Reflection of 2017

Today is the last day of 2017. Like previous years, I will grow reflective and think what I've done in the past year. I usually begin by asking questions to myself (and everyone) whether the year 2017 is a good year or not, and how anyone would grade this year out of 10. This year, I imagine having a conversation with myself, sort of an interview between me and myself. Interviewer: I Myself: M I: I'd like to ask you this question. How would you...

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30 things that I realised in 2017

1.You don’t know how tired you can get until you are a parent. It gives me a new perspective and now see my own parents in a different light. 2.If you don’t want to complain about work, have a kid. You will also see work in a different light because you can finally be ‘in-control’ of your life. You might even volunteer for OT. 3.Babies are manipulative little creatures. They flash a smile, and you suddenly forgot you haven’t slept well for the...

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Planning your end game after FF

There is a reddit share about a person in the US who had already reached financial independence without being married and having kids, but had a lot of other non-financial issues to deal with. For example, he talked about how to let his close family and friends know about his new found status, yet he does not want to lie about it. He has issues with being honest with them without being taken advantage or being probed at. There is also the existential...

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Networth update in 2017

Another year is almost coming to a close. This year is yet another fantastic year for me. Every year seems to be fantastic to me, so either I'm delusional or I'm really happy with my life. I'm going for the latter haha! The last time I did my networth update is around the same time last year, back in 2nd Dec 2016 here. To clarify, this is my networth, not the networth of my household. There are so many ways to calculate networth, but I've always...

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I'm officially retired!

I'm officially retired...for the year. Due to the nature of my job, I have about 2 to 3 months of relatively free work. It's my eat-grass season and my winter month. This obviously affects my income, because I'm probably earning like 20% of my 'normal' months. Every year, I'll face this forced retirement and I've come a long way to deal with the uncertainty and the emotions that comes with it. This article will share my thoughts about the emotions...

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Migration of email

I read from Investingmoat's article here that Yahoo finance is not functioning anymore, hence it affected the spreadsheet to track one's portfolio. I knew this would happen one day. Yahoo finance used to be my number 1 get to site to get things on finance, but after Yahoo had been bought over, things just started to break apart at the seams. After yet another series of email hacks, I finally threw in the towel and said my goodbye to the very...

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Debut of the Wizard and the Fighter-rogue

The four of them stood at the cavern entrance to the mythical beast. They had sailed great oceans and climbed ragged mountains to reach where they are standing now. The wizard took out his spellbook and did some last minute memorisation of the needed spells, while the fighter-rogue adjusted her utility belt, double checking that all the tricks of her trade are right where they are. Both of them are anxious. They looked at each other’s eyes, thinking...

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Getting the most out of a Rights Exercise

Just got news that Capitacom trust (CCT) is issuing rights to acquire Asia square towers 2. It's a 166 per 1000 shares @ $1.363, renounceable rights issue. This means that for every 1000 mother shares you hold before it goes ex-rights (XR), you are entitled to 166 shares of rights, which you then need to go to the ATM before a dateline is up to subscribe to it by paying $1.363 per right shares. Here's the timeline for the major events of the...

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3 buckets of time revisited

Haven't really blogged out any article for nearly a month because I was busy with work. It's my peak season now before I can have my well deserved rest towards the end of the year. This year is qualitatively different from any years that I've been through, but I will blog about such things when my work for this year truly dwindles down. I want to talk about the 3 buckets of time and I've been spending quite a while thinking about it. I had written...

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The 4 Seasons (part 2)

I wrote a article about the different seasons using the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) indicator here. In it, I talked about how the four seasons can be characterised objectively by looking at the slope and the positivity/negativity of the histogram. Let's see if we can replicate that into another indicator - the moving average. There are a few kinds of moving average, and usually I'm using exponential moving average (EMA) because...

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My little life coach

Time flies. My son is nearly 7 months old now and personally, it feels like I've had him for like 7 years. They say that the day passes slowly, but the years spin by fast. I totally agree. Each day leads to night and the night merges into day again, so while you're doing your routine and trying to get by each day, you'll realise that months or years had gone by without you noticing. Now that the 'honey moon' period for being a first time father...

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Surviving vs Thriving

There's a difference between surviving and thriving. When you're surviving, you care only about the bare essentials to maintain status quo. When you're thriving, you strive to exceed and improve the current situation. Both requires different mentality and preparation. I share with you some examples in our daily lives: 1. Taking care of children I think I'm still at the surviving mode. I feed, shower, change and make sure the baby is alive. But...

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CDL Htrust rights are out

The CDL H trust rights are out. I applied with DBS atm and I've received the refund this morning already. I don't have any mother shares before the whole rights exercise and before it goes XR, I bought 3000 mother shares at $1.645 each. My entitled rights for this 5 for 1 rights issue @ $1.28 means that I have 600 entitled rights. I applied for excess rights and got 500 shares. In summary: Mother shares: 3,000 Price of mother share before...

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The 6 Errors in Month-end Accounting

Every first of each month, I'll do my month end accounting for the previous month. This means that I will do a bank reconciliation to make sure that all the accounts are properly tallied and accounted for. Today, when I was doing the same thing I had been doing for years, I realised I had a surplus of $1k. That is, my actual cash that I counted had about $1k more than the amount that is reflected digitally. This is usually a happy problem for some,...

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A second that lasted for eternity

There's so many things to take picture of and to take videos of, especially when you have a kid. There are kind advice to take more videos and pictures so that you can remember those special 'first' that happened for your child. I remembered that when I was younger, I don't really have much photos to show for. But at the very least, I have some photos to show for. My parents had a lot lesser, and my grandparents even less so. Perhaps each major...

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We all have our own poison

What's your poison? Everyone has one. For some, it could be expensive branded watches. For others, it could be handbags with Italian names on it. But a poison need not be expensive things too. It could be something that is 'costly' to your free time, like painting or doing models of tanks etc. It's just something you would willingly go to in your free time. For those who fuel their poison by spending a disproportionate amount of their salary into...

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Bigscribe mega event of the year: Investors Exchange 2017

Bigscribe is having a mega event, called Investors Exchange 2017, this July. Those who know Bigscribe and had attended their value for money talk would know that everyone takes away something of value from attending the talk, so this mega event is no difference. Here's the line up of the speakers and their topics: Teh Hooi Ling - Strategies for successful equities investing She is a former SPH journalist and author of the "Show me the Money" series....

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My first Father's day

Today is my first Father's day. It's usually a quiet event, unlike Mother's day, but I like it because it's a quiet event. I don't need fancy roses or wild celebration or chocolate cakes; just a nod, an appreciation and a pat on the back is good enough. It's a team effort, where the glory is not for any individual parent but for the entire family, together as one. I rehashed this old post, which I still think is very meaningful. Perhaps now, as...

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