Making Money Full Time Online - How To Do it?

Blogs and YouTube have become more and more popular in recent years with the help of social media such as Facebook, Instagram etc. It becomes easier for these online sources to become popular when people start to share it. Even a simple post on Facebook can go viral and attract the attention of the government and authorities which we have seen a lot in the recent NUS voyeur case. 

In recent times where I'm seeing more and more people able to create websites or YouTube channels and make it their full time work. This means that they are able to earn a decent income from their online channels that they don't have to work in the corporate world at all. If you think this only happens overseas but not in Singapore, then you're wrong. Let me show you some examples of websites and Youtube Channels in Singapore whose founders have made it possible to make money full time online and also international channels as well.

Singapore News Website Mothership

The first one is well known to many of us in Singapore. Mothership is an online news website which in essence just writes on news in Singapore and around the world. They have 300K followers on their Facebook page. On their about us page, they mention they attract over 1 Million visits to their site each month with over 60 per cent of their audience being between the ages of 25 and 44. They even have a license with IMDA where now online news channel is regulated by the government.

On advertising front, it is stated on their website that they have worked with many government ministries and stat board including MOT, MOE, MINDEF, EDB, MCCY, MOF, MND, NYC, HDB, AIC, NLB, MAS, LTA and CPF board. For companies, they have worked with big players such as DBS, UOB, Maybank, AXA, MacDonald, BreadTalk, KFC, Singapore Airlines, Singtel, Grab etc. This is quite an impressive portfolio of clients with deep pockets to pay for advertising. From my experience, with their kind of website traffic, advertisers are expected to pay a few thousand just for one article which mentions their brand.

The website started with 3 guys and I see that their team has expanded to more than 10 staff. This is really a company running in full force to deliver the best news you can get. So, they made it as the first website that could make money full time online.


Singapore Finance Website Seedly

The next website is a Singapore personal finance website called Seedly. Many of you who are reading my blog should already know or heard of Seedly. They have been gaining popularity lately due to the community fan base which they have built in just a few years. On their Facebook page, they have close to 16K followers and is still growing strongly. Recently, they also had a mega personal finance ticketed event at Suntec which attracted thousands of people to attend.

Seedly started in 2016. I met their founder Kenneth just before Seedly was born and my impression is he's a passionate guy who has the drive to make things happen in the personal finance world. He was at that time looking to develop an app for people in Singapore to track their finances. He made it happen and expanded to create the Seedly app, moving on to creating their website and building the Facebook community which is really strong now.

A quick check on similarweb shows that the website has more than 700K visits in March 2019 alone. If I'm not wrong, they are now a team of 9 running the company and recently in May 2018, they were acquired by Shopback. This is a homegrown success story for a small start up which shows that if we want to make things happen, it can be done. So, they made it as the second website that could make money full time online.


Singapore YouTuber JianHao Tan

The next one is not a website but a YouTube channel. YouTube is gaining popularity among young people especially those in their teens. I've observed that the younger generation have also moved on from Facebook to Instagram now with many of them posting photos and Instagram stories on a daily basis.

The YouTube channel JianHao Tan is created by a young guy whose name is as its channel says it is. From the looks, he seems quite young in his 20s and have already garnered more than 3 Million subscribers on his YouTube channel. He also have 476K followers on his personal Instagram page and 85K followers on Facebook. He also talks about people who recognize him when he travels overseas which is quite impressive for a Singapore start up. He is definitely doing this full time as he has registered a company called Titan Digital Media and also shows his office space and daily life routine on his YouTube channel. Of course, he's not doing this alone and has a team of about 5 to 6 staff if I'm not wrong.

Most of his videos posted have more than a million views with those more popular ones having views as high as 26M views for 1 video alone. Curious to know what kind of video can attract so many views? Here is the video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KofiHFsBQk

He also has an annual fan meet up and the one I saw which was held at Dhoby Ghaut area attracted people to queue up all the way from Plaze Singapura to Istana area. Most of them are quite young who are teens in secondary school. So, they made it as the YouTube channel that could make money full time online.


International Travel Vlogger Mark Weins

For those who like to travel, ever thought that you could make money while travelling full time? This guy has done it. He's just one of the popular travel vloggers who has managed to do it. Mark Weins started his travel website Migrationology back in 2009.

His success story is reproduced below which is found on his website:

"It was during that time, back in early 2009 when I decided to start a blog. With the help of about 10 cups of coffee per day, Migrationology.com was born. 

I still wasn’t ready to get a job and stay put, so I caught a one way ticket to Bangkok, with no plans other than to eat as much as I could. 

After traveling around Southeast Asia for about 6 months, I managed to spend nearly all my money. 

I was in the Philippines at that time, and I caught a flight from Manila to Bangkok. At this point, I decided to get a job teaching English, and it didn’t take long before I signed a contract to teach English for a year. 

However, English teaching was not for me (it was a great experience, but teaching English is just not my passion). 

But during that year, I set a personal goal that I would never teach again, and that I would find a way to make a living on the internet, so I could travel (and eat) and earn money at the same time. 

It wasn’t easy. 

Every spare moment I would blog and sit glued in front of my laptop until my eyes went crazy. 

At the beginning, when I made the decision to earn a living online, I’ll admit that I had to live on the cheap (really cheap). 

One of the biggest turning points for me was when I published my first eBook, the Eating Thai Food Guide. I finally had my very first product to sell on my website. 

It took about 3 years of online work and experimenting before I really started making enough to live fully and support anyone other than myself."

It took him 3 years of online work and experimenting before he could make enough fully online. Now, his YouTube channel Mark Weins has more than 4 Million subscribers. This is quite impressive. I love his travel videos for his love for food and his expression when he eats something good is priceless.

Does money fall from the sky if we don't work in the corporate world?

So, after seeing people who manage to make money full time online, do you think it is easy to do it? From my experience, it is not easy and it requires perseverance and time and effort to make it happen. Yes my blog can make some money online but it is definitely not sufficient to make enough to live fully and support my family or loved ones. It is about creating great contents consistently and working in a team is important to bring in new contents if you really want to make money full time online.

Just like a company has a team to work together to make things happen, making money online is also like running a company. Instead of the brick and mortal business we see in the past where real products are needed, online contents such as articles and videos can also generate profits now. The hard work required to create these online content products is still the same or even more to make it successful.

The difference is nowadays, everyone has the opportunity to do this online business instead of the brick and mortal which was limited to certain people only. That's why now we can see more young people trying to make the cut to be the next successful blogger, influencer or YouTuber. It may just be you if you try hard enough and are passionate for what you really want to do.

More Young People Want To Start Investing - How To Invest Successfully?

Since this blog was started back in 2013, I realised there are more and more young people who wants to start investing. Back then when I first started out learning how to invest, I went to many seminars in search for the answer on how do I make my money grow. Many of these seminars were preview sessions for a more expensive course which they would sell later. Many of them were conducted in small offices which seem really scary now when I think back.

Photo by: cafecredit.com
Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cafecredit/32899395526/

Attending The Right Investment Seminars

Its also very weird that I was often the only or few young people in the sessions. Fast forward to now, there are so many investment courses which are available. SGX started its own SGX academy which has quite a few good courses for beginners as well as experienced investors. I've personally attended a few of them and most recently the SGX-CFA investor conference. This was a half day conference which talks about the current macroeconomic outlook followed by a session on the basics of investing. I was surprised the whole NTUC auditorium as packed fully and about half of them were young people.

I also attended the SIAS Singapore Investment Week where I also saw more young people in the auditorium. I guess the long periods of low interest rate in the bank and also the pressure of the high cost of living has pushed young people to find ways to make more money. Young people are also more savvy now where they read widely and know the importance of investing at a young age.

If you're new to investing, you can consider SGX academy courses and also SIAS courses. Some of them are really useful to learn about investing.

Getting into the Wrong Investments (Scams)

Before I continue further to talk about the investment strategies, knowing the wrong investments and avoiding them is crucial to investing successfully. There are still scams out there which many people fall into.

Most scams can be identified by the high returns they give which is unsustainable. There is a saying that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Some of the most noticeable scams include investing in gold, overseas property, oil, land and many others. Some may appear very genuine so the trick is to ask as many questions as you can. After asking, we can check whether the company is on the investor alert list on the MAS website here and then check whether the people promoting the investments are regulated by MAS with a valid MAS representative license.

More recently, I'm concern with the rise of binary options and even have some readers email me on my opinions on binary options trading. There is a recent article on Straits Times on "Avoid getting burnt by binary option scams". As written in the article:

"The Singapore Police Force said it has received more than 40 reports from investors, including finance executives and retirees, who have made complaints over losses in trading binary options. Together, they have lost more than US$1.7 million (S$2.4 million) to unregulated binary option trading platforms.

The police issued a warning last December advising investors to check the lists compiled by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to find out which investment service providers are regulated.

Last month, the MAS cautioned investors about the risks in trading binary options with unregulated platforms. It considers such options risky and speculative, and sometimes fraudulent."

There is definitely some problems here which we should all take note of. In any case, as long as I don't understand how an investment works, I will never touch it no matter how attractive it seems to me.


Spending too much on Investment

While there are people who fall into scams, most people "spend" too much on their investments which causes their returns to diminish over time. This is an important point and some people may not agree with me on this.

There are many products out there in the market and most are marketed by sales persons. Because of time constrain, sometimes we buy products which are recommended to us because the interest is more than what the bank offers. Some of these products are insurance endowment plans, whole life plans, investment link policies and unit trusts to name a few. While there is nothing wrong with all these investment choices, there is always a price to pay for putting our money with someone else.

Investing in some products above have high fees averaging about 3%. There are other simpler ways to invest like buying into low cost funds such as index funds. Examples are the Vanguard index fund which tracks the US stock market index. We can get this through standard chartered brokerage account and also buy the US index ETF directly from the US stock market with a US brokerage account. These funds mostly charge only a 0.15%-0.3% fee. This is a 2%+ difference in fees. With just a 2.5% difference in fees, it can take 4 more years for our money to double on a 5.5% return as compared to a 8% return. In 30 years, it can make a huge difference.

My Investment Strategies

Over the years, I've found the strategy that suits me. It is very important to find a style that suits yourself so it means other people's method of investing may not be applicable to you even if they have done is successfully. There is no one single method when it comes to investing.

Over the years, I've taken a lot of risks, scaled back and took lesser risks and then find a balance for my investments. I got my financial situation in order also, increasing my income, buying adequate insurance and making sure I manage my risks well.

All in all, the investment portfolio achieved consistently about 10% XIRR on average for the past 4 years. I invest primarily in blue chips companies and REITs. Currently, I own stocks in the retail sector even though the retail sector seems to be gloomy. In Singapore, Capitamall, Suntec and Frasers centrepoint are the 3 main operators of malls. I've been an investor of these Reits for quite some time now and this is more for the recurring income stream. Next, I diversify into overseas stocks such as Croesus Retail Trust which owns Japanese shopping centres. Also, I have investments in the hospitality industry which I've added more in recent months. I am believing that the hospitality industry will recover in 2018. You can read my post on hospitality stocks here. Other than that, I also have investment in commercial office Reits, property stocks and also in F&B production.

Before I select a stock, I look at the macro economic trend that is happening. I love to analyse business and read up on what is happening in the world. An example is how I invested in Japan Reits when there was an aggressive monetary policy back then which will benefit asset prices. Interest rates will only get lower and asset prices increases. Rent prices will increase too which really benefitted the Japanese Reits.

After looking at the macro trend, I will look into the individual companies to read their annual reports and how they do their business. From reading the annual report, I can sense how well the management runs the business, look at their business strategy and how well they are managing their cashflow. If needed, I will attend any sessions which the management holds to hear from the management myself. From the way they talk and answer questions, sometimes we can get a sense of the direction and whether they are really capable.

The final step will be to look at the valuation. We should never buy a stock when it is overvalued. Some simple ratios to use are PE and PB which I use most of the time. I will look at gearing ratio or debt to equity ratio also which is the debt level of the company. Whatever ratio it is, the most important thing is to understand the concept behind it. PE of 10 means nothing if we do not understand the business and how the profits are derived. Finally, i will also look at dividend yield and whether they are sustainable in the long run. This is primarily for reits. For growth stocks, dividend yield don't really matter if the company is reinvesting the profits to expand the business.

Investing shouldn't be a holy grail thing in itself. If we keep on trying to find the one successful way to invest, we will be wasting a lot of time. To me, investing also shouldn't be too complicated. I like things simple and if the business is too complicated, I rather stay away. I have to read and be able to understand the whole business before I put my money into it.

Hope this short article gives some light on how I invest my money and that it helps you too. I do not think I've learnt everything about investing after the past 8 years of investing. There are just too many businesses out there and its impossible to understand everything. This blog was started out of a passion to reach out to people on the importance of financial planning and investing. After close to 4 years of the blog existence, many things have happened. Some of my values towards financial planning have changed also. To be honest, what lies ahead is unknown to me. If you ask me am I afraid of the future? I would say yes I am. What I can do is to continue to strive on and keep on believing for the best. May we continue to be happy and live a positive life no matter what happens.

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After 2 years of blogging...

Time really flies... It's been more than 2 years since I started blogging and this blog has grown tremendously and I have also grown as a person too. I'm a person who likes to reflect and think a lot so here's this post on my thoughts for the past 2 years. Some of you may have followed my blog since the early days and I thank each and everyone of you for reading, recommending my blog to your friends and family, sharing on social media and showing your support with words of encouragement either through email or comments on my blog. This blog has officially crossed 2 Million page views and I'm deeply humbled by the readers who supported the ideas that I write.

There are ups and downs to blogging. Fortunately, the experience for me has been a more positive than negative one. I've heard of bloggers who get criticised so badly that they decided to give up. Thank God nothing of that sort happened to me. I've been quite lucky that people have mostly been quite kind to me. The past 2 years plus was an amazing journey. Being a blogger exposes me to a whole lot of things, meeting up quite a number of people as a blogger even though I'm still anonymous on my blog.

My blogging experience has expanded far beyond just the online world. Right from the start, I thought blogging was just something that I'll do at home, writing at the comfort of my bedroom and nothing else. I was completely wrong. I had so much more experience through blogging than just typing away on my keyboard.

Through my blog, I had the opportunity to experience things that I would not have been able to experience if I was just a normal salaried employee in Singapore. The best part of it was meeting new people and discussing on how to spread the importance of financial literacy better. I still believe that if we have the knowledge and build good financial habits from young, we will be much better off and avoid all the financial sufferings later. Credit, debt and retirement issues are still causing a lot of problems for many families because of a mismanagement of money.

I've met up with people who are passionate in bringing financial literacy to the next level. People from various government ministries, educators, investors, businessman, financial bloggers, finance professionals, students are part of the groups of people whom I've met so far. I am careful to meet only those people who are sincere in bringing good to the society through finance and not just about making money.

Earlier this year, I had the chance to work and interact with NTU interactive investment club all thanks to my cousin who introduced me to the club and link me up with the people there. I had the opportunity to contribute and I personalpy saw how young people's lives can be impacted in the areas of financial planning. Students as young as 13 were able to understand the importance of financial planning through games and competition.

I've been busy with lots of things in my life. Working as a freelance mortgage consultant was a role that I took up a few months ago which has given me a lot of experience working with various banks and understanding how mortgage loans work. I could help people get the best rates for their housing loans and at the same time earn some extra money also. Besides this, in July this year, I met the love of my life. Yes I've been dating and in love for the past few months. It has been an amazing journey with her, creating our own experience and memories. I want to thank my precious girlfriend for being who she is and supporting me, encouraging me all these while.

As you can see, money is not the most important thing in my life. Experiences are far more important than what money can bring. However, money is the most basic for our livelihood. I always say take care of the money and you can then pursue the more important things in life without having to worry about money.

The end of the year is coming. Its the festive season as we celebrate Christmas, the season of giving, and cross over to the new year 2016. Have your life been good for the year 2015? Even if its not, I hope all of us will look forward to a greater year in 2016. Happy holidays ahead!!

My First Experience Speaking as a Blogger

Last week on Saturday, I presented a topic on accumulating wealth for your future to a small group of people at an event organised by a group of young working adults who have the heart to reach out to young people to increase financial literacy. There were 3 speakers and each of us presented for 30 minutes followed by a forum where the audience could ask us questions.

This picture was taken just before I went up to the hot seat:

Even though I've been writing on financial stuff for the past 2 years, giving a talk on finance is still my first time experience. I would never have thought that one day I would stand up on stage to inspire people on the importance of financial planning.

The main gist of my speech is to change our mindset towards money. I said that if we can get money out of our lives, we would be able to pursue the more important things in life. Many people are just too burdened by money problems where they cannot pursue their real life purpose.

I shared a video which showed that kids will always smile when asked what they want to do for their future while adults feel stress when they think about their future. Kids would say their dream is to help others while adults will aim for money, status and material possessions.

Have money also must have time, have money also must have health, have money also must be happy. These were the thoughts I implanted to the audience last week. If we pursue money and end up sacrificing too much of our time, our health and our happiness for it, then it doesn't make sense at all.

So what's the strategy to have both money and time? The answer: "financial independence or freedom". The way to gain financial independence or freedom is through creating passive income. When we can live on our passive income, we are said to have achieved financial independence. Even when we are not at the financial independence stage yet, having passive income still allows us to have a little more freedom in life. It helps to lessen our burden in life. I shared on my journey in creating passive income and how it is possible to do it.

Lastly, I shared on 3 simple ways to create passive income. I've actually wrote quite a few articles on passive income on my blog before so its really nothing new for readers who've been following my blog.

What are the 3 simple steps?

1. Start saving up to buy assets

We always need to start with saving money. I spoke about auto transferring your money to another bank account. I've listed down the steps to set up an auto fund transfer. You can read it in this post: Readers' Challenge - Cutting Down Your Expenses in 2015 To Save 50% of Your Money

2. Learn how to create passive income

Passive income can come from different sources. I shared 5 of the more common sources where passive income can come from. They are: "properties, stocks, bonds, intellectual property and business".

3. Start as early as possible

Compound interest is powerful. Albert Einstein describes compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world. Learn more about compound interest in this post: The benefits of investing when you're young


Overall, it was a good experience speaking for the first time on finance. Thanks for those who came up to me after my talk and gave me encouraging words. Securities Investment Association of Singapore (SIAS) was there too and they kindly invited me to speak for a youth event which they would be having later part of this year. I guess this won't be the end of my speaking engagement now...

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A Personal Message To My Readers

I have been so busy the past 2 weeks that I didn't manage to write a proper post for this week. As such, I thought of just writing a personal message to all of you here during my lunch break at work.

I am mostly anonymous on my blog but in recent times, I've started to slowly meet up with people out there and reveal my true identity. More and more people have come to know of my blog and while talking to a few friends recently, I mentioned its getting more scary that people all around me are reading the stuff that I write. I have friends and family members coming to tell me that their friends are also reading my blog and I see my own friends sharing my posts on Facebook as well. One of the most surprising thing was I got to know that one of my articles was actually used as reading materials in a local university.

The articles I write caters mainly to young people as what many of you might have realised. I know that finance topics can be quite complicated so I always try to keep things simple. I like simplicity in life.

This year, I will be even more busier with events, writing more articles, more networking sessions and meet ups and speaking engagements. I would never have imagined that I would get involve in all these 2 years ago. A passion, which started the blog, to reach out to young people, had created opportunities for me. I had the chance to meet up with high profile and influential people which was a humbling learning experience for me.

I always say that finding your passion in life is important. It does attract opportunities into your life and it also attract successful people into your life. Money comes after that. Talking about money, just this 2 months alone, my estimated passive and extra income is set to cross over 1.5k now.

Some of you may be experiencing financial difficulties in your family which made you realise the importance of financial planning. Some of you may have gotten yourself into financial problems because of bad financial decisions in the past. But, no matter how big your problem is, always remember to look ahead to a better future. Change the way you think, change your lifestyle, choose wisely the people whom you associate with and you'll be on your way to success.

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Here's wishing everyone Gong Xi Fa Cai!! Enjoy the reunion, the gatherings and the holidays!!

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Reflections for Year 2014: A Year of Amazing Experience

This is the first time i'm writing my reflection for one full year of blogging. SG Young Investment was started in June 2013. Till now, it has been just 1.5 years. The experience so far was just unbelievable that I thought I've been a blogger for much longer than that.

Never would I have expected that a blog which started out of nowhere could survive till today. I really have no idea what got this blog started. Perhaps its the desire to share on finance and investment. But, I wasn't really investing a lot of money back then in 2012 and in fact was just recovering from losses I had back in 2011. It was only in 2013 that I got back the confidence in investing and made some money. Looking back, it took me almost 2 years to come back again.

My first post was on My investing journey. I read my own writings again and it was just a sharing of my story in the stock market. Reading it made me think back on what I had gone through. In an instant, more than 1 year had passed.


Blogging Highlights of 2014

Took more than 6 months for the blog to reached 100,000 page views which I wrote a post on it on 2nd February 2014: 100,000 page views! This was right after Chinese New Year.

It quickly went pass 1 Million page views on 30th October: SG Young Investment crosses 1 Million

Writing on HDB, Condominium and marriage

I went on to write on topics such as buying a HDB flat, buying a condominium, cost of getting married. Researching and writing on these topics actually helped me to see what I need to plan ahead for. Naturally, because young people are worried about all these costs, these blog posts attracted a lot of views. I hope the posts have helped you plan better as it has helped me too. When we know the numbers and can see ahead, the future doesn't look that scary any more.

Writing on CPF and attending events

Another highlight is the post on the CPF. This was a hot topic among Singaporeans this year. I wrote a simple posts on the CPF minimum sum and CPF life. To say the truth, I have very little knowledge on the CPF prior to writing that post. It was only after hours of reading up that made me understand it better. After that, I was invited to the Forum on CPF and retirement adequacy. This was my first event attending as a blogger. Some other bloggers were there too but I didn't get to meet any of them as I only know that they were there after the event. Later on, I also went for the CPF Focus Group Discussion. It was fulfilling to contribute and interact with the other participants who were there.

Meet up with other bloggers and making new friends

Making new friends was one of the highlights too. From commenting on each other blogs to chatting on Facebook to meeting up face to face. It was great to be able to meet up with like minded people where we could just talk for hours and hours.


My Financial life in review for 2014

For the year of 2014, my active income increased, passive income increased while expenses remained stable. Actually, expenses did increase also but at a lower rate. I've been writing on passive income and this is the result of creating other streams of income. You can see it below from the green bar. This is a distinct difference from 2013 where there is very little passive income.

For the year of 2014, passive/other income has been quite consistent except for the months of Jan, Feb and June. This income comes from adverts such as Google adsense, sponsored articles, direct banner adverts and dividends from stocks. All in all, this income adds up to $3028 for this year.

On average, I've invested about 20k in the stock market this year. I've increased my stocks portfolio to 30k as of today and would probably increase again next year. This still makes up about 50% of my investment capital only.


Promoted and graduated from University

Besides focusing on passive income, I did not forget about my active income as well. This year was a tough year considering I was still studying part time for the first half of the year. But, I was still able to manage everything well and got promoted. Bonus was also better for this year.

Another relief is I finally graduated from the part time degree course which I was taking. This freed up a lot of my time for me to do other things such as meeting friends and writing more. I also took more time to reply the emails from you guys. I just checked and realised I've received more than a thousand emails so far. It's becoming a part time business to manage now.


Meeting new friends

This year is a year of meeting new friends. Through events, I got to network with more professionals. In summary, I got to know a lot more people who are passionate on finance and investments. Its amazing that as I set my path on the world of finance and investment, I start to know all these like minded people as well. Its the law of attraction at work. That is why if we want to attract positive people into our lives, we should also be positive.

As mentioned earlier, I also met some of the other bloggers. As for readers, I recently met the first one just before Christmas. This year, I been contemplating with the thought of forming investment groups for people to learn and interact together to know other people who are into personal finance and investments as well. There are students and young people who want to start managing their money better but do not really know where to start. Forming this group will create a platform for new friendships with like minded people. Let's see how this will develop.

That's all for my year in 2014. Its just 1 day away to the year 2015. I hope you had a good 2014 too. If not, always look on the bright side and 2015 will be a better year.

Happy New Year!! 

Related Posts:
1. New year resolutions and investment strategies for 2014
2. Reflections for 2013

SG Young Investment crosses 1 Million

Yes its official. SG Young Investment has crossed one Million page views just this morning. I hope all of you enjoyed reading my blog as much as I had enjoyed writing for the past one year or so. 

I have learnt a lot through writing on this blog as most of the time I have to research the stuffs that I write. Researching and writing on personal finance topics such as housing, wedding and CPF made me understand these issues more clearly. To say the truth, I had no prior knowledge on the CPF earlier this year. I did not understand what it means to pledge your house for CPF or even know that I can transfer my monies from CPF OA to SA to earn higher interest. I also did not know what is the CPF life. It was only after gathering all the available information and reading the materials from CPF website repeatedly for many times before I understood the whole thing. I'm glad I wrote on the topic of CPF which gave me an understanding of how it plays a part for our retirement. 

There are many exciting things ahead. All these will be announced in due time. Yes, I'm planning some great stuffs for everyone which hopefully can be finalised by the end of this year. I've met a few number of people in my blogging journey and certainly there will be more chance to meet other people along the way. However, I can't meet everyone and will only meet if there's a need to. I've received hundreds of emails and really enjoyed interacting with all of you. Keep it coming. Most of you are quite encouraging and have been rather kind to me. I deeply appreciate it! 

I know there are a lot of students who're reading my blog and even young couples who read my blog. Maybe there could be a gathering for all of you to meet and support one another someday in the future. It is good to start planning your finances at a young age but even if you're not too young, the best time to start is now. If you still have at least 10 years before you retire, it's not too late. 

Nevertheless, we're fast approaching November soon and then it's just 2 months to the end of 2014. What are some goals you've set at the beginning of this year but have not fulfilled yet? There's still time to review it and act on it. 

I shall end this short post here. Cheers to a Million! It's Friday soon. Have a great weekend!

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Related Posts:

1. 100,000 page views!

2. 1 year of blogging and it continues....

1 year of blogging and it continues....

Time pass really fast. It has been 1 year since i have been actively blogging. I started this blog somewhere in June last year to write on my financial journey and hopefully it'll be a diary for me to learn and review upon in the future.

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.

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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The HDB blog post which touched the nerves of Singaporeans and attracted more than 60,000 views in 3 days

I'm sure many of you have seen my post on How much money does a couple need to earn in order to afford a $300,000 HDB flat? This post actually actually attracted more than 60,000 views over the past 3 days with 5.1k Facebook likes. I couldn't believe it myself either as my blog has only on average 16k views per month. The past 3 days views broke my 4 months record. The post is still being shared until today and attracting more readers even now.

Of course this means that buying a HDB flat is a concern and big decision which many young couples face in Singapore especially when prices have risen substantially over the past few years. Many people were sharing the post with their friends and i thank you for doing so if you're one of them. I certainly hope my illustrations have helped more young couples prepare themselves better for their future. I will crack my brains for even better post to come....

As a financial blog, readers are limited as most people find finance and investing stuff boring and complicated. I know how most people feel as i was one of them too. I have to admit its not easy to learn all these finance stuff and it takes time. I'm still thinking of how to simplify those complicated jargon and terms so that most people can understand. Throughout the past few days, i've received several emails from readers asking me how do they start investing. I hope my reply to you have helped you and you're always welcomed to ask more questions. As emails become increasingly more, it'll take some time for me to reply everyone of it but i'll try to do so within 1-2 days.

I know many of you have just visited my blog for the first time through the post on $300,000 HDB flat. My Facebook page has garnered an excess of more than 120 followers in just the past 3 days. A warm welcome to all my new readers on-board this journey. I shall stop here now and keep the post short. Happy weekends to all of you!!

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Related Posts:
1. My blogging experience and interview with successful bloggers

100,000 page views!

My blog has surpassed 100,000 page views right after Chinese new year! An auspicious time for an achievement indeed. Thank you all my readers for your support and i will definitely write more quality articles this year.

A peek at the top all time traffic source for my blog. As a finance blog, the top post should be something to do with investment but surprisingly it is not. The top all time posts was the post on my Taiwan trip which i manage to spend only $702 for 8 days. I discovered that various searches on Google ranked my Taiwan trip post as the top search result. You can try searching "Taiwan trip blog" or "taiwan trip itinerary" and both searches show my site as the first result. So, that's where the traffic is coming from. People love to travel and the most number of searches that come in was during the November and December holidays. That's when i know people are planning for their holiday trips. Well, till now there are still searches coming in so i guess there are people travelling throughout the year.

Some other financial bloggers will agree that we have a very small audience compared to lifestyle or travel bloggers. Indeed my travelling post become number 1 in page views. The second top page views post is on WhyMoolah which is a life simulation app to help young adults make wise financial choices. This was something interesting which i have also tried the app personally myself. You can try it if you had not done so. The third most page views is the post on POSB invest saver. I hope that post has helped more people in making better investment decisions.

For the readers who visited my blog, most are from Singapore. Next is followed by United States as the second, Malaysia as the third. There are people from many other countries including Europe, Russia, Australia, UK, Ukraine and other parts of Asia too. This is something interesting to me to have readers from all over the world.

Also, the Facebook page that i started with 0 Likes has already garnered 122 Likes as of now. Thanks to everyone who liked my page. Once again, thank you all of you for your support. Stay tune for more exciting post coming soon.

Towards the end of December and year 2013

In a few weeks time, we'll be saying bye to 2013 and welcome the year 2014. Yet another year has passed and it feels like time passes faster every year. I've been busy with work and exams lately thus the decrease in blog posts for the past 1 week. Now that exams are over, i'll have time to blog again.

As i start my journey as a blogger this year, i realise every single thing that i encountered in life gives me inspiration for a blog post. Many things can be linked to finance and i think you would agree almost everything in our lives revolves around the world of finance. Your topic with friends and colleagues will lead to money one way or another. Buying a new house? It involves budgeting, getting a loan etc. Getting married? It involves money also. How about our daily lives? Bills to pay, expenses to budget for..... and the list goes on.

I realised also that some of my colleagues in their 40s are worrying about not having enough to retire. This is a real issue you'll face some day in your life. No wonder Singaporeans are feeling life is getting more and more stressful. This is why we should plan as early as possible. No matter what age you are now, start planning for retirement. In schools, we plan and study for exams. In work, we plan for projects deadlines and make sure we're on target. But sadly when it comes to life, many people do not plan. They just drift through life in their younger days and only come to senses when they are older.

One reason why i believe most people do not plan for their lives or retirement is because there is no guidance on how to plan it. In schools, we have study guides and exam tips. In work, there is a mentor or a system on how you should plan and manage the project. But in life, we're not taught how to do it. In the end, we end up listening to a financial advisor and sometimes end up getting the wrong advise. This has happened to many people before.

I'll keep this post short and will post more posts in the coming weeks leading to the end of 2013. It is timely to look back at this year and be grateful for your achievements. At the same time, if there are mistakes made, we can learn from it. It is also a time to think through and see what we want to achieve in the year 2014.

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My blogging experience and interview with successful bloggers

Saw this video on Youtube of an interview by channel news asia with successful bloggers. One of them is from Singapore called Wendy, who owns the popular blog xiaxue.blogspot.sg, and the other is from Australia. The co-founder of nuffnang was also on the interview.

Before i show you the video, maybe i should talk about my blogging experience so far. I started my blog in 2011 to write on a new passion i found which was on finance and investing. I had no prior experience in blogging and did not know how to link my blog with other blogs or whatsoever. I had very little readers and i think from 2011 right up to June 2013 this year, i only had 200 plus views (well, i only had less then 40 posts in the last 2 years).

It was until in June this year that i was introduced to a finance blog by my colleague called A Singaporean Stock Market Investor (ASSI). This blog is owned by a guy called AK71 and i was inspired by the things he wrote on. I knew his blog had many readers from the comments he had on his blog posts. That was when i thought that i could start actively blogging again. I still had the passion for finance and investment stuffs. Thank you AK for your inspirations and also your encouraging comments on my blog.

I did a revamp of my blog 3 months ago and started linking to other blogs and financial websites. That was when views started to increase and i know the things i blog on are seen by people. It is the thought that my posts may help someone out there to better plan for his or her finances and i hope to inspire others to plan for their lives and achieve their dreams. To date, i've written 107 posts. I'm surprised that i can write so much unknowingly. This post is the 108th post. I've written 71 posts just this year alone.

So how's the performance of my blog for the past 3 months? From statistics, i've had an average of 12500 views per month. Total of about 37600 views for the past 3 months. The top view post is "My views on the new POSB Invest-Saver" with over 1800 views followed by "Investing Basics - Low Cost Index Fund investing (Passive Investing)" with 1200+ views and "The history of 9.5% Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) interest rates and the effects of inflation" with 1100+ views. I guess posts related to local investment products generate a lot of searches. I'm still getting traffic from search engines to this particular post till now.

The best experience of blogging is that i'm able to know other bloggers who share the same passion as me on finance and investments. Some of them have been around for quite some time while others are just as young as me. I've exchanged a few conversations with bloggers and readers alike through emails and also comments on each other blogs. You know who you are if you're reading this now. Thanks to both readers and other bloggers for your friendliness so far. I appreciate all the encouragements and comments i've received. Sometimes bloggers get nasty comments but i would say my blogging journey has still been smooth until now.

I have placed ads on my blog like what many other bloggers will do. This generates some profit and encourages me to continue blogging. But honestly, its doesn't generate much but still its better than nothing. I've also created a facebook page just less than a month ago and i appreciate those who have liked my page so far. Its also an encouragement for me to continue blogging. Do LIKE my page to support my efforts. Blogging does take effort especially when writing on finance related articles. I try to balance boring theoretical finance topics with more light hearted sharing posts so that readers do not get too bored. Thus, you may see that some of my posts will be on videos i come across, news i think is worth sharing or some rumblings of my life.

Moving forward, i hope to come up with more ideas and write better articles in the days ahead.

Now, here's a video of the interview with successful bloggers:

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