How much are you earning per annum?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Was curious why the various postings on the family incomes and expenses did not include income tax as an item by itself. For us, income tax is one of the main item of expenses that I would highlight. Last year we paid $27k in income tax, and this year we are expecting it to go up to $30k. Property taxes would another expense item eating away our annual income by $4k.

Now that I got the income tax issue out of the way, I want to share our plan on retirement funding. This will be a modified plan. Our original plan was to depend on passive incomes from our various investments, which are stocks, rental property and FDs (including bonds). Rental income is another economy dependent variable.

We felt we had to modify (improve) our current retirement funding model after seeing the on-going rout in global stock markets in which our stock holdings declined in excess of $200k+ in value in a matter of 2 weeks! We are not sure if the dividends that we are counting on in our retirement would be affected, but to be on the safe side, we decided that we needed to set aside cold hard cash to draw down to ensure stability in our cash flow in retirement. We think a sum of $500k in cash should be sufficient to ensure stability in cash flow for 5 years giving sufficient time for the stock market to recover.

So our modified retirement funding model would be:

Steady income
Cash : $500k ($100k in real cash for expenses, $400k in term deposits of various duration). Drawdown at $100k pa.

So-so income
Bonds: $1m @ 3.5% giving $35k pa.

Variable income
Stocks :$1m to generate 4% dividends payout or $40k pa
Rental :$42k

In the first 5 years of retirement, we will use up the cash fund, while building up another round of cash funds with the passive incomes from the various investments. This will hopefully provide stability of cash flow in good times as well as bad times.

Wow wow.... Paid $27k in income tax....
Many stinkaporeans can't even make that amount in a year....

Rich people flaunting their wealth here...

"Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in." -- quote from John D Rockefeller

I could not agree with the above quote more.

I have been building up my passive income investment sources for almost 25 years. In the very first year, I received my first passive income of a grand total of $575. It was much less than the interest earned from a fixed deposit I had at that time. The FD interest was $1.5k.

Fast forward to today, the monthly passive income we received was about $11k+ on average, or a total of $130k pa.

The good thing about passive income is that they are not all paid to you on a single day in a month. That means there will be many days in a month where you can expect to see passive money coming in. It used to be that after each pay day (from my salary), my mood would be down, and I had to dig in for the rest of the month till the next payday. It is not so now. "Pay day" can come throughout the month.

Below is my Jan 2016 income :

8 Jan - $200, dividend from stock#1
10 Jan - $195, dividend from stock#2
13 Jan - $1,200 bond#1 interest (half yearly payout)
15 Jan - $980, dividend from stock#4
18 Jan - $3600, rental income
20 Jan - $xxxxx, pay day from work
22 Jan - $600, dividend from stock #5
27 Jan - $300, dividend from stock#6

The best months for my passive incomes are in May and Aug where most companies pay their full and interim dividends for the year respectively. In these 2 months, my passive incomes exceed $15,000 each (excluding work income)

Now that stock markets are in turmoil, it is a good time to look out for good dividend stocks to pick up at a "discount".

Having payday almost every other day is really something!

Life is not all about money. Go to or Google and search for "global poverty", "hungry poor", "hungry children" and you will see how miserable these people are. Stop bragging about your wealth, dividends, pay ... , and do something meaningful in your life. Go out there to these poor countries and make a difference. Don't be proud, arrogant and greedy.

Get a life!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

"Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in." -- quote from John D Rockefeller

I could not agree with the above quote more.

I have been building up my passive income investment sources for almost 25 years. In the very first year, I received my first passive income of a grand total of $575. It was much less than the interest earned from a fixed deposit I had at that time. The FD interest was $1.5k.

Fast forward to today, the monthly passive income we received was about $11k+ on average, or a total of $130k pa.

The good thing about passive income is that they are not all paid to you on a single day in a month. That means there will be many days in a month where you can expect to see passive money coming in. It used to be that after each pay day (from my salary), my mood would be down, and I had to dig in for the rest of the month till the next payday. It is not so now. "Pay day" can come throughout the month.

Below is my Jan 2016 income :

8 Jan - $200, dividend from stock#1
10 Jan - $195, dividend from stock#2
13 Jan - $1,200 bond#1 interest (half yearly payout)
15 Jan - $980, dividend from stock#4
18 Jan - $3600, rental income
20 Jan - $xxxxx, pay day from work
22 Jan - $600, dividend from stock #5
27 Jan - $300, dividend from stock#6

The best months for my passive incomes are in May and Aug where most companies pay their full and interim dividends for the year respectively. In these 2 months, my passive incomes exceed $15,000 each (excluding work income)

Now that stock markets are in turmoil, it is a good time to look out for good dividend stocks to pick up at a "discount".

Having payday almost every other day is really something!

It's another COE bidding cycle again.

With the impending tsunami of COE quota to be released I am wondering when is the best time to enter the car market to get the lowest possible COE before it goes up again due to famine after sometime 2018.

I really love ex minister Lui for intervene the COE quota and release the flood of COE. the trick is to catch on the new car in 2016-2017. Then every 10 years cycle you will buy COE at lowest, unlike those who bought in 2012-2013.

Huat ah!!

True. My boss got his Merz @ COE $96k in 2013
Now he is looking at scrapping it to change to new E class later 2016.
He says it's worth it to get a new model plus COE will drop to $20-30 k levels
Everyone is anticipating the government COE policy and trying to beat the system to get the lowest possible COE. No one wants to be caught again in the next famine cycle.

I'm expecting COE to crash to $10k by end of 2016. I bought my current car with $60k COE so once it reached $10k, I will scrap my car and get a newer, bigger car for free since I bought my current car in full cash. Huat ah!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I'm expecting COE to crash to $10k by end of 2016. I bought my current car with $60k COE so once it reached $10k, I will scrap my car and get a newer, bigger car for free since I bought my current car in full cash. Huat ah!

Good move. Scrap relatively new car to get a brand new car for free!

Our COE system is really helping us!!

Huat ah!

hard for coe to fall. more and more cars on the road. traffic jams everywhere, how to expect coe to fall?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

hard for coe to fall. more and more cars on the road. traffic jams everywhere, how to expect coe to fall?

Now global stock market crash, property market crash, many losing jobs esp those in Oil and gas and banking sector, oil market crash, everything crash so COE must also crash unless the COE supply is reduced.

$10k COE will come soon, very soon. Huat ah!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Now global stock market crash, property market crash, many losing jobs esp those in Oil and gas and banking sector, oil market crash, everything crash so COE must also crash unless the COE supply is reduced.

$10k COE will come soon, very soon. Huat ah!

Once LTA start to close storage the excess COE quota for the famine years.
It will sent the premium to shoot up again.
So everyone is rushing in to buy now
Even my friends who have relatively new rides are scrapping their cars!!

Huat ah!!