SG$1,561.58 which is ~417% return. In addition, we are sitting on an unrealized profit of SG$12,606.28. Using the interest as the cost of investment, the total return would be SG$14,167.86 which is ~3783%. Woots, what an insane return (even Tesla (743.44%)/Bitcoin (302.8%) can't beat that. lol)! The power of leverage. Of course, it works both ways.

The above is tracked using StocksCafe and you can see that the current leverage portfolio is generating a yield of ~5%. As long as the interest remains low (1-2%), we will continue to use this strategy to grow our wealth. Given that Singlife has recently reduced its interest to 2% (1.5% + 0.5%) from 2.5%, we are likely to withdraw everything to either invest or pay back to the loan once the bonus 0.5% is gone in June. Tip - Topping up Revolut using Singlife debit card is an eligible spending. So what we are doing is Singlife -> Revolut -> StashAway/Syfe. 

I would think this is another benefit/advantage of achieving SCB priority status besides lower/no minimum commission. Hope you find this interesting!

If you are interested in the smart portfolio tracker (StocksCafe) which I am using as shown above, sign up using my link for a longer trial period :) Refer to our Referrals page for more information.

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.)

StashAway - December 2020

The performance of StashAway's portfolios have been very impressive with double digits time-weighted return and XIRR (refer to below). If you compare it to one year ago (StashAway - January 2020) where all our portfolios were losing money, it has rebounded very strongly to what it is now. Based on my own experience, it seems that their portfolio have provided better returns when compared to the other robos we are using too. Having said that, we have not used Endowus (~1 year) and Syfe (<1 year) as long as StashAway (~3 years) so it might not be very accurate.

What's really stopping me from putting in more money is the estate tax issue which I have also blogged about previously. Interestingly, this area is so grey that there are 3 kinds of answers:

- Yes, you will be subjected to estate tax (article from EndowUs)

- No, you should be fine (FAQ from StashAway)

- Hey, nobody is paying and IRS doesn't know (article from CNBC)

Anyway, I have reached out to them to ask about the possibility of transferring portfolio/shares to another individual. I have 2 scenarios in mind:

1. If I die, transfer the portfolio to CZM and let her decide if she wants to continue/cash out

2. Invest for Baby Ong till she reaches 18 and transfers the portfolio to her then.

If the possibility of transferring is there, we might invest more money through StashAway. Shall keep you guys updated. 

Investment for this month:
KPO and CZM Cash - StashAway Risk Index 22% - $1,000
KPO SRS - StashAway Risk Index 36% - $740
CZM SRS - StashAway Risk Index 14% - $250

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

KPO

CZM

Based on the statement (31 December 2020), our total investment is ‭$56,721.26! KPO gains $1,200.32 and CZM gains $79.32 for the month.

As of 21 January 2021, these are our portfolio performance:

KPO and CZM Cash - StashAway Risk Index 22%: $‭39,498.15 (41.85% - Capital: $31,000)

KPO SRS - StashAway Risk Index 36%: $14,023.54 (47.76% - Capital: $11,150)

CZM SRS - StashAway Risk Index 14%: $6,144.01 (27.73% - Capital: $5,500)

2. PORTFOLIO DETAILS 
Note that these are reported in USD.

KPO and CZM Cash - StashAway Risk Index 22%

KPO SRS - StashAway Risk Index 36%

CZM SRS - StashAway Risk Index 14%

3. FEE CALCULATIONS

The fee stated is based on the monthly-average assets SGD ($25,000.00 x 0.8% + $23,898.64 x 0.7%) / 366 days * 31 days = $31.11.

The fee stated is based on the monthly-average assets SGD $5,786.56 x 0.8% / 366 days * 31 days = $3.92. 

StocksCafe

Evan (founder of StocksCafe) made an improvement where one can now benchmark their portfolio against multiple indexes/ETFs. Looking at the time-weighted return (13.23%) for the year 2020, we can see that StashAway Risk Index 22% is outperforming STI ETF (including fees) and lost to both SPY and IWDA slightly.

If we compare across the years, StashAway's portfolio is winning by a huge margin (42.97%) except losing to SPY (55.04%) and IWDA (46.20%). In addition, it has the lowest volatility and max drawdown. This is what StashAway meant by reducing risk and maximizing the return. 

The annualized return/XIRR of the portfolio is very impressive too at 14.68%. Using the Rule of 72, it means that the StashAway portfolio will double our money in 72 / 14.68 ~ 4.9 years. In comparison, the same money if left in the bank account at 2% interest rate will take 72 / 2 ~ 36 years to double.

Since there was a reader that asked about StashAway Risk Index 36% performance against other benchmarks, I shall add it here too.

The portfolio currently has a higher time-weighted return (49.02%) when compared against all the indexes (STI, SPY and IWDA) but it is also clear that it is more risky in the sense that both its volatility/max drawdown are much higher when you compare against the benchmark and StashAway Risk Index 22% portfolio. The XIRR is 33.82% but it looks pretty skewed by 2021. Using the same rule, our money will doubled in 72 / 33.82 ~ 2.12 years.

Which is the best? Only time will tell :)

Anyway, if you are interested in signing up for StashAway, do use our referral link - KPO and CZM Referral Link. You will get $10,000 free management fees for 6 months and we will get $16!

If you want to extract those transactions information from StashAway, do take a look at this article - StashAway Transactions Parser.

If you are interested in the smart portfolio tracker (StocksCafe) which I am using as shown above, sign up using my link for a longer trial period :) Refer to our Referrals page for more information.

You might be interested in previous months update too:

- StashAway Withholding Tax Reimbursement FY 2019
- StashAway - January 2020 - $31,742.42
- StashAway - February 2020 - $31,499.69‬
- StashAway - March 2020 - $30,934.95‬
- StashAway - April 2020 - ‭$34,830.73‬
- StashAway - May 2020 - $37,298.09‬
- StashAway - June 2020 - $39,931.79
- StashAway - July 2020 - $44,125.18
- StashAway - August 2020 - $46,900.18
- StashAway - September 2020 - $47,850.22

- StashAway - October 2020 - $49,892.40

- StashAway - November 2020 - $53,451.62

- StashAway - December 2020 - $56,721.26

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.)

Endowus - December 2020

My statement for this month is slightly different as I have invested long enough (1 year) for them to compute the Annualised Internal Rate of Return also known as the money-weighted rate of return (MWRR) which is 19.85% (very decent!). What I am looking forward to is the time-weighted return (still not shown yet) so I can compare it against other robos/portfolios.

Risk Profile

Goal type: General wealth accumulation
Risk tolerance: Maximise returns (loss tolerance -60%)

Monthly investment using SRS: $740

I have modified my monthly investment in order to max out my SRS contribution for the year.

Account Summary

Capital: $11,150.00
Current: $12,466.20 (11.83%)

There are quite a few differences as compared to StashAway. Firstly, all the cash has been invested while StashAway keeps 1% of the portfolio in cash. Secondly, the fees are not deducted on a monthly basis. The Access Fee charged by Endowus will be deducted at the end of each quarter as stated in their FAQ.

As of 22 Decemeber 2020, the portfolio value is $12,935.43 (+16.06%).

Asset Allocation

This shows that the number of shares for each fund that I owned:
- Dimensional Global Core Equity Fund (176.9980)
- Infinity US 500 Stock Index Fund (2,081.9000)
- Dimensional Emerging Markets Large Cap Core Equity Fund (70.6880)
- Dimensional Pacific Basin Small Companies Fund (64.7830)

It will be great if they actually showed my average price vs the current market price.

Transactions

That's all! Overall, I think the statement is pretty straightforward and easy to read. On a side note, StocksCafe does not has the ability to track funds, hence unable to do any form of comparison/benchmark.

Speaking of which, Endowus has finally launched a mobile app:

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/endowus-invest-cpf-srs-cash/id1531067679

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.endowus.mobileapp

If you are interested in Endowus, do use our referral link for our readers! You will get S$10,000 managed free for 6 months ($20 equivalent) and we will get $20 too!

You might be interested in previous months update too:

- Endowus CPF/SRS Review
- Endowus - January 2020 - $3,692.02
- Endowus - February 2020 - $3,704.57
- Endowus - March 2020 - $4,153.50
- Endowus - April 2020 - $4,849.67
- Endowus - May 2020 - $5,797.36
- Endowus - June 2020 - $6,471.66
- Endowus - July 2020 - $7,455.96

- Endowus - August 2020 - $8,588.83

- Endowus - September 2020 - $9,124.13

- Endowus - October 2020 - $9,665.59

- Endowus - November 2020 - $11,324.92

- Endowus - December 2020 - $12,466.20 

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 - December 2020

I will be honest, it's much harder to find time to manage our finances/investment or as a matter of fact, do anything with a newborn nowadays. Even if there's some time when the baby is sleeping, there's simply not much energy left and we would always choose sleep over other matters. lol. That's why this month's update took so long.

Anyway, our portfolio reached a new high as 2020 comes to an end! It increased by 4.69% to $669,630 - $8,125.34 of capital injection and $21,898.20 of capital gain. This includes $56,034 of leverage/debt (gearing ~9.13%).

If you prefer to look at numbers, this is the raw data used to generate the above bar graph. These numbers are as of the last day of the month.

"Cash Flow" is the amount of money being injected/withdrawn from the portfolio (buying stocks = +ve cash flow while selling stocks and collecting dividends = -ve cash flow)

SOLD
- None

BOUGHT
- CapitaLand Retail China Trust (4,000 units) @ $1.17

- Mapletree NAC Trust (335 units) @ $0.8574

We did not buy anything for a couple of reasons. The main one is we need to save up for CZM and Baby Ong hospitalization/delivery fees this month. The stocks didn't look as attractive after the market went up so much. We did not buy IWDA and iShares Hang Seng Tech ETF (3067) because it is at an all-time high. Yes, I am timing the market but I just couldn't help it. Unfortunately, they just keep going higher @_@"

We got CapitaLand Retail China Trust from its rights issue + oversubscribing and as for Mapletree NAC Trust, we took shares instead of cash for its latest dividend.

I have also decided to increase my SRS contribution to $1,480 per month with the intention of maxing it by year-end.

Our Monthly DCA for December - $4,230
$1,000 Cash - StashAway Risk Index 22%

$740  KPO's SRS - StashAway Risk Index 36%

$250 CZM's SRS - StashAway Risk Index 14%

$740 KPO's SRS - Endowus Loss Tolerance -60%
$1,000 Cash - Syfe REIT+ (100% REIT)
$500 Cash - Syfe Equity100 (100% Equities)

Dividends
The total dividends collected this month is $2,103.04. The breakdown is as follows:

Company                                                     PayDate          Shares         Total

ESR-REIT                                             30-Dec-20     306.104 $2.44

DBS Group Holdings Ltd.                     29-Dec-20     900         $162.00

Frasers Hospitality Trust                     29-Dec-20     4,000         $42.78

Mapletree North Asia Commercial Trust   28-Dec-20     10269.686 $295.35

First Real Estate Investment Trust             23-Dec-20     11,009         $111.19

AIMS APAC REIT                                     18-Dec-20     1,600         $32.00

Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust     17-Dec-20     21,610         $732.57

Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust     11-Dec-20     218.374 $12.53

Parkway Life REIT                                     8-Dec-20     2021.837 $71.57

CapitaLand Retail China Trust             4-Dec-20     17102.038 $470.30

NetLink NBN Trust                             4-Dec-20     6,000         $151.80

Mapletree Logistics Trust                     4-Dec-20     310.534 $8.31

Frasers Centrepoint Trust                     4-Dec-20     73.04         $3.28

Mapletree Industrial Trust                     1-Dec-20     225.698 $6.92

Total dividends collected for 2020: $21,425.57
Average dividends per month for 2020: $1,785.46

StashAway

KPO

CZM

Capital: $47,150‬.00
Current: $‭‭‭‭56,721.66

If you are interested in StashAway, do use our referral link. You get $10,000 free management fees for 6 months and we will get $16!

If you want to extract those transactions information from StashAway, do take a look at this article - StashAway Transactions Parser.

Endowus

Capital: $11,150.00
Current: $12,436.98

If you are interested in Endowus, do use our referral link for our readers! You will get S$10,000 managed free for 6 months ($20 equivalent) and we will get $20 too!

Syfe

REIT+ 100%

Equity100

Capital: $11,200.00
Current: $‭‭‭13,141.55

New Syfe customers will have their first $30,000 managed free for 6 months when they use our new referral code (KPOCZM). We will be receiving a $10 cash incentive for our portfolio if you invest $500 or more.

If you want to extract those transactions information from Syfe, do take a look at this article - Syfe Transactions Parser.

You might be interested in these blog posts too:
- Portfolio Performance in 2019
- 2019 Net Worth
- Portfolio - December 2019 - $463,297
- Portfolio - January 2020 - $455,071
- Portfolio - February 2020 - $442,216
- Portfolio - March 2020 - $415,071
- Portfolio - April 2020 - $459,037
- Portfolio - May 2020 - $470,665
- Portfolio - June 2020 - $502,313

- Portfolio - July 2020 - $487,135
- Portfolio - August 2020 - $525,857
- Portfolio - September 2020 - $566,705

- Portfolio - October 2020 - $567,374 
- Portfolio - November 2020 - $639,606

- Portfolio - December 2020 - $669,630

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.)

1 Month as a Parent

It has been about a month since the birth of Baby Ong and we just "celebrated" her full/first month.

The journey till date wasn't an easy one. The first few days were the worst and most stressful as we were constantly worried about her not having enough breast milk and we didn't know why she was crying/not sleeping. It was extremely hard to get her to go to sleep. Imagine in the middle of the night (2/3 am), spending 1-2 hours trying to coax her to sleep before we can get some sleep too. Honestly, it was just so tiring!

The worst part was during our first PD visit (about one week later), she had to be separated from us and was admitted to the hospital for phototherapy as her jaundice level was too high (290+). As tiring as it was, we still preferred to have her by our side. It was such an emotional day that CZM and I cried and hugged each other to sleep consoling each other that we can finally have a good sleep/rest. Having a baby/child really changes one's mentality.

Even until now, her jaundice level is still relatively high (~140+ that's why she looks so tanned above, probably from the phototherapy and whenever we could "sun" her) and we are still monitoring now. The PD said it is likely breastmilk jaundice which should be harmless but we just can't stop worrying. In addition, she still has to draw blood to do various tests and it pains us to see that happening. On the bright side, PD said she's growing up well, putting on 1.4kg since birth. She's 4.1 kg now (~50 percentile).

If we could turn back time, I will invest all my money in Bitcoin/Tesla. Hahaha. Jokes aside, the one thing we would have done differently is to get a confinement lady. The transition was simply too sudden and rough. CZM's parents offered to help/do her confinement and we thought it was an excellent idea since who else would have taken better care of CZM. We moved back to her parents' place with the intention to stay for a few months in order for CZM to get as much support as possible. 

Unfortunately, the difference in opinions on how to look after the baby gave us too much additional stress that we decided to move back home immediately after CZM's confinement was over. Some examples:

- Whenever we carry the baby to coax her to sleep, they would say we are spoiling her. Kept asking us to leave her on the cot and let her cry to sleep. Read - Can You Spoil a Newborn? 

- Baby needs about 16 hours of sleep time. Assuming the baby got to eat every 3 hours, that's 8 feeds. In order to get the 16 hours of sleep, we would need to change the diaper, feed, and coax her back to sleep within an hour but her parents always insisted that the baby should have playtime and don't need to sleep so much. Read - Newborn and Baby Sleep Basics.

- We hate it the most when the baby's sleep is being disturbed. Whenever relatives come over to visit and they would always offer/ask the relative to carry the baby when she's sleeping. While we understand that relatives are excited and would like to play with the baby, we would still prefer to have the baby's sleep prioritized.

Having said that, we really appreciate all the help that was provided (no need to do any household chores for one month!) and one of the reasons for getting confinement lady is so that it wouldn't be so tiring for her parents too. CZM's mum got to wake up early to buy fresh food from the market and cook for her. So if you are considering getting a confinement lady or getting your own parents to help, I will recommend the former to avoid any unnecessary conflict and you will have one whole month to learn how to take care of the baby.

This tip is from CZM. For those that are intending to breastfeed, do invest/buy a handsfree pump. It gives her the flexibility to do so many things (eat, watch tv/mobile, cook, etc.) while pumping. The only thing you can't do is sleep. lol. Even if you are planning to let the baby latch, you would still need to pump to prevent engorgement. If you are wondering, CZM is using Imani Handsfree Electrical Breastpump i2.

We received some red packets/money from relatives, friends, and colleagues as well as the $3,000 baby bonus from the government. We are still considering what to do with that money, should we invest on her behalf or simply pocket/keep it ourselves to offset all the expenses we have incurred. One thing that is for sure is we do not plan to max her CDA account immediately although the government is providing dollar to dollar matching up to $3,000 because once the money is in, it is "stuck" at a low-interest account. Anyway, we can do that anytime before the child turns 12 years old and there's ample time.

Any baby tips? 

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.)

Our CPF 2020

CPF plays a crucial role towards retirement planning and should be managed accordingly. Our plan is to first max out MA (which will then overflow to SA/OA), then follow by SA (meeting the FRS) and let compounding take over to ensure that we will always be able to meet the new minimum sum in the respective accounts. Our CPF update will be done annually together with the interests that are being paid out. 

KPO's CPF

Age 30, Total CPF ~$150k

I was transferring OA to SA for higher interest once I started working and blogged about it here - CPF Milestone ($40k in Special Account) and The Power of Compound Interest. I stopped transferring and began to build up OA to prepare for our BTO HDB downpayment in 2018. There was a change in policy (HDB 想通了/achieved enlightenment. lol) and we can now keep up to $20,000 in OA. You can read about why we do not wish to wipe our OA here - Chiong Housing Loan or Take It Slow?

In 2019, we paid the remaining downpayment for our BTO, hence you can see a drop in OA. The plan now is to keep at least $20k in OA as a buffer in the event if we lose our job/income, we can still continue to pay off the housing loan for the next 2-3 years without any worry.

Last year, we also chose to refinance our HDB housing loan to a bank loan for a saving of ~$200 per month. You can read more about it here - My Experience with Mortgage Brokers - Redbrick and iCompareLoan. I also did CPF RSTU (7k to CPF SA) and Voluntary Contribution (VC) to CPF MA for tax optimization.

Interest received:
OA - $702.78
SA - $3,346.83
MA - $1,239.29

Total: $5,288.90

CZM's CPF

Age 30, Total CPF ~$170k

Interest received:
OA - $738.76
SA - $4,152.99
MA - $1,515.94

Total: $6,407.69

Together, the interest received are $11,696.59 :)

I have a spreadsheet that attempts to forecast CPF minimum sum and tracks how close/far are we to meeting/hitting the minimum sum. This is computed by adding OA and SA together (which forms RA when we hit 55). As of 2020, I have only met 63.27% based on the current minimum sum of $181,000 while CZM is at 72.47%. More than half the journey done to meeting FRS!

Something I like to do, assuming that CZM stopped working now and there will be $0 contribution to her CPF, will she be able to hit the minimum retirement sum? Using a finance calculator and her current SA of $95,347.55, the future value when we are 55 is $244,404.77. Pretty close to the lower bound of the estimation ($231,000 which is compounding the minimum sum at 1%). Guess CZM got to continue to work for a few more years. Hahahaha.

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

- 2018 Net Worth

- 2019 Net Worth

- Our CPF 2018

- Our CPF 2019

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.)

Our CPF 2019

I just realized that this article was in draft mode and partially completed while blogging on our CPF 2020 update. Here it goes, one year late. lol.

KPO's CPF

I was transferring OA to SA for higher interest once I started working and blogged about it here - CPF Milestone ($40k in Special Account) and The Power of Compound Interest. I stopped transferring and began to build up OA to prepare for our BTO HDB downpayment in 2018. There was a change in policy (HDB 想通了/achieved enlightenment. lol) and we can now keep up to $20,000 in OA. You can read about why we do not wish to wipe our OA here - Chiong Housing Loan or Take It Slow?

In 2019, we paid the remaining downpayment for our BTO, hence you can see a drop in OA. The plan now is to keep at least $20k in OA as a buffer in the event if we lose our job/income, we can still continue to pay off the housing loan for the next 2-3 years without any worry.

Interest received:
OA - $559.38
SA - $2,792.82
MA - $723.57

Total: $4,075.77

CZM's CPF

Interest received:
OA - $605.83
SA - $3,809.96
MA - $1,248.24

Total: $5,664.03

Together, we have received $9,739.80 :)

I have a spreadsheet that attempts to forecast CPF minimum sum and tracks how close/far are we to meeting/hitting the minimum sum. This is computed by adding OA and SA together (which forms RA when we hit 55). As of 2019, I have only met 48.84% based on the current minimum sum of $176,000 while CZM is at 64.50%. Long way to go before meeting FRS!

Something I like to do, assuming that CZM stopped working now and there will be $0 contribution to her CPF, will she be able to hit the minimum retirement sum? Using a finance calculator and her current SA of $86,811.57, the future value when we are 55 is $231,425.44. Pretty close to the lower bound of the estimation ($231,000 which is compounding the minimum sum at 1%). Guess CZM got to continue to work for a few more years. Hahahaha.

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

- 2018 Net Worth

- 2019 Net Worth

- Our CPF 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.)