2021 Net Worth

We dabbled in crypto in early 2021 with the plan to allocate just a tiny 1% of our net worth into it. However, I fell deep into the rabbit hole, discovered LUNA/Terra and eventually persuaded/convinced CZM to screw/ignore the 1% allocation. lol. Now it is taking up close to 50% of our net worth.

Our WhatsApp group chat

In addition, I started exploring DeFi with my friends (some of you can probably tell why it was named that way. Hint: BSC. lol) and eventually we started a crypto business with just US$3k capital. It is currently generating conservatively a few thousand dollars of passive income monthly (probably not that passive for my friends because they are doing the heavy lifting/coding. lol). It is a crazy amount for us because this was achieved in months as compared to our dividends portfolio which we spent years building.

Besides crypto, another factor that contributed to the growth of our wealth is the use of leverage.

Debt/leverage breakdown:

Stocks - SG$271,199

Crypto - US$75,269 (~SG$101,433)

House - SG$350,538

Total: ~SG$723,170

I believe the amount of debt we have taken might make some of you sleepless but it isn't really that much. If you think about it, anyone buying a private property without investing would have taken on much more debt but grow their wealth much slower (just my opinion). Anyway, we borrowed ~SG$372k to invest and it has exceeded our mortgage of ~SG$350k. Once again, leverage isn't for everyone and most importantly, never put yourself in a position where there is a high chance of being liquidated/margin call.

Let me introduce the concept of net worth and its importance once again for the new readers.

Net worth can be calculated by taking all the assets and subtracting away all the debts/liabilities. This is the classic comic where everyone is actually poorer than the beggar who has a net worth of $2.73. Your friends/colleagues may be living in a huge condominium, driving some fancy car but it could all be financed by debts. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as their income allows so but anything can happen! Do not be the The "Poor" Pilot With Multiple Properties. You can refer to the following article on the importance of net worth by InvestmentMoats - Don’t Track Your Expenses or Budget First. Plot Your Net Worth Instead. 

Cash
This is all the money we have in our savings accounts. Regular readers will know we are investing aggressively that we hardly keep/hold onto cash. No emergency fund as well which I do not recommend since it is personal finance 101. We felt that there's no need for it at the moment, will probably work start saving when CZM retires?

Our Cash: ~ $25,000

CPF
Every month, I will try to show CZM her net worth in order to motivate her to work harder towards financial freedom. However, she would always say I inflate her net worth because I included CPF. lol. I am sure some of you may have the same mentality but like I always tell her, CPF is our money and should be included as our retirement planning.

Our CPF: ~ $380,000 (OA + SA + MA)

Investment - Stocks/TradFi

The return through the use of leverage is not being captured and should be higher. Anyway, our overall time-weighted return is 18.01% and XIRR is 6.99%. The majority of our portfolio is tracked using StocksCafe except for Endowus which is about 35k and we have about 271k of leverage/debt. You can refer to Portfolio - December 2021 for the detailed breakdown.

The screenshot was taken after 2021 so numbers will not tally

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.

Our Investment: ~$756,000

Investment - Crypto/DeFi

The majority of our crypto investments are in Terra. You can refer to Portfolio - December 2021 for the detailed breakdown.

What's excluded:

- Crypto Business

- NFTs

I minted/purchased our first NFTs last year September. It costs about 3 LUNA or US$123 then. I sold one for 118 LUNA (~US$4,838 then or ~US$9k now) and kept the remaining 2. One of them (#10902) has a silver crown with a floor price of 250 LUNA or ~US$20k and the other (#9868) is a top 5% glitch punk. Both of them are much rarer than what the floor is trading at but conservatively, they could be sold/valued at a minimum of ~US$40k in total. Of course, the most conservative valuation is 0 which is why they were excluded :)

Our Investment: ~$1,073,000

Property

I believe that property should be included in the computation of net worth. If one excludes the value of the property, the money (cash/CPF) you use to pay for the loan/mortgage will be no different as disappearing into the thin air or throwing it into the sea. Hence, I will be valuing the property based on the total payment (interest + renovation cost) till date. This ensures that our money will not "disappear" and act as a floor/minimum amount (total payment + remaining loan + markup/profit) to sell in the future.

I can imagine people selling their house at market value + markup, thinking that they made money from the sale but it is totally possible that market price + markup < total payment + remaining loan. Does this make sense or is it too confusing? lol.

Anyway, the cost of our HDB + the payment made so far is ~520k and the current outstanding loan is 351k.

Our Property: ~$168,000

Total

Our Net Worth: ~$2,404,000

Here you go! Our net worth pie chart, it looks pretty yummy to me :) 

Oh, we also have about 465k miles which are just as valuable/useful as our NFTs at the moment and are valued at 0 dollars as well. lol.

Are you tracking your net worth?

On a side note, Futu's moomoo app free AAPL share sign-up promotion is back for this month. Do read the T&C here for more information. If you have yet to open an account, you can do so using our referral link :)

Accidentally clicked on the annoying ads? Let me thank you in advance as you are indirectly doing good as we will be Donating 100% Ads Revenue Going Forward!

You might be interested in these blog posts too:
- 2017 Net Worth: ~$510,000
- 2018 Net Worth: ~$640,000
- 2019 Net Worth: ~$886,000

- 2020 Net Worth: ~$1,107,000
- 2021 Net Worth: ~$2,404,000

- Our CPF 2018

- Our CPF 2019
- Our CPF 2020

- Our CPF 2021

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.)

SP Group Wholesale Electricity No Longer The Cheapest Plan

I have blogged about how cheap/low the SP Group Wholesale Electricity rate was previously but unfortunately, those days are gone:

- Cheapest Electricity Plan - SP Group Wholesale Electricity

- Cheapest Electricity Plan - SP Group Wholesale Electricity Part 2

- Cheapest Electricity Plan - SP Group Wholesale Electricity (2021)

I was shocked to see my latest electricity bill. 370.09 kWh - $200.35 which translate to 54.14 cents/kWh!

That is more than doubled the regulated electricity tariff rate of 25.80 cents/kWh.

The image is taken from Seedly

This should have been obvious given that 5 electricity retailers closed down last month - Seedly:
Why Are Electricity Retailers in Singapore Closing Down? What Does it Mean for Singaporeans? This is probably because if they had continued to operate, they will only be incurring more losses.

If you head over to the OEM site to compare prices/plans, the cheapest plan one can get now is a x% discount off the regulated tariff rate. If you scroll further down, some of the fixed-rate plans are even higher than the regulated tariff rate for this quarter. In my opinion, this is an indication that the regulated tariff rate will probably increase after this quarter and they are pricing it in now given that the plan/contract is going to be for the next 6-24 months.

Regardless, I have decided to cut our losses as well by switching the wholesale plan back to the regulated tariff rate. This can be done directly from the SP website.

It may/may not give you a date that is much further away but for my case, the default date was next year Jan. Obviously I am not going to wait that long -.-"

I selected the nearest/closest date where the transfer/switch can be done.

For the earlier date, one just got to submit your own self-read meter which isn't difficult.

A couple of reasons why I decided to just go back to the regulated tariff rate:

1. Less trouble/hassle - Everything can be done online and there's no need to worry about it "closing shop"
2. No contract - Assuming if the electricity rate ever falls again, I can easily switch back to the wholesale rate.
3. At the moment, I do not see significant savings for the hassle/trouble to switch to other retailers and getting myself  "locked" in a contract for a miserable 3-6% discount. Simply not worth my time and effort.

Hope this helps!

On a side note, Futu's moomoo app sign-up promotion is slightly different every month (AAPL shares, cash coupon, etc. Do read the T&C here for more information). If you have yet to open an account, you can do so using our referral link :)

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.)

Cheapest Electricity Plan - SP Group Wholesale Electricity (2021)

Note: SP Group Wholesale Electricity No Longer The Cheapest Plan

In my previous article, I shared my last 3 months of electricity bills then (Feb, Mar and Apr 2020) to show that the SP Group Wholesale Electricity plan is probably the cheapest electricity plan available in the Open Electricity Market (OEM) as well as the remaining statements for the rest of 2020 here - Cheapest Electricity Plan - SP Group Wholesale Electricity Part 2. This is a continuation of that article by sharing the more recent statements too.

Jan 2021

177.43 kWh - $26.90 which translate to 15.16 cents/kWh

Feb 2021

357.93 kWh - $57.72 which translate to 16.12 cents/kWh

Mar 2021

326.14 kWh - $57.17 which translate to 17.53 cents/kWh (Do take note that this is no longer the cheapest rate at face value. I shall blog about it soon)

Apr 2021

353.93 kWh - $61.49 which translate to 17.37 cents/kWh

May 2021

360.82 kWh - $64.41 which translate to 17.85 cents/kWh

Jun 2021

416.49 kWh - $73.72 which translate to 17.70 cents/kWh

Jul 2021

385.56 kWh - $73.36 which translate to 19.02 cents/kWh

Aug 2021

345.35 kWh - $94.27 which translate to 27.30 cents/kWh (I ran out of credit and didn't make payment for the previous month. Regardless, this rate is crazy high! In fact, it was even higher than the tariffs rate at 24.11 cents/kWh.)

Using the Open Electricity Market Price Comparison site, there are definitely cheaper plans.

Sep 2021

285.56 kWh - $57.47 which translate to 20.13 cents/kWh 

It seems the SP Group Wholesale Electricity is the cheapest again. Guess I will just continue to observe.

Again, the above are just rough estimates as I included other fees such as GST, meter reading, etc. The more accurate way is to remove them and compute but it is already lower even when I included those miscellaneous fees. You can decide for yourself :)

Anyway, if you are interested in this update, simply bookmark this page as I will just update it with the subsequent months' statement.

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.)

2020 Net Worth

Let me start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year! 2020 has been an incredible year for us and manage to achieve/do most of what we had planned to do. You can take a look at last year update here - 2019 Net Worth. We took 1 month off from work and did a RTW trip to Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, and Switzerland in February before COVID got really bad/serious. Unfortunately, travelling to Hokkaido and Scandinavia/Northern Europe with our family did not happen. I got my promotion and change job after a few months resulting in a double bump in salary. Recession sort of happened but our portfolio still manages to hit more than half a million with a V-shaped recovery. The best thing that happened to us is the addition to our family - Baby Ong!

I do not think leisure travel is going to resume anytime soon and with a baby, we are definitely not planning to travel, hence no grand travel plan although we have about half a million miles now @_@" As a parent, our mentality has changed, it is no longer about ourselves and it's always about the baby. Anyway, this is what we hope to achieve for year 2021:

1. Baby Ong grows up healthily since health is wealth!

2. We are still on track to a 1 million portfolio by age 34. It is currently at 613k without leverage and 669k with leverage and the target for this year is 720k without leverage. 

3. Given the low interest environment, we are looking to increase the use of leverage "safely" and hopefully be able to accelerate the growth of our portfolio. I first blogged/explored the possibility of using it in 2018 (Leverage - A Double-Edged Sword) but only took the plunge and used it last year and it has been working well for us so far. Shall blog about it separately next time.

Our net worth update is an annual event but I blogged about it a few months back when we reached a milestone - 1 Million Combined Net Worth By Age 30.

Let me introduce the concept of net worth and its importance once again for the new readers.

Net worth can be calculated by taking all the assets and subtracting away all the debts/liabilities. This is the classic comic where everyone is actually poorer than the beggar who has a net worth of $2.73. Your friends/colleagues may be living in a huge condominium, driving some fancy car but it could all be financed by debts. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as their income allows so but anything can happen! Do not be the The "Poor" Pilot With Multiple Properties. You can refer to the following article on the importance of net worth by InvestmentMoats - Don’t Track Your Expenses or Budget First. Plot Your Net Worth Instead. 

Cash
This is all the money we have in our savings accounts. Regular readers will know we are investing aggressively that we hardly keep/hold onto cash. No emergency fund as well which I do not recommend since it is personal finance 101. We felt that there's no need for it at the moment, will probably work start saving when we get older.

Our Cash: ~ $22,000

CPF
Every month, I will try to show CZM her net worth in order to motivate her to work harder towards financial freedom. However, she would always say I inflate her net worth because I included CPF. lol. I am sure some of you may have the same mentality but like I always tell her, CPF is our money and should be included as our retirement planning.

Our CPF: ~ $322,000 (OA + SA + MA)

Investment

I have yet to blog about our portfolio performance and although we outperformed STI for this year, the portfolio underperformed when compared against SPY and IWDA. Having said that, the return through the use of leverage is not being captured and should be higher. Anyway, our overall time-weighted return is 5.82% and XIRR is 5.33%.

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.

Majority of our portfolio are tracked using StocksCafe except for Endowus which is about 12k and we have about 56k of leverage/debt.

Our Investment: ~$613,000

Property

I believe that property should be included in the computation of net worth. If one excludes the value of the property, the money (cash/CPF) you use to pay for the loan/mortgage will be no different as disappearing into the thin air or throwing it into the sea. Hence, I will be valuing the property based on the total payment (interest + renovation cost) till date. This ensures that our money will not "disappear" and act as a floor/minimum amount (total payment + remaining loan + markup/profit) to sell in the future.

I can imagine people selling their house at market value + markup, thinking that they made money from the sale but it is totally possible that market price + markup < total payment + remaining loan. Does this make sense or is it too confusing? lol.

Anyway, the cost of our HDB + the payment made so far is ~514k and the current outstanding loan is 364k.

Our Property: ~$150,000

Total

Our Net Worth: ~$1,107,000

Here you go! Our net worth pie chart, it looks pretty yummy to me :) 

We have also clocked >1,000,000 page views! Thank you very much to all our readers!

Alright, I digress too much. Are you tracking your net worth?

You might be interested in these blog posts too:
- 2017 Net Worth: ~$510,000
- 2018 Net Worth: ~$640,000
- 2019 Net Worth: ~$886,000

- 2020 Net Worth: ~$1,107,000

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 Million Combined Net Worth By Age 30

We have achieved another one of our goals - $1,000,000 net worth by age 30! We ended 2019 with a net worth of ~$886,000 and was hoping to achieve the goal this year. When covid happened and the stock market crashed in March, I told CZM that it's not happening this year since the majority of our wealth is in the market. Surprise surprise, the market has recovered even before the pandemic is over (technically the vaccine isn't out yet, the economy is still bad and we still can't travel).

Let me introduce the concept of net worth and its importance once again for the new readers.

Net worth can be calculated by taking all the assets and subtracting away all the debts/liabilities. This is the classic comic where everyone is actually poorer than the beggar who has a net worth of $2.73. Your friends/colleagues may be living in a huge condominium, driving some fancy car but it could all be financed by debts. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as their income allows so but anything can happen! Do not be the The "Poor" Pilot With Multiple Properties. You can refer to the following article on the importance of net worth by InvestmentMoats - Don’t Track Your Expenses or Budget First. Plot Your Net Worth Instead. 

In our previous net worth update, I simply share the numbers but since this is a special occasion, shall share some screenshot too :)

Cash
This is all the money we have in our savings accounts.

KPO DBS Accounts

CZM DBS Accounts

I have blogged about how we used the Multiplier as our main savings account and the use of a joint account to achieve higher interest previously. The last/latest article can be found here - DBS Multiplier Upcoming Changes. 

KPO UOB Account

The UOB account was created when we refinance our HDB housing loan/mortgage to UOB. I usually keep this around $1k to avoid the fall below fee and it just went below $1k after the giro deduction for my credit card bills. I also have multiple SCB accounts that have $0 balance (no fall below fee for priority customer) which I will show later for a different reason.

Regular readers will know we are investing aggressively that we hardly keep/hold onto cash. No emergency fund as well which I do not recommend since it is personal finance 101. We felt that there's no need for it at the moment, will probably work start saving when we get older.

Our Cash: ~$16,000

CPF
Every month, I will try to show CZM her net worth in order to motivate her to work harder towards financial freedom. However, she would always say I inflate her net worth because I included CPF. lol. I am sure some of you may have the same mentality but like I always tell her, CPF is our money and should be included as part of our retirement planning.

KPO CPF

CZM CPF

At the start of our career and before we got our BTO, we transferred everything in OA to SA to take advantage of the higher interest in SA. However, the plan now is to leave more money in OA to act as a buffer for our mortgage. As of now, we can become jobless for ~3.6 years without worrying about the mortgage. Another reason why I stopped transferring to SA is for tax optimization purposes. The option to top up SA up to $7k yearly will disappear once FRS is met. You can how I reduce our taxes by performing Voluntary Contribution (VC) to CPF Medisave and RSTU (Retirement Sum Topping-Up to SA).

Our CPF: ~$308,000 (OA + SA + MA) 

Investment

Our portfolio has grown to >$600,000 (another record high!) after the news of the vaccine came out and since our last update (Portfolio - October 2020 - $567,374).

All our investments are tracked using StocksCafe (including StashAway and Syfe) except for the Endowus portfolio.

Hence, our total portfolio is ~$625,000 currently (including leverage).

The only 2 stocks in my CDP were from an IPO (Just Another Netlink Trust IPO Analysis) and the one time when DBS/Vickers thought I was an accredited investor and offered a private placement (Keppel DC REIT Private Placement). Probably applied too little and the banker found it suspicious. Stopped receiving all those HDB bonds/private placement emails shortly. Oh well.

The majority of our investments are with SCB in 2 different accounts and one of them is a lien account where I pledge shares in order to borrow money from the bank at a lower interest. You can read more about it here - Leverage - A Double-Edged Sword.

The account highlighted in yellow is the leverage/amount I am borrowing from the bank to invest. $15k Euro was used to invest in Cromwell European REITs. Although you see $51k, $20k were used on Singlife for 2.5% interest (ignore it since I did not include it in the cash section) and $31k were invested - Biggest Losses in a Day + Start of Leverage.

Total Leverage: ~$56,000

Our Investment: ~$569,000

Property

I believe that property should be included in the computation of net worth. If one excludes the value of the property, the money (cash/CPF) you use to pay for the loan/mortgage will be no different as disappearing into the thin air or throwing it into the sea. Hence, I will be valuing the property based on the total payment (interest + renovation cost) till date. This ensures that our money will not "disappear" and act as a floor/minimum amount (total payment + remaining loan + markup/profit) to sell in the future.

I can imagine people selling their house at market value + markup, thinking that they made money from the sale but it is totally possible that market price + markup < total payment + remaining loan. Does this make sense or is it too confusing? lol.

Property value based on total payment (including interest + renovation cost): ~$514,000

Valuing at cost + total payment is pretty conservative as the market valuation is ~$635,000!

Our Housing Loan: $365,000

Our Property: ~$149,000

Total

Our Net Worth: ~$1,042,000

The question is how to achieve something similar? Honestly, there's no get rich quick scheme. In my opinion, it always boils down to the followings:

1. Work hard to increase your salary/career/business

Unfortunately, this will always be your main source of income, not from dropshipping or owning multiple properties. I have blogged about this previously - >100% "Return" on Salary and your salary growth should not be linear especially at the early stage of your career. If you are below median income, work towards it. After that work towards getting $6k for maximum CPF contribution rate and towards the next tax bracket and so on. Work for your promotion, if there's no growth or you are getting too comfortable, change a company. The best way to differentiate yourself is to learn programming and automate some manual tasks e.g. Python to automate the boring stuff.

2. High Savings Rate

Our savings rate is around 60-70%. Ignore the last 3 months as I have not tabulated our expenses and they are after deducting those fixed expenses only (e.g. housing loan, parents' allowance, insurance, etc.). To do that, cut down on your expenses. Determine what are your needs (e.g. food) and wants (e.g. new shirt/bag). In addition, we made a decision that we will not get a car (even after Baby Ong is born).

Anyway, multiple bloggers have blogged about this previously. One of the more popular ones would be from Mr. Money Mustache - The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement. If you are only saving 10% and leading a YOLO life, good luck to you!

3. Invest and do not time the market

We continued to invest regardless of the market movement. We have a monthly investment plan through StashAway, Syfe, and Endowus and we stick to it. If you are constantly holding on to cash waiting for the next big crash that may/may not happen, you are losing money - the opportunity cost to invest and grow your money. 

In the past, to invest/DCA, one will have to either purchase ILP or do it through a unit trust/fund sold by the banks. All these have a very high cost/expense ratio. However, with the various robo-advisors currently in the market, there is really no excuse not to invest your money when they make it so hassle-free and cost-effective. In addition, remember that you are investing for the long term, there's no need to think about selling/withdrawing them when you see a little profit. Sharing this old article again - Never Ever Buy Investment-Linked Policy (ILP). 

At the end of the day, everyone's journey towards financial freedom is different. Let's work hard towards them! Start by tracking your net worth :)

You might be interested in these blog posts too:
- 2017 Net Worth: ~$510,000
- 2018 Net Worth: ~$640,000
- 2019 Net Worth: ~$886,000

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.)

Cheapest Electricity Plan - SP Group Wholesale Electricity Part 2

Note: SP Group Wholesale Electricity No Longer The Cheapest Plan

In my previous article, I shared my last 3 months of electricity bills then (Feb, Mar and Apr 2020) to show that the SP Group Wholesale Electricity plan is probably the cheapest electricity plan available. This is a continuation of that article by sharing the more recent statements too.

May 2020

298.45 kWh - $35.90 which translate to 12.02 cents/kWh

June 2020

274.86 kWh - $33.59 which translate to 12.22 cents/kWh

July 2020

253.32 kWh - $31.62 which translate to 12.48 cents/kWh

August 2020

307.68 kWh - $42.10 which translate to 13.68 cents/kWh

September 2020

268.71 kWh - $36.73 which translate to 13.67 cents/kWh

October 2020

269.73 kWh - $39.01 which translate to 14.46 cents/kWh

November 2020

288.19 kWh - $43.43 which translate to 15.07 cents/kWh

December 2020

223.58 kWh - $36.42 which translate to 16.29 cents/kWh

Again, the above are just rough estimates as I included other fees such as GST, meter reading, etc. The more accurate way is to remove them and compute but it is already lower even when I included those miscellaneous fees. You can decide for yourself :)

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.)