Need some advice here

[jurongeastboy]

Dear fellow Singaporean, I am 26 this year and have just graduated not long ago and is currently holding a full time position having a gross salary about 3k per month and taking home about only 2.4k
Due to my current family situation, I have to fork out 1.5k per month for my family bills, education loan repayment and etc and is left with only about 900 per month for my own usage. Recently I was studying on what I can do on investing because I wanted to start investing early but I just could not fork out a lump sum of money at the moment to do so. One method I researched on is to dollar cost averaging(DCA) into SPDR STI ETF using DBS upfront cash account every month consistently which will cost me about $350/month given the current pricing of the etf. My concern is whether is it viable to do this for a few years eg.5-10years or maybe there is better advice or alternatives that I might not heard of yet? Times are tough for me and my family these few years and I am currently working off to mainly clear all debts asap.

[Schlep]

Originally Posted by jurongeastboy

Dear fellow Singaporean, I am 26 this year and have just graduated not long ago and is currently holding a full time position having a gross salary about 3k per month and taking home about only 2.4k
Due to my current family situation, I have to fork out 1.5k per month for my family bills, education loan repayment and etc and is left with only about 900 per month for my own usage. Recently I was studying on what I can do on investing because I wanted to start investing early but I just could not fork out a lump sum of money at the moment to do so. One method I researched on is to dollar cost averaging(DCA) into SPDR STI ETF using DBS upfront cash account every month consistently which will cost me about $350/month given the current pricing of the etf. My concern is whether is it viable to do this for a few years eg.5-10years or maybe there is better advice or alternatives that I might not heard of yet? Times are tough for me and my family these few years and I am currently working off to mainly clear all debts asap.

DCA of $350/monthly using DBS Cash Upfront will cost you $10 per month in commission fees. Reason being commission is the maximum of $10 or 0.12%, whichever is higher. So even if you put in $9000 to DCA, you will also incur $10+ in commissions. That is 2.86% in commission, which is extremely high. I'd recommend you save up 12 months worth before DCA-ing.

Alternatively, go open a POSB Invest Saver Account and put in $300/month. That's only $3 in commissions.

When investing, take special care of the fees you are paying.

pay off your loan first la

[chancellor]

REITs? I think they are fairly low risk with good yields and don't require alot of monitoring of the market which i think you own't have time to.

Originally Posted by jurongeastboy

Dear fellow Singaporean, I am 26 this year and have just graduated not long ago and is currently holding a full time position having a gross salary about 3k per month and taking home about only 2.4k
Due to my current family situation, I have to fork out 1.5k per month for my family bills, education loan repayment and etc and is left with only about 900 per month for my own usage. Recently I was studying on what I can do on investing because I wanted to start investing early but I just could not fork out a lump sum of money at the moment to do so. One method I researched on is to dollar cost averaging(DCA) into SPDR STI ETF using DBS upfront cash account every month consistently which will cost me about $350/month given the current pricing of the etf. My concern is whether is it viable to do this for a few years eg.5-10years or maybe there is better advice or alternatives that I might not heard of yet? Times are tough for me and my family these few years and I am currently working off to mainly clear all debts asap.

Should you invest while in debt or service the debt first before investing.
Can the profit from my investment outperform the interest of my debt and commission?

If yes, go ahead with investing. Factor in interest of your debt+commission and compare to investment performance.

If no, clear your debt first. Every time you pay off your principal amount, you also chip of a part of your compound interest over the time needed to clear your debt.