Our Salary 2020 + Passing Up Promotion

CZM and I were given our annual compensation/new salary and bonus recently. It was mostly sad news given that 2020 was a crazy year where the whole world went into lockdown. Anyway, CZM had a 2.5% increment and a 1 month bonus. As for myself, I had NO increment and a 0.85 month bonus. However, considering that I changed company in June last year and had already gotten a 16.97% increment, I should look on the bright side and be contented with what I have as I am pretty sure I will not be getting such an increment had I chose to stay with my previous company.

CZM is on track to getting her next promotion next year so there's something to look forward to. Hopefully, she will get a double-digit increment? Otherwise, she's not going to be motivated enough to continue to work as we are close to retiring her already (within the next 5 years)! Hahaha. Shall elaborate more later.

Surprisingly, my manager also brought up the possibility of trying to get me a promotion next year too but the thing is I am no longer interested in climbing the ladder. I enjoy what I am currently doing and the workload is manageable. However, attempting to get promoted would mean an increase in responsibilities and workload in order to get the additional visibility which means more effort/time from my end and more room for mistakes. I can already feel the increase in workload and meetings I was sent to attend/lead in order to get those visibility. It's so ironic because previously, I would be asking my ex-managers if I can get promoted the next year and what do I have to do to get it. This year, I did not plan on asking and it was presented to me. 

I remember when I first joined the bank (6 years ago) and one of my colleagues who was just an associate (my current title) was awarded a 20 years long service award. At the back of my mind, I was pretty judgemental and was wondering how can one work for so long but not get promoted? Now I can totally relate and understand that it was actually by choice. The idea of passing up promotion is generally perceived to be negative and I need to communicate it tactfully that I will still do my best at work (at the end of the day, I still need to ensure that my performance remains as one of the better ones in order to get a decent increment and bonus) but I have no interest in moving upwards with more responsibilities (attending more meetings, working overtime, etc.). I discussed this with CZM and she agrees with me too (considering that she's probably biased and just wants me to spend more time with her and baby. lol).

With CZM understanding and support, I communicated to my manager that I would like to pass up on the promotion a week later because I would like to prioritize my family given that we just had a baby and I feel that it is not a good time to put in the additional effort/hours to get the promotion. In addition, I feel that I am not ready to be promoted to the next level so I wanted to let him know early in order not to waste his effort in grooming/providing me with the opportunity/visibility and that he can give it to the others in the team that wants the promotion. However, my manager said I should not be selling myself short and we can change it to a 2-year promotion plan while we continue to build up my visibility with no expectation in additional hours/OT. I can tell that he is genuinely concern/cares about my personal development/career growth when he provided me more advice that I'm at a crucial point of my career where I need to decide if I want to go technical in-depth or more broad/managerial role and to do that, I can't just be doing BAU/daily routine kinds of stuff. I need to start thinking and plan my career path. The thing is I actually enjoy doing BAU because things are more "predictable" in nature and a typical career length for the majority is about 30-40 years which definitely requires careful planning while ours are just 10-15 years. We are happy as long as we do not need to OT/have night calls. Anyway, I think it sort of backfired and CZM is laughing at me now cause I still need to do all the additional work for more visibility but no chance of promotion now. lol.

Our initial plan/forecast was to have a $1 million portfolio generating a 5% yield by age 40 to retire early but the forecast has been accelerated by the increase of our salary as well as the use of leverage to invest - Leverage Performance 2020. I have just updated the spreadsheet in Our Goals and the latest forecast shows that we will have our first $1 million portfolio by the age of 33. However, with a baby now, our expenses have increased beyond what we had forecasted and we are not comfortable retiring with just $1 million. Hence, the plan is we will/can retire CZM first once we hit that goal and I will continue to work till at least 40 or until we are extremely comfortable/confident things will work out. After all, it is almost impossible for our passive income to exceed/replace our active income and the decision to give up our active income will not be an easy one to make.

With that, both our salaries have increased by >100% since we first started to work a few years ago. 164% increment for myself since 2015 and 170% increment for CZM since 2013. These increments are achieved from either changing company or getting a promotion. The percentages are meaningless without an actual number but the whole point is your salary increment isn't going to be linear and you should work hard to increase it especially at the start of your career when you still have the energy and time. The Woke Salaryman published this article which I found it to be pretty meaningful - The Single Mistake Everyone Makes In Their 20s Trying To Build Wealth. Focus on the big win, increasing your salary if you are young. Seedly has this pretty comprehensive salary guide - The Ultimate Salary Guide For Singaporeans. For those that are below median income, do take some action to get yourself above it. Once you are above median income, work towards getting $6k in order to beat/maximize the CPF "game".

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 20 years and CZM 20 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 2020, it is at $4,534 including the employer CPF or $3,778.33 without employer CPF. If you compared it against the previous year, it actually dropped. I'm guessing that is because there are people that actually took a pay cut due to the impact of COVID-19 on businesses.

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 an X% increment based on their current salary including the previous employer's 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 and bonus!

You might be interested in these blog posts too:

- >100% "Return" on Salary (2019)

- KPO's Salary 2018

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
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Our Bad Experience with Manulife ReadyMummy

Insurance is all about transferring risk to another party. Our recent experience tells us again that it is simply better to self insure...

In our previous posts - 1 Month as a Parent and Mount Alvernia Delivery & Phototherapy Charges, we mentioned that our baby had severe jaundice (290+ level) and had to be admitted for phototherapy 6 days after she was born. 

Long story short, we tried to claim the phototherapy treatment from the ReadyMummy policy but was rejected. To be honest, the amount that can be claimed was supposedly just $100 which is a relatively small amount considering the phototherapy treatment cost $967.92 while the ReadyMummy premium cost $798.00. What really pisses me off was the lack of transparency in the way Manulife promotes/markets ReadyMummy and the lack of product knowledge from this agent.

I checked with him on the day our baby got admitted for phototherapy. Sounds like an easy/straightforward claim right? 

I opted for express checkout (sounds like a hotel right. lol) so it took some time before I received the hospital bills. When it finally arrived, I sent it to him and all of a sudden, he is asking for a doctor's memo. He should have mentioned it earlier but regardless, I got the doctor's memo and sent it to him.

One fine day, I received the rejected claim letter. The agent is so cui (lousy) that he made no effort in communicating the result of the claim to me. I had to find out from the slow mail while he would have received an email. The reason for rejecting it was ridiculous! Apparently, it was not severe enough because Baby Ong was admitted for less than 3 days. Why would the severity be determined by the number of days admitted? Regardless, I went to their website, brochure and even the documents (e.g. product summary) my agent sent me previously but I did not find the minimum 3 days being stated/mentioned anywhere.

He responded that he will appeal only after I confronted him. Shouldn't the approach be him informing me that the claim has been rejected and proceeding to appeal for me?

Anyway, the appeal failed and this was the response I got. It was stated in the policy document which we had to download separately in another email from Manulife. Even the agent said that Manulife was being misleading by not indicating this clause in the product summary.

When we buy insurance, we do not want to find out how good the policy is or to make any claim. To be fair, the Manulife ReadyMummy plan has many other coverages too (on paper and maybe possibly other hidden T&Cs) and it is not right for us to say that it is a bad policy simply based on the above but it was really a bad experience we had to go through. Will we buy this policy if we were to have a second child or any Manulife policy? Definitely not. Is it fair to expect the agent to be well versed in the product he/she is selling? I certainly think so.

End of the day, is it agent cui or policy cui? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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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!
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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? 

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Baby Ong is Out!

Baby Ong was delivered on the 8th December 2020! Isn't she so cute?! She has inherited her mother's double eyelid eyes <3 Baby Ong EDD was supposed to be on the 4th December 2020 and we were past due. Our gynae (Dr Goh SL) said there's no need to induce immediately and we were told to monitor her for another 6 days before inducing her on the 10th. However, during our appointment on the 7th, Dr Goh said that CZM's placenta is getting old (one of the overdue pregnancy risk) and recommended the induction of labour on the 8th (midnight). Although it was just a few days difference, we were still pretty surprised!

At midnight, we cabbed down to Mount Alvernia and headed to the delivery suite. The nurse was helping CZM to set up and I had to head down to the reception to do the admission. 

During the admission, I paid a deposit $3,812.41 for their single room (NORMAL DELIVERY WITH EPIDURAL (2 DAYS)) and asked for one that is further away from the construction site (Our Lady Ward). I also opt for express checkout so that we do not have to wait/queue again on the day of discharge. Hence, I am still not sure how much is the total damage as of now. Shall blog about it separately.

Given that we are still in Phase 2 of the Circuit Breaker, there can only be 5 visitors per day (including the husband, technically just 4 visitors) which is very unfortunate since our siblings, relatives, and friends all can't visit.

CZM in the delivery suite in pain :(  Yes, she had to wear her mask. There's a reclining sofa/armchair at the corner of the room for the hubby and it's not very comfortable. Do bring a jacket and wear long pants as it gets pretty cold in the middle of the night. CZM could only administer epidural around 7am+ after she was 3 cm dilated. Not sure if it was due to the effects of induction, CZM was already screaming away right before the epidural was administered and her eyes were bloodshot. Once the epidural was administered, she could finally rest as there was zero contraction pain. 

Heart rate (above) and rate of contraction (below)

Around 8am+, there was a huge scare! One of the nurses entered the delivery suite because the baby's heart rate had dropped and asked me to wait outside the room. While I was waiting, another 3 nurses rushed in! Imagine my horror! I felt so helpless and could only google about what's happening.

Anyway, a baby’s heart rate during labour should be between 110 and 160 beats per minute. As you can see from the photo above, her heart rate went as low as 50/60+. Not sure what the nurses did but they probably gave CZM some drug to stop her contraction totally (for a period of time ~30min to an hour) and the baby heart rate returned to normal. We asked both the gynae and PD about what happened and they said it is normal for heart rate to drop. Oh well, all that matters is both CZM and the baby are safe and healthy now.

At 2pm+, Baby Ong came out! It was such a touching moment and I am not shy to admit that I actually cried. To all the father-to-be, if your wife is asking for whatever "push" present, just get it for them. It is actually the least we can do. We can never imagine the pain they have to go through during labour. 

The "staycation" in the single room was over before we know it. The real challenge begins at home. lol. We could always send the baby back to the nursery whenever we could not coax her to stop crying. The nurses would always tell us that the baby is crying because she wants more milk. Unfortunately, CZM did not have sufficient milk supply then and we got the nurses to feed her formula milk instead. Anyway, the nurses in Mount Alvernia were all very approachable and encouraging. We did not encounter anyone that was fierce/impatient unlike what our mothers went through.

Before we left/discharged, we went to the chapel to bless the baby although we are not Catholic. It is free and no harm trying :) We have been pretty sleep deprived since then but every time we look at Baby Ong and her little movement, it is all worthwhile. I can stare at her all day! No wonder there is this Chinese saying about the daughter being the father's lover in his previous life (前世情人). lol.

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
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Our Baby Journey

Time flies, Baby Ong is about 5 months old already! We just did the week 20/fetal anomaly scan recently and we are glad that she's growing up healthily. Shall take some time off this long weekend to blog about our experiences so far.

Gynae Review

Raffles Hospital - Dr Shamini Nair

A few days after we knew about the pregnancy (week 5/6), CZM noticed some light bleeding/spotting and we panicked. We have not even research or decided on a gynae to visit and was simply googling for the nearest gynae. Called 2 of them but they were fully booked and eventually managed to book an appointment at Raffles Women's Centre.

After understanding what happened, Dr Shamini was very assuring, told us not to worry and explained the possible reasons for spotting. After which, she suggested doing 2 blood tests (2 days apart) to see if the hCG are doubling. You can read more about hCG levels here. 

We also did our first baby ultrasound then. Look at how small Baby Ong was! Anyway, the result of the blood test showed that the hCG levels did double and she concluded that the spotting was likely due to implantation bleeding. We really like the way she engaged/assured us and would have just continued to visit her but she does not do delivery anymore. CZM prefers a gynae that can see her from start to the end so we went on to look for other gynae.

1st Consultation + Ultrasound + Blood Test + Medicine/Supplement: $395.60

2nd Consultation + Blood Test: $156.20

Thomson Medical - Dr Benjamin Tham

Dr Tham was recommended by a colleague and he has plenty of good reviews/recommendations in the SingaporeMotherhood forum. We visited him a few weeks later at around week 7/8 so that we will be able to hear the baby's heartbeat and true enough we did!

There really isn't much to fault him on except that he didn't let us listen to the heartbeat for a little bit longer and his answer to our question didn't feel as assuring compared to Dr Shamini. For example, CZM experienced discomfort/pain at the stomach area one night and we asked him about it. His answer was somewhere along the line now no pain all good, that night pain not good. Eh?? He also told us that he's very liberal and the mummies visiting him can eat sashimi in moderation. Eh??? Definitely not when the whole world/internet says to avoid raw food/sashimi. Anyway, CZM didn't feel comfortable with him as the gynae and that is what matters.

1st Consultation + Ultrasound + Medicine/Supplement: $318.85

Mount Alvernia - Dr Goh Shen Li

Similarly, Dr Goh was recommended by another colleague and she has plenty of good reviews/recommendations too. We visited her one week after visiting Dr Tham. She let us listen to the heartbeat for a longer period of time and was more patient during the ultrasound process as well as explaining various things to us.

Most importantly, CZM felt more comfortable with her. The only bad thing is Dr Goh usually travels overseas during the first 2 weeks of December which is the EDD for Baby Ong. However, we are guessing/hoping that she would not be travelling anywhere this year.

1st Consultation + Ultrasound + Medicine/Supplement: $345.05

2nd Consultation + Ultrasound + Medicine/Supplement:$241.60

Antenatal Package (10 consultations, for 2nd trimester onwards): $1,500 (excluding GST)

Week 20/Fetal Anomaly Scan ($250 excluding GST) + Medicine/Supplement: $351.50

KKH - Public Patient with Random Gynae

This was CZM's idea as she wanted to save more money on the NIPT (Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing) test. Thomson Medical would have cost ~$1,300+ (excluding GST) while KKH subsidized rate would have cost $400+. At least that was what we thought or up to a year ago based on this forum thread...

KKH takes both private and public patients. The difference is private patients can consult the same gynae and pay the full rate while the public patients get random/different gynae for every visit at a subsidized rate. One will have to first visit the polyclinic to get a referral to KKH in order to qualify for the subsidized rate and that was what we did.

Polyclinic for referral: $13.20

To be honest, our experience with KKH was not too bad. People (including ourselves) generally think that public hospitals would have a much longer waiting time but surprisingly, our 3 visits were pretty acceptable/reasonable. 

Another pain point apart from no fixed gynae was that I was not allowed to enter the room when the nurse/staff was doing the ultrasound. Anyway, long story short, NIPT is no longer being subsidized by the government anymore and we ended up paying $750 for it. It is still cheaper but the savings are not as significant anymore. Having said that, the subsidized rate is really really very cheap/affordable.

1st Consultation + Ultrasound + Flu Vaccination: $109.29 (out of which $66.29 was for the flu vaccination which can be deducted from our Medisave. Hence, the out of pocket cost was just $43.)

NIPT Harmony Test (No more government subsidy): $750

3rd Consultation + Whooping Cough Vaccination: $92.14 (similarly, $84.14 was for the vaccination, paid using Medisave and the out of pocket cost was just $8)

Oscar vs NIPT

Both Oscar test/First Trimester Screening (FTS) and NIPT are used to screen/test for genetic conditions such as Down Syndrome. Oscar is a lot cheaper ($300+) but has a higher false-positive rate. Although the general advice is to first do the Oscar test and skip the NIPT if everything is fine in order to save some money but we feel that it is actually better to just skip Oscar and pay for the NIPT. The reason is we want to avoid the double whammy - scare from the Oscar result while waiting for the NIPT result (at least 2 weeks) + paying for both Oscar and NIPT.

We have also been shopping around (Shopee, Lazada, and Amazon) for baby items:

Bonbijou Luxos+ Stroller	$439.00
Haenim 4G Classic UV Steriliser	$400.00
Ergobaby Omni 360 Baby Carrier Cool Air Mesh	$199.83
BabyLove Easy Go Baby Playpen	$190.94
Space Design Baby Safety Play Yard Playpen Playground	$119.00
Rainforest Jumperoo	$79.90
BabyLove Foldable Bath Tub Stand	$45.37

Total expenses till date: $6,327.52

Looking forward to Baby Ong arrival!

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
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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.)

>100% "Return" on Salary

We are now in Cusco, Peru and will be visiting another Wonders of the World (Machu Picchu) tomorrow. We have already visited Chichen Itza in Mexico and you can read CZM's post here - RTW to Mexico - Chichen Itza.

CZM and I were given our annual compensation/new salary and bonus recently. It was a mixture of happy and sad news. CZM only had a 2.15% increment and no bonus! That's definitely worse than the 0.1 month bonus the civil servants are getting! As for myself, I was one of the top performers and got promoted this year with a 37.05% increment and 2.25 months bonus.

An increase in salary and promotion is all good but the unfortunate part was I also got moved to a newly created team as part of the organization change. What is so unfortunate? One of my favourite parts about my previous job was that I had to work in shift including weekends. I was working 4 days a week (3 weekdays + 1 weekend) regardless if there's any PH. On the other hand, my new role/team requires me to work on normal office hours (5 days, Mon - Fri). This actually translates to a 25% increase in my working days! Hence, I would argue that my effective increment is just 12.05%. In addition, my manager has also changed which means I would have to rebuild the trust and rapport. Oh well, life goes on...

With that, both our salaries have increased by >100% since we first started to work a few years ago. 124% increment for myself since 2015 and 163% increment for CZM since 2013. These increments are achieved from either changing company or getting a promotion. The percentages are meaningless without an actual number but the whole point is your salary increment isn't going to be linear and you should work hard to increase it especially at the start of your career when you still have the energy and time. The Woke Salaryman recently published this article which is pretty timely too - The Single Mistake Everyone Makes In Their 20s Trying To Build Wealth. Focus on the big win, increasing your salary if you are young. Seedly has this pretty comprehensive salary guide - The Ultimate Salary Guide For Singaporeans. For those that are below median income, do take some action to get yourself above it.

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 17 years and CZM 20 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 2019, it is at $4,563 including the employer CPF or $3,802.50 without employer CPF.

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!

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"Semi-Retirement" For CZM

Nope, we did not strike ToTo (I wish!) but we will be doing something most would not be doing. We dropped a teaser in our previous StashAway - May 2019 post stating that we will stop contributing to CZM's SRS account. Did you manage to guess it correctly?

CZM has resigned from her current job to take a "short" break after working for > 6 years, leading a semi-retired life. Yes, quitting without another job with the plan to travel! People leave a company for many reasons, usually a combination of both push (ridiculous hours, bad culture, etc.) and pull factors (higher pay, more interesting roles, etc.). For CZM, the push factors were definitely huge and it certainly accelerated our RTW plan or caused us to make such a decision.

After accumulating sufficient miles, I blogged about our next goal - Star Alliance Round the World (RTW) in Business Class! The main issue with such an ambitious plan is not the number of miles required or the money it costs (not really true, it was definitely a concern) but the TIME and ENERGY. Most people will have about 14-2x days of annual leaves and taking them consecutively will only mean 2-4 weeks of travelling time which is simply too short. Assuming if we were to spend about 1-1.5 week in each country/stopover, it would take us at least 2-3 months. We played around with a few ideas such as taking sabbatical leave but not all company has such policy especially in Singapore...

As we grow older, our body/health will naturally deteriorate. Looking at our parents now (40/50+), they no longer enjoy travelling as much because it is extremely tiring and their body will start aching. In addition, once you have kids, the cost of travelling will increase while the pace will decrease significantly. It is also impossible to travel with a piece of mind without them. With all these in mind, our decision was to whack and travel first before settling down to have kids. The next step was to evaluate if we will have any issue financially.

We did some cashflow exercise and concluded that we can manage even without her job. This can be done by doing the following:
1. List down all your income sources (salary, dividends, rental, etc.)
2. List down your fixed expenses (insurance premium, taxes, etc.)
3. List down/estimate your variable expenses (food, transport, etc.)
4. List down/estimate upcoming major expenses (vacation, renovation, etc.)
5. Build a table of income and expenses group by Month
6. Pivot the table to get an overview of your cashflow (ideally, income > expenses)

You can find a template of the cashflow exercise here.

We did not list down mortgage/housing loan because that will be deducted from our CPF OA which will not affect our cashflow. Our decision to keep $20k and not let HDB wipe all our OA during key collection has proved to be an excellent and prudent move.

Interestingly, news travels fast and she was introduced to a job where she gets to work with a previous manager whom she enjoys working with. Since there is no harm trying, we both agreed that she should give it a shot and asked for a huge increment. lol.

CZM managed to get into the final round of interview and is currently torn between taking a break from work, doing the once in a lifetime RTW travel or going back to work... My opinion is if the compensation isn't sufficient/ideal, it will be an easy decision. Otherwise, we can always postpone the RTW and do it a few years down the road with/without kids. CZM just can't help worrying...

What do you all think? Were you once in a similar situation, made a decision which you regretted? Is it really impossible to travel once you have kids? Appreciate if you can take some time off to leave your comments for CZM!

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Next Goal - Star Alliance Round the World (RTW) in Business Class!

3 years ago, we made the switch from collecting cashback to accumulating miles when I was first introduced to Milelion by a colleague. I then went on to convince CZM and trained her vigorously on when to use the correct credit card for payment. lol. She still complains to her friends and colleagues about it till today.

Snapshot of our KrisFlyer miles collection as of 5th June 2019

Our KrisFlyer miles collection has already exceeded our 2018 Net Worth. I guess we should consider changing our goal to become a millionaire in miles instead since it is a lot easier to achieve. lol. As you can probably tell, we optimized our spendings such that we are getting close or more than 4 mpd (miles per dollar) through signup bonus or specialized spendings. Those that dropped below 4 mpd are due to the general spending cards earning 1.2 - 1.5 mpd.

Our journey first started on 4th March 2016 and our first miles credit card was Amex Ascend. Back then I was planning to propose to CZM overseas and had no issue meeting the minimum spend for its very impressive signup bonus. Anyway, assuming the value of a mile is $0.02, the estimated cashback we are getting will be ~ 9.72% ((741,217 * 0.02) / 152,467) which is pretty neat as we get to experience and enjoy life along the way too. Having said that, I prefer to value miles differently based on the cost/retail price of the actual flight. We have made 2 redemptions so far:
- KrisFlyer 50% Redemption Promotion on SilkAir: 15,000 miles for  2 x SilkAir Economy return tickets to Bandung at ~ 6.5% cashback
- Redeeming KrisFlyer Miles for Singapore Airlines Suites = 38.6% Cashback!: 240,000 miles for 2 x Singapore Airlines Suites one-way tickets to New York

Our initial plan was to fly to Africa in Business (180,000 miles for 2 x return tickets) this year but when the Cathay blunder happened at the start of the year, everything changes. Given more time to accumulate more miles, we were thinking we should try something more adventurous...

Star Alliance Round The World (RTW) Award
Introducing the Star Alliance Round The World (RTW) Award where one can literally fly around the world with a ticket (technically there will be multiple tickets) through any of the airlines under Star Alliance. Such ticket costs around $20k each for business flights and there are certain restrictions such as flying in one direction (either eastbound or westbound), the total flights have to be within a certain mileage, etc.

Instead of paying for the above ticket, one can also redeem the RTW award using KrisFlyer miles (with more restrictions). It was pretty annoying that there is a lack of information (no FAQs or T&Cs) on the SIA site so I emailed them and got the following:

As of now, the mileage requirement (*per passenger) for a round the world itinerary is as below:
- 180,000 KrisFlyer miles on Economy Saver
- 240,000 KrisFlyer miles on Business Saver (our goal - 240k * 2 = 480k miles)
- 360,000 KrisFlyer miles on First Saver

Your booking must comply with the following restrictions and conditions:
1. You must travel in a continuous eastbound or westbound direction, beginning and ending in the same country. You must make only one crossing of the Atlantic Ocean and only one crossing of the Pacific Ocean. You are allowed an origin open-jaw in the same country.

2. Your total travel distance must not exceed 35,000 miles. You are allowed a maximum of 16 segments in your itinerary.

3. You may include a maximum of seven complimentary stopovers in your itinerary. The same stopover restrictions for Star Alliance Awards apply for Round the World Awards. In addition, you may stopover only once in each city and no more than twice in any one country. You may not purchase additional stopovers. Surface sectors are permitted but count as stopovers.

4. Normal Star Alliance Award travel restrictions apply. You may refer to the below link for more information under G. Star Alliance Awards and Star Alliance Upgrade Awards - http://www.singaporeair.com/jsp/cms/en_UK/ppsclub_krisflyer/termsconditions-kf.jsp

5. A maximum of 16 flight sectors

6. A maximum of 1 stopover per city

7. A maximum of 2 stopovers per country

8. A maximum of 7 en-route stopovers

9. No stopover allowed in the country of origin

10. For travel to or from Central America, no stopover is permitted in Continental USA including Canada

11. No code-share flights

When you are ready to book, you may check the list of operating carriers on your preferred flight route via Star Alliance website at www.staralliance.com.

Based on your itinerary, we will assist to check on the seat availability. We wish to highlight waitlisting is not allowed on Star Alliance award booking and the seat will be subject to availability at the time of the request. All flight segments must be confirmed before ticket issuance. Travel or destination change is only allowed before the first flight departure.

Once the first flight commences, travel date change and ticket re-issuance are not permitted. Flights not used in sequence will also cause the subsequent flights to be automatically cancelled.

What's Next?

To see the Wonders of the World? 

We have enough miles now but we do not have the time... The time to start planning for it as well as the time to travel in such a manner. How long will it take to travel around the world? 1, 2 or 3 months? This is the most challenging problem to solve. Plan it on Dec and Jan to utilized 2 years of leaves? Take no pay leave? Quit our jobs? lol. Regardless, our miles will start expiring in 2 - 3 years time so that will be our deadline.

Will we be able to do it?

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Whole Life Insurance - Do We Really Need Them?

A few weeks ago, a friend approached me and asked for my advice on a whole life insurance plan that his agent tried to sell him. He is not finance/investment savvy so as much as I would like to tell him to "buy term insurance and invest the rest", it is definitely not something he is going to be comfortable with.

Another reason why he is more interested in whole life as compared to term insurance is that he wants the cash value that comes with it. Majority of the people want something back after paying all those premium for many years. Anyway, I got him to send me the policy/projection document.

The policy is Family3 by Great Eastern. My friend will have to pay a $6,000 annual premium for the next 15 years and the minimum sum assured (death benefit) is $87,745. Once the premium term ends, he will be getting a guaranteed payout (2% of the sum assured) for the rest of his life.

Death Benefit

Surrender Value

Illustrated Yield upon surrender based on non-guaranteed projection

Survival Benefits + Cash Bonus

Anyway, I copied the above tables in the policy document to a spreadsheet for easy reference and comparison. When I looked at the illustrated yield upon surrendering the policy, the return is simply poor. A random thought then came into my mind - can we use CPF SA as a substitute for whole life insurance?

We can answer this question by looking at the concerns whole life insurance can address:
- Leaving a sum of money behind for the family/dependants upon death
- Getting back some of the money/premium after X number of years (term insurance cannot fulfil)

Anyway, I went ahead and projected what my friend will be getting if he were to use the whole life insurance premium to top up his CPF SA instead. It is worth noting that I have excluded the tax savings one can get when topping up their CPF SA for ease of computation/comparison too. You can read this to find out more - CPF RSTU - Is It Worth It?

For the benefit of the doubt, I will also be using the higher non-guaranteed (4.35%) projection for all comparison too.

Upon Death

From the first year to year 12/13, the whole life insurance provides better coverage but after the crossover point (year 12/13), one can expect to leave behind more money simply by topping up their CPF SA. In my opinion, the risk can be easily mitigated by purchasing a term insurance at a fraction of the cost for similar/higher coverage and cancelling it after year 12/13 (totally optional) to ensure death coverage throughout. This particular insurance is also interesting because the insured person will receive an annual payout as part of his survival benefit (similarly, there are both guaranteed and non-guaranteed). However, even after adding all the survival benefit, CPF SA still provides a higher guaranteed return/coverage upon death.

If you have been influenced by fake news previously, thinking that one will never get back their CPF even upon death, read this - What happens to your CPF savings when you pass away?

Upon Surrendering Policy

Now if you plan to buy a whole life insurance with the intention of surrendering it eventually to get the cash value back, please don't. You will be losing money almost all the way because the comparison uses the "best" case non-guaranteed scenario.

This may/may not be true for the other whole life insurance but I am pretty sure the return will be higher with CPF. Having said that, don't take my words for it, go ahead and calculate/project it yourself. In the end, my friend decided not to get the whole life insurance too.

So what are your thoughts? Do we really need whole life insurance?

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KPO's Credit Report by Credit Bureau Singapore

This is one of the many posts that was sitting in draft mode for a long long time.

Taken from Credit Bureau Singapore - What Is A Credit Score?

Firstly, what is a credit score? It is a number used by lenders as an indicator of how likely an individual is to repay his debts and the probability of going into default. It is an independent assessment of the individual's risk as a credit applicant. This will affect your credit card application, mortgage/home loan, etc. You can refer to the detailed explanation from our Credit Bureau.

Next, how do I find out what's my score? You will need a credit report and there are 2 ways to get it: You can either purchase your report at a price of $6.42 inclusive of GST or you can get a free credit report whenever you apply for a credit card. Interesting old (2015) statistic - Of the 870,766 consumers who applied for a new credit facility in 2015, 85 per cent have never seen their personal credit files, said CBS. Source: Free credit report when you apply for a loan, credit card or overdraft

I applied for another credit card (UOB PRVI Visa) back in January when SingSaver was having the Air Miles vs Cash Back "competition". Needless to say, Air Miles won the competition and we all had $30 more cash on top of the existing signup bonus :) Ops, I digress. The credit card application gave me free access to my credit report which I will be sharing below.

KPO's Credit Report

I have 24 accounts?! Unfortunately, the report does not include a breakdown of these accounts so my guess would be all the credit cards (including terminated ones) + loans. Miles game is tough - I always tell people I have > 10 credit cards and if you want a simple 1 credit card kind of life, it is definitely not suitable for you.

The $100k secured credit comes from my pledged shares to SCB at 70% LTV (loan to value) which I blogged about here - Leverage - A Double-Edged Sword.

The unsecured credit limit is simply the total limit of all my credit cards.

I have a longer account history but you will get the point of it with the above screenshot. This shows the transactions/activity of all your account/credit card/loan for the last 3 years. I shall not go into details what the various alphabet stands for.

This shows you the history of banks enquiring your credit report from the Credit Bureau. You can see that the banks do conduct a regular/yearly review on one's credit score too.

Here comes the grand finale - KPO has a credit score of 1956 (grade - AA) and a probability of default at 0.14%. The report also provided some factors/reasons why KPO does not has a perfect score with 0% probability of default:
1. Immature Credit History - My earliest known credit account was back in 2014 (age 24) when I was still in university and I still remembered it was the Citi Clear Student Card. My first credit card was a cash back card. lol. Anyway, I still do not understand why people would use a debit card over a credit card.
2. Credit Exposure - I supposed this is referring to the total secured and unsecured credit limit which is > $250k? Definitely looks impossible to repay all of them if I were to go crazy one day and utilize all of them. No! I will not sell our shares/investment. lol.
3. Too Many Enquiries - I will cancel cards that I do not use after 6 months and then reapply when there are cash incentive/attractive signup bonus + all the reviews the banks will be conducting. My credit score will never be perfect!

The above are just specific to me so it will probably be different or have some similarity with yours.

Fun fact - statistics for consumers in my age group (21-29)

To be honest, I find the above pretty surprising or should I say shocking?? Credit card and housing loan look pretty normal but not for the other two. It seems that majority of the people (>86%) have taken some form of personal loan and >88% of the people have a motor vehicles loan?? Note that the above statistics are for my age group, so I was not expecting the majority of the people who have work less than 5-10 years to be buying a car.

On a side note, this is my last year in this age group, not sure if I should be sad or happy about it. Shall share the next age group when I have the chance next time. lol.

What are you waiting for? Go check yours out!

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
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