I started writing more and more and created my own guides on basic financial concepts. I've wrote on financial statements, bonds, passive investing, stocks investing and recently this year i began to write on current issues such as on marriage, housing and retirement. The CPF topic is still very fresh for me. To say the truth, i have very little idea on how the CPF system works prior to writing my first post on CPF 3 weeks ago. I researched everything from scratched and writing it out has enabled me to understand it more also. I hope my post on "All about CPF minimum sum and CPF life" has helped readers to understand CPF more. I'm glad i now understand the whole concept of CPF which enables me to plan for retirement better. I'm also humbled by the fact that Minister of Manpower, Tan Chuan-Jin, saw my post and mentioned it in his blog post when he explained the CPF. It was also shared on forums like hardwarezone.com.sg.
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On housing, i challenged myself to find out the facts on the various housing restrictions such as the MSR, the TDSR and all the different schemes. My post on "How much money does a couple need to earn in order to afford a $300,000 HDB flat?" has gained the attention of young couples and it's still actively shared on Facebook and even therealsingapore.com shared it. The few posts on housing took hours and days to research and write. I saw some of the comments when the post was shared and am happy to see young people realising the need to plan and save up before they get married or buy a HDB flat. Many comments on the post were generally positive and many shared their experiences too. It has been a humbling journey for me.
The best experience is still on the exchange of views with readers and other financial bloggers. I've been receiving emails from readers over the past 1 year and have replied each and everyone of them. If i've not replied your mail, please send it to me again. I may have missed out or it may have went into my junk folder which i only realised recently that a few emails did go there. Many young people are seeking advise on how should they start investing which is a good thing. Let the emails keep coming. I enjoyed interacting with each and everyone of you. To all the other senior financial bloggers, i thank all of you for the interactions and exchanges. We're all here for a common cause and i've certainty learned much from you guys.
Now for the part on how my blog has performed over the past one year, it has achieved more than 550,000 page views in one year. A lot of views are coming from Google, thefinance.sg, Facebook and other forums. My Facebook page which i created on September last year has gained 675 followers at the time of writing. Thank you for LIKING my page. I will continue to find ways to improve my blog to make it more easy for your reading pleasure. Any comments are welcomed.
A blog on investment cannot be without an update of my investment and financial profile. Here goes. I've invested in quite a few companies which i've blog before. The dividends are coming in which i've received a few rounds of it. This has made a positive impact to my savings. I'm on track to meet the 100k financial target which I strive to achieve. The reason for this first 100k is simple. It will enable me to invest with a bigger base and at the same time have more room to manage risk by allocating my capital wisely.
Moving forward, i will continue to write on topics related to finance, investing and current issues which are of interest. I hope my blog can be a platform to heightened awareness in regards to financial issues. I'll be looking forward to the many more interactions, emails and comments from all of you. I do not know everything so let's learn together and enjoy this journey together. Cheers to the many more years to come!!
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Happy 1st Anniversary ! Many more to come and I really enjoy reading your posts. Keep writing :) and may you achieve your 100k goal soon !
ReplyDeleteHi AL,
DeleteThanks for reading my blog. I'll surely keep writing. All the best to you!
Hi SGYI,
DeleteCongrats on reaching a wider audience!
I fully agree that it's definitely not one-way traffic for us. Sometimes, we learn even more than our readers when writing our articles.
We started our blogs at around the same time and hope we will see each other around at the 2nd anniversary!
Hi 15HWW,
DeleteThank you. I learnt a lot the past 1 year. A lot of times is because I had to check and check the facts before posting up. I'm glad to have you guys around to blog together.
Hi SGYI
ReplyDeleteHappy anniversary.
Thats an impressive 550k stats you have after a year only of blogging. I think you can be on your way to become ak71 successor.
Anyway the more important thing is to spread the news out to more people so they can be more aware of certain things. Well done ;)
Hi B,
DeleteAK is the big brother. I have no intention to surpass him. Haha. I do hope he continues to blog for the rest of his life. :p
Agree we need to spread the news to gain awareness. The recent issues made me worried.
Hi SGYI, Well done and keep going...And let's earn (through investment) and learn (through sharing) together...
ReplyDeleteCheers!
Hi Richard,
DeleteYes, let's earn and learn together. I'm sure your blog will become better and better. Good job on the interview series!
Thanks! Since we are on this, do you want to join in the fun be my youngest interviewee? ;-)
DeleteHi Richard,
DeleteSure. You can email me at sgyounginvestment@gmail.com
hi may i know what books would you recommend me to start getting on investing?
ReplyDeleteHi,
DeleteI would always recommend the few books which got me started.
1) Rich dad poor dad (robert kiyosaki)
2) What your school never taught you about money (dennis ng)
3) secrets of self made millionaires (Adam Khoo)
You can still buy it from a local bookstore or borrow it from the library. Hope it helps :)
hi may i know if you do leverage like playing CFD etc? if so, do you know if a daily finance charge is applied at all brokerage accounts?
ReplyDeleteHi,
DeleteYes I do use CFDs although not very a lot now. I only trade using CFDs when there's big movement either up or down in the market. CFDs allow me to short or hedge against my long position. Daily Financing charges only apply to CFD accounts. Normal brokerage accounts do not have financing charges if you're not using leverage.
Thank you for sharing the knowledge that you have with us. It is very nice of you to do something like this which require time and effort. I have been following your blog for for quite long now and found it very informative and useful. Talking about real life problems and giving solution to it is really sets you apart from others. Even though I don't really understand everything completely, I am still learning. Thank you SGYI:)
ReplyDeleteHi,
DeleteThanks for following my blog and thank you for your encouraging words. I'm glad it has been informative and useful for you. I'm also still learning along the way. Its fun to learn.
Happy first year anniversary :)
ReplyDeleteFor one full year with 500k page view is astounding.
Keep writing! Your blog post have been very inspirational and insightful. I learned from it a lot :)
Hi Little Boy,
DeleteThanks for your kind words. I'll keep writing. You should keep blogging too.
Really enjoyed reading your posts. Do keep them coming!
ReplyDeleteHi,
DeleteThanks for your encouragement. :)
hi for financial statements, to know the company's financial health what are the values/parts which which you usually look at? and how do you evaluate if it is a good company to invest in?
ReplyDelete-younginvestor
Hi,
DeleteYou can take a look at the right side bar of my blog here to read my post on the 3 different financial statements. I've also written on how to pick stocks. Let me know if you can't find it.
also what websites can i use to get free information on the numbers? apparently bloomberg does not show me the cash flow etc
Deletehi also i chanced upon this DCF calculator and they stated : use CPF's 4% risk-free interest rate as
Deletethe Discount Factor (DF).
what does this mean? is it still 4%? because from what i know OA is currently 2.5% whereas SA is 4%
Hi,
DeleteI remembered bloomberg does show the cash flow statement. Alternatively, the best way to read a company's financial statement is go to the company's website and download it from their investor relations page.
When we discount a cash flow, we're trying to get the present value of the cash flow. This is to account for any inflation. The simple analogy is money today is not worth as much in the future. Thus, we need to discount it to factor in inflation. We should use the average inflation rate to discount the cash flow. 3-4% is a good value.
Deleteokay thanks for the insights! I have managed to find it by googling via bloomberg businessweek. the figures there in these statements eg. 432.1 are all in millions right?
DeleteOn the top left of the financial statement they will state the currency they use and also the amount which it is denominated in. If its millions, it will state its in millions.
DeleteAlso, just to check as an investor you will only invest in a company if it satisfies the 4Rs namely right business,management,numbers/financial health and price right? if one of these do not satisfy, take for example, the revenue being inconsistent for a year you would not invest in it? As for technical analysis what tools would you use to see if it is a right time to get in?
DeleteHi,
DeleteIn a sense, you're right. But I also look at the macroeconomic conditions whether it will be beneficial for the company itself? Some sectors are cyclical in nature so revenue being inconsistent will have to depend on which business the company is in. If you want to know more on investing, fewl free to email me. My email is sgyounginvestment@gmail.com
alright sure. how do you actually find out which businesses are booming at certain periods of the years? i know for a stock like SGX / smrt it most probably isn't cyclical in nature?
DeleteExamples of cyclical stocks are shipping, construction, property etc. To find out which businessws will benefit, a country's policy is important. For example when the Singapore government started their cooling measures to cool down the property market, it is a sign that property business will experience a headwind. Coupled with the possibility of the end of QE plus raising of interest rates by the US central bank, we should have already avoided property business at that time.
Deletehey man! happened to chance upon your blog and found it insightful. hope you can give me a little advice. i'm actually 18 now and most people at my age would learn driving- a skill which most of us would need in future. However, a large sum of money (thousand plus?) would need to be set aside for driving practical lessons. Based on your experience, would you suggest me to start picking up this skill now or later in adulthood and use this money to invest instead? I have considered inflation, on how the cost of this might be even more in future with the value of money depreciating(PP).
ReplyDeleteHi,
DeleteIt depends on whether you will need to drive? If you have a family car which you can drive, then taking a license will be useful. For me, I needed the license for work thus I went to take the license after my army. Coincidently, I had a driving license from the army but still needed to take the driving test again as i did not clock the required mileage during army. I only took a few lessons and the test which cost me a total of less than $500.
I don't know if you're a guy or girl? If you're a guy and need to go army, then you may also have the chance to learn driving.
I am also on my journey to accumulating 100k before i reach 30. Good luck to us both (: I need writers like you to keep posting articles like this to keep me motivated because I can't seem to find girls to discuss topics of personal finance with me.
ReplyDeleteMay I know how old are you now?
Hi caprichososhuz,
DeleteIts good to hear that girls like you are taking charge of your own finances. I'm glad we have common goals. There are indeed lesser girls who're interested on topics like personal finance. You can email me if you want and I'll be glad to discuss and share more with you. I'm 26 this year. :)