How much are you earning per annum?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Good news for those who have bought your new car. COE supply will be cut so COE prices will go higher in the future. Cat A COE prices will go towards $60k and higher. Cat B COE prices will go to $65K and higher. Huat Ah!!!!!!

Any chance it will drop back to $30k?

I have been waiting for 2 years already

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any chance it will drop back to $30k?

I have been waiting for 2 years already

I think you can't afford to own a car if you're so desperate for it to drop.

Why not just buy a motorbike? Or take public transport. So much cheaper.

Car ownership is not for everyone. We need to have less cars on the road. Car lite.

You need to spend $2k pm to own and use the car.

If your family income is less than $12k pm, then best not to own a car.

Better to take bus and MRT. Call a taxi if you need.

Is it possible to generate passive income retire early before 50 yo for a sg regular PME with normal investment skills?

I save & invest regularly since starting work and holding a normal stable manager job in a stat board. At first I thought it should be enough but now already 41 yo and net worth only $400k with passive income of ~$1.4k.

Very depressing >_<

Think I have written about this before but I think I am slowly getting my point across to my children to start investing their savings. They have no problem saving but they are very risk averse as well as not interested in investing their savings.

My older son who started working about a year and a half ago has accumulated about $100k savings in cash from his salary, gifts (ang pow) as well as allowances. He is only comfortable to put his money in FDs.

I tried a different tack to induce him to invest and it seems to be working. I showed him my passive income sources and said that each passive income was helping to cover some of our family's expenses. Then I challenged him to create a passive income source to cover his handphone bills. With my advise, he selected Tai Sing Electric shares and bought 30 lots at 35cts per share or an outlay of $10.5k. Next month (Nov), he will be receiving his first dividend from the shares at $480. Needless to say, he was pleased that it was sufficient to cover one year's phone bill!

My next challenge to him was to make enough passive income to pay his share of our annual overseas vacation!

Hi, just wondering what type of risk do you think is acceptable and what returns should be appropriate e.g 5-10%? Stocks and bonds can be quite risky. What if your son had invested in swiber and swissco bonds? Wouldn't he have lost all his savings then? I think FD could be a risk-free option or even ETF would be better in such a volatile environment. What do you think?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Think I have written about this before but I think I am slowly getting my point across to my children to start investing their savings. They have no problem saving but they are very risk averse as well as not interested in investing their savings.

My older son who started working about a year and a half ago has accumulated about $100k savings in cash from his salary, gifts (ang pow) as well as allowances. He is only comfortable to put his money in FDs.

I tried a different tack to induce him to invest and it seems to be working. I showed him my passive income sources and said that each passive income was helping to cover some of our family's expenses. Then I challenged him to create a passive income source to cover his handphone bills. With my advise, he selected Tai Sing Electric shares and bought 30 lots at 35cts per share or an outlay of $10.5k. Next month (Nov), he will be receiving his first dividend from the shares at $480. Needless to say, he was pleased that it was sufficient to cover one year's phone bill!

My next challenge to him was to make enough passive income to pay his share of our annual overseas vacation!

Your son is right. He should be risk averse. No need for him to take risk to prepare for his retirement in old age. He will inherit all your millions, so why bother to save? Just spend as much as he like.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Think I have written about this before but I think I am slowly getting my point across to my children to start investing their savings. They have no problem saving but they are very risk averse as well as not interested in investing their savings.

My older son who started working about a year and a half ago has accumulated about $100k savings in cash from his salary, gifts (ang pow) as well as allowances. He is only comfortable to put his money in FDs.

I tried a different tack to induce him to invest and it seems to be working. I showed him my passive income sources and said that each passive income was helping to cover some of our family's expenses. Then I challenged him to create a passive income source to cover his handphone bills. With my advise, he selected Tai Sing Electric shares and bought 30 lots at 35cts per share or an outlay of $10.5k. Next month (Nov), he will be receiving his first dividend from the shares at $480. Needless to say, he was pleased that it was sufficient to cover one year's phone bill!

My next challenge to him was to make enough passive income to pay his share of our annual overseas vacation!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi, just wondering what type of risk do you think is acceptable and what returns should be appropriate e.g 5-10%? Stocks and bonds can be quite risky. What if your son had invested in swiber and swissco bonds? Wouldn't he have lost all his savings then? I think FD could be a risk-free option or even ETF would be better in such a volatile environment. What do you think?

With inflation at 3-5% and interest rates at 1+% or so, we are looking at a definite loss of 2 to 4% loss in money value every year. On the other hand, there are good companies listed in sgx and other bourses that can stand the test of time. Their share values may decline during economic downturns, but they always bounce back when the economy recovers.

The other thing to note is investing does not equate to trading. I would not recommend my son to trade but to invest with a long term view. He quite liked the examples I shared with him about the shares I bought some 25 years ago which became "free" shares because the dividends I collected all these years already exceeded what I have paid for them. Only problem he pointed out was that the shares prices seem to be high now.

I told him that if company pays 5% in dividend every year, over 20 years, the shares would become "free" shares, meaning that he would have recouped his initial investment. Does it therefore matter if the shares go up and down in the meantime? As long as the company does not go bankrupt, he would continue to receive dividends for life and still own the shares for free!

I see what you mean. Can I ask you some opinion about some list of investments. Don't mistake my intentions, I'm not criticising or anything, I just admire that you take risk to earn gains but you don't take too much risks so I just wanted to find learn more from you. What do you think of the following investment instruments? Just wanted some opinions from an experienced person like you. Thanks!

1. Blue-chip stocks e.g banks and telecoms

2. High-growth but risky stocks e.g tech stocks and new companies

3. Bonds e.g corporate bonds

4. ETF e.g STI ETF

5. Properties and REITs

6. Fixed deposit, savings plan and endowment plan

Originally Posted by Unregistered

With inflation at 3-5% and interest rates at 1+% or so, we are looking at a definite loss of 2 to 4% loss in money value every year. On the other hand, there are good companies listed in sgx and other bourses that can stand the test of time. Their share values may decline during economic downturns, but they always bounce back when the economy recovers.

The other thing to note is investing does not equate to trading. I would not recommend my son to trade but to invest with a long term view. He quite liked the examples I shared with him about the shares I bought some 25 years ago which became "free" shares because the dividends I collected all these years already exceeded what I have paid for them. Only problem he pointed out was that the shares prices seem to be high now.

I told him that if company pays 5% in dividend every year, over 20 years, the shares would become "free" shares, meaning that he would have recouped his initial investment. Does it therefore matter if the shares go up and down in the meantime? As long as the company does not go bankrupt, he would continue to receive dividends for life and still own the shares for free!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I see what you mean. Can I ask you some opinion about some list of investments. Don't mistake my intentions, I'm not criticising or anything, I just admire that you take risk to earn gains but you don't take too much risks so I just wanted to find learn more from you. What do you think of the following investment instruments? Just wanted some opinions from an experienced person like you. Thanks!

1. Blue-chip stocks e.g banks and telecoms

2. High-growth but risky stocks e.g tech stocks and new companies

3. Bonds e.g corporate bonds

4. ETF e.g STI ETF

5. Properties and REITs

6. Fixed deposit, savings plan and endowment plan

How one invest depends on how deep your pocket is, how urgent you need to grow your money and how much you are willing to accept. I am a firm believer that we should invest in ourselves first. We, ourselves, are our biggest asset in making money. Quitting working life early or young and you are wasting away your best asset.

That said, our human asset also decline in value as we aged. We must therefore build up other assets to generate income to eventually replace our human asset to cover our expenses in retirement.

I don't like to pinpoint any specific stocks or investment instruments lest I get blamed if things go wrong. My approach has been to spread my investment risk covering stocks, property and bonds and yes, even in CPF. Currently the 3 broad categories of investment are giving us almost equal amount of passive incomes. So there is hopefully one source to depend on for income should a market rout occurs.