The schroder Asian income fund pays about 5% interest per annum. Every month can get interest. How is this avenue for parking idle funds? Is it safe?

26 turning 27

11.3k Equities
1.5k Bonds
2.4k Cash

Guess I'm seriously behind=(

40, wife 38

Cash, stocks and other financial assets $1.2M

Physical property $2.5M

Debt free, annual income $350k

hubby and I 33 yo with 1 kid.

combined liquid cash savings $200K.
Flat loan should finish by this or next year.
CPF investment combined 90K.

Hi, I have the same question too. I'm in civil service too, any advices on how to do so without getting found out? I've even considered driving grab, but then they credit money to bank, so I'm afraid that we'll get found out.

38 yo single, 173k cash+stocks, 200k CPF, HDB flat worth 430k with 97k loan remaining.
So many rich people in this forum.. how did they manage to save up so much money?

Couple aged 46

Paid up OCR condo and car

Cash and stocks $1.5m
CPF all accounts $0.8m

Hope to work till 55 and get a second property for rental income

If you're gonna get a property at 55 I am assuming all cash? Why not just buy high yield stocks? at 3% yield (alot less minus prop tax and mcst) its a crappy investment unless you're hoping for capital gains

What I meant is I plan to get a property next and target to fully paid by 55.

just thinking to have a mix of portfolio of stocks and property passive incomes

Wow, this is amazing! I found this old post I wrote in 2011. I was searching for some CPF details using google and they threw up this link.

6 years have gone by, just like that.

Just to update. I am still unassuming, still buying our groceries at NTUC, Cold Storage or Sheng Shiong. Still enjoys our regular coffee at the coffee shops. More white hair now.

More importantly, both my wife and I are still working.

Wealth wise, the last 6 years have been very good to us. We grew it by another $2m. This confirms that we are in the golden period of accelerated savings. And our passive income has also grown steadily the last 6 years to $150k pa.

42yo single
Cash 501k
Cpf 405k
No house, no car, no women,
Riding bicycle to work daily, eat cai png. Live simple

You are going to be a millionaire very soon

Very true.

Without a car, a house and no other assets to acquire, your savings can only accelerate as you grow in seniority in your job with corresponding salary increase.

Even for us as a family with 2 kids, we saw our savings rate accelerates after we turned 50. Financial commitment taper off while salary goes up. Powerful combination.

43 years old wife 42 not working
income only 180k per annum :(

1 fully paid shophouse
valued current residence 2.9 mil (800k loan left)
valued 900k condo (345k loan left)
valued 780k condo (350k loan left)
valued 850k condo (400k loan left)

if you wondered how i countered TDSR , bought all b4 it was introduced...

46 yo couple with 2 teenage children

filed annual income tax last year approx $400k

owns a OCR condo and luxury car paid up

cash + stocks + cpf about $2 Mil

waiting to pick up second property

work another 10 years till retirement.

how are we doing?

congratulations. you truly belong to the upper middle class and for sure you can retire by 55.

how am i doing?

Not enough to retire well unless downgrade to hdb.

Out net asset is about same as yours, we are 3 years younger and property is a $2.5M FH terrace with $0.7M loan. Rest in liquid assets.

28 and 40 yrs old
combined income inc bonuses : 250k pa
side biz income: 2k/mth
cpf combined about 580k
savings in cash: 60k
stocks/bonds/fixed d: about 1.5m
condo: 2m left about 750k loan. 5.5k/mth rental income
fully paid new conti car
staying in bungalow with parent. only pay for maid and PUB
inheritance: 7m in property/stocks/cash
3 dogs 1 cat 1 kid

no plans on retiring early.

31yo with 340K in stocks, bonds, fd. Average return 2% + pa. How to further level up from here. At current pace of progression, hard to hit a million by 35.

LOL. Want to write story, must write with some credibility lah. Even before TDSR were implemented, banks would not lend you money to buy 2 properties (not to mention 5) if your salary was just $180k pa.

But more importantly do not feel inferior to others who seem to be wealthier and more successful. At the end of the day, no matter how many millions, properties and gold bars we have, we all have only ONE life. Live that life well and responsibly and that is enough.

We have owned 5 properties but not all at the same time. We currently have 2 - we lived in one and use the other to earn rental. Together with our other investments, our passive income is $150k a year. As we still work, we can save $350k to $400k a year.

Is my story credible?

Did you know my previous salary? Im not saying its high but it was around 300k +- depending on bonus... i switched job only recently as was made redundant

Cofton rouge
 

What industry were you in?

Investment banker at Tiong bank

Hi,

I am 34 years old, female with one child.

Fixed deposit: 180k
Endowments that I brought under education and retirement ( with guaranteed amount) not projected: 210k
Property: One 4 room HDB. (Not staying here and rented one room out)

I have targetted monthly savings so to build up retirement fund. Hopefully I can reach my savings target of 300k in two years time.

I am always curious as to why young people (34) like yourself channel the majority of their savings into FD where a higher yield could be easily attained in bonds or even bond funds. Given that you don't seem to need the full 180k of liquidity.

Genuinely wants to understand your perspective, thanks!

Bonds are not without risks especially the non rated ones which tended to be those giving higher yields. It was just last year? that a few bonds (those related to O&G) went belly-up and investors lost their capital.

Given the current relatively high stock market valuations, it is ok to sit tight on cash position. Holding cash is also a strategy in the overall investment scheme of things.

If she is secure in her employment, then yes, I would agree for her to take a little risk and invest for potentially higher returns.

I have gone through this phase before where I have set a savings target to meet. The surest way (not necessary the quickest nor the most efficient) to meet the target was through pure savings and keeping the savings in an FD.

But once my capital has grown bigger, it gets easier to take on more risk. And thats when I started investing in stocks and eventually progressing to property investment. It's about comfort level and margin of safety.

There is no right or wrong.

Hi, thank you for This. You have nailed on all of it and this is exactly how I feel. I read about bonds and investments and At this stage I am not willingly to take up too much risk due to market conditions and unless I have a good nest to start with, taking account that my child is still young. Bonds are not as safe as fixed deposits and I just want to build up my target savings before I start investing or looking for other tools to earn more interest. I feel that it is better to have a better cash position than to quickly jump into bonds or stocks at this time. =)

Thanks for the reply.

However I have to disagree on most if not all points.

Bonds come in "shapes and sizes" from sovereign to corporate issuers; from AAA rated to unrated. To put it simply, there are safe ones and there are speculative ones. The one that you mentioned happened to be the ones with a high level of risk, issued by an industry that is undergoing a lot of challenges now. Swiber ISIN SG55E0991457 bonds are High Yield unrated Bonds that pays 7.15% coupons, that itself should already hold enough information to tell investors this is a riskier bond, from the name itself high yield, unrated and high coupon. So no, its not a fair comparison for a low risk appetite investor.

However, if you look at bonds that are more in context say an AAA rated bonds by Temasek Holdings SGD issued bonds ISIN SG7W86960343, you are looking at a 4.2% coupon (interest) which is a good 2X to 3X higher than a FD. And if you are concern about liquidity and ticket size since bonds tix size is usually 250K and up then go into a SGD bond fund that buys into local bank bonds (OCBC UOB DBS), Temasek Bonds and SG Gov Bonds. If you pick a top 10% peer group rating SGD bond fund you will be yielding 3%+ Net of management fees averagely.

My position is simple, picking the most efficient returns on the same level of risk. To me, the risk of FD is the bank's chance of default and whether or not the bank defaults depends on the SG Gov (local banks). So ultimately I am placing a bet on SG Gov, and if I can put my money into Temasek, DBS SG Gov Bonds that gives me more returns, why should I want to put it into FD when the underlying risks are the same?:confused:

That said, I fully understand (after reading the replies by both of you) your positions and I have to conclude it is seeking emotional safety(very impt btw) but it isn't factual.

You gotta be joking man, all major index across the world has returned positively over the past 12 months and I mean all, literally. Time to open your eyes and make a killing now.:cool:

Whats wrong with that? You a funds promoter? If yes, can you recommend what to buy, how to buy and ehere to buy? Btw, i am not the 34 yrs old female.

There is no right and wrong in investment decisions, just whatever is more comfortable. Afterall emotions triumph facts.

On funds, I do hold a license that allows me access to most investment products but I personally prefer UTs for a myriad of reasons.

On recommendations, thanks for the suggestion but I am more comfortable in giving impromptu suggestions and opinions on the chill side. If I ever wanted to publish/recommend an investment, I could always go back to my work. Which is kind of ironic if you know what I mean :D

Not to side anyone but i also have to disagree with your post as well

1. FD is capital guarantee and rather short term. I get back all my capital + interest and i dont need to care about what happens to market prices in the world eg Fed interest rate. Not happy with FD - just unwind and redeposit...At most lose the interest and that usually is enough to cover the admin fees.

2. And since you are so knowledgeable about bonds, you should also know what you are referring to interest (coupons) is not the right way to evaluate the bonds "interest rate". For bonds, we look at the yield to maturity which is equivalent to the effective interest rate for FD. The Temasek bond you mentioned yield to maturity is closer to 3.5% . See this link

https://www.bondsupermart.com/main/b...t/SG7W86960343

Moreover, this bond maturity is 2050... u wait long long if you ever want to see your capital back again without getting hit again by transaction fee for unwinding + the bid/ask spread. And if you ever need to unwind.. u better pray interest rate has dropped significantly (unlikely) from the time u purchased the bond.. otherwise u lose even more.

So, you happy with your bond.. i happy with my FD...
And i dont have so many 250k like u can buy so many bonds. I just small time player but i can put many FDs.

I have no desire to change your belief. I wrote long posts trying to explain my position and to simply demonstrate a better alternative on efficiency. As I expected, you would not understand what I wrote.

Our understanding on efficiency (risk & return) is fundamentally different. You define risk free as signing a contract with a "capital guaranteed" on it whilst I take into consideration the chances of a bank default and the underlying guarantor in the event of default as risk free. Your understanding of FD being capital guaranteed is also untrue. SDIC only insures a maximum of $50,000 SGD. This means that all your eligible accounts maintained with different branches of a full bank or finance company are aggregated and insured up to $50,000 with the same bank or finance company in the event of default.

Sure on yield to maturity, returns are measured differently on the secondary market. Did not want to confuse the readers. And again I think you are misleading the readers as not many people hold 30 year bonds to maturity. People buy bonds because of the immense liquidity on the secondary markets and can be traded for a small profit or loss.

Which is why I do not ever recommending buying into bonds directly for retail players or even AIs with a few million investable cash as the leverage indi players have is just too low, just go into a SGD bond fund instead. Find a top 10% peer group bond fund that buys into local bank, SIA, Singpost bonds and you are good to go for a 3-4% year on year returns with all the liquidity equivalent of a FD(takes about a week to sell) but with 2-3X more returns. Not to mention almost negligible standard deviation.

Go google United SGD Bond fund and see for yourself the returns and the "volatility" you claim under Standard Deviation. YTM stands at 2.9% with 2.1 years avg maturity.

Oh and this isn't even in the top 10% peer group. Yawns. Back to sleep.

Ha Ha... didnt you say : Afterall emotions triumph facts.
Just to address a few pts
1. i dont think i mention investing above S$50k in FD under 1 individual name . Please show me where i mentioned that if i did. I am well aware of the SDIC restrictions. But are you aware of how many banks there are ? And if you include spouse / parents / parents in law... one can easily spread the risk and still be within 50k per bank under 1 individual account name.
2. Like you mentioned, bonds have to be traded. And because you know now the fallacy of your argument and the risk of bonds vs fd as an investment… I see that you now are saying "dont want to confuse people..."
Please lah, u lose argument, dont say don’t confuse.. I am not the one whom tried to impress others or convince others that i know a lot about risk / returns and efficiency ..
And to quote , I believe you stated “I am always curious as to why young people (34) like yourself channel the majority of their savings into FD where a higher yield could be easily attained in bonds or even bond funds. Given that you don't seem to need the full 180k of liquidity.

Genuinely wants to understand your perspective, thanks!“
Then started a very lengthy post to show how trading bonds can yield better returns…And when told that bonds comes with risk… another lengthy post to try to impress others about your knowledge etc.
And when someone whom really knows their stuff challenges you, you are stretching your example to investing a FEW MILLION investable cash in bonds just to justify your argument for bonds…

180k to few million is a lot of hoops…

3. Finally, I think you are the kind whom write long post hoping to impress people to believe in theory when in fact, you dont know the basic or just starting out. Please dont quote stuff you just read from books and try to show how smart you are.

And to quote : as I expected, you would not understand what I wrote.

24 years old
 

24 years old Male
Diploma Holder
Working for 1 year 3 months in civil sector
Monthly gross about $3.4K including OTs
Bonus 2-3 months

Savings in cash = $17k
REIT Stock = $7k

How am I doing and and advice for me? 🙏

25 yo 2 years working exp
32k stocks
20k cash
17kt in alternative investments
10k in crypto
Salary 6.7k/mth
33k debts (excluding property loans)
own one property in Malaysia worth $230k

18 y/o, poly yr 2 student

Net worth about 80k SGD (All in Crypto)
Cash abt 5k SGD

How am i doing?

Nearly 10 years work experience. 34 years old.

Have two properties - paid off my parents' HDB, but still making payments on my own private property; around halfway there, still have about 700k left to pay off.

Have about 3-4k in various hard cash currencies lying around because of frequent work trips. Try to have at least 50k in the bank. Never dabbled in crypto, but I have another 15-20k in stocks.

Judging from this thread, I guess I'm fairly conservative.

Grisonis carrer
 

May I know if you are married?

How much is ur private property?

My private property that I'm paying off is to the sum of 1.2m; current value is probably 1.4 or 1.45 though. Not married. Don't plan to for the future, honestly. Had two bad experiences in a row that turned me off getting attached.