A very long reflection of 2018

My baby just fell asleep, so I had to myself an hour or so to reflect on the year 2018. I started off by looking at the diary app that I had been conscientiously writing every night before I go to sleep. Here's a few highlights monthly:


Jan: Went Bangkok for a trip with my wife, but not with son. Left him with my mum back in Singapore, and happily so! We're so tired and we need to take care of ourselves. Looking back, we're so...noob being parents, haha! Perhaps the new year 2019 will see me bringing him along. Already done up his passport.

Feb: Looking back, I realised I was too reliant on my mum to take care of the baby. When she wasn't around, I was complaining how hard it was to manage the whole day. These days, I can take care of everything and more, alone, with nary a complain. I've improved a lot over the months.

Mar: Met up with a bunch of bloggers at Canton Paradise. Some of them I met only once a year, so it's great to catch up with them.

Apr: My son fell sick, and all hell broke loose. As mentioned, I'm not a very good parent. Not skillful enough at doing the task and also just generally tired. There are so many posts talking about how tired I am taking care of the kid. Too many. Oh, and my son started walking in 4-5 steps. Milestone achieved.

May: Mum had a fall while crossing the road, and fractured her wrist. Had to send her to the nearest emergency department. Could have been worse. Looking back, I think this is the catalyst that made us truly take care the care of our son from my mum. Without her fall, we could still be relying on her and not learning the care-taking part fast enough. It's true - everything that happens, happens for the best. My son also fell sick, a major one.

Jun: My air conditioner is spoilt. In bloody hot june. In the end I had to change the compressor. My son started to develop a mind of his own and insist on doing things his own way. Can't control him against his will (as easily) as before now. I see that as a good sign, not a bad one. I'm also starting to act like the disciplinarian of the family, which is quite startling to me. I thought my wife is the one. And we had discussed about it before! We all got a plan until we got punched in the face. Also met up with another group of Investingnote friends (let's call it that) at Singpost center.

July: After eating some prawns, I had rashes all over me. Thankfully it subsided and no further action required. Started learning python programming by reading the text myself. Brought my son out to the airport - the first time ever. It was such a pleasant experience that we ended up going there almost every week. If you see a couple chasing after a cute botak kid, that's likely me. Oh, and I went there today too. Son called me 'papa'. Not the first time, but the clearest I've ever heard from him. My heart melted at that instant. Started test driving my current car too. COE must have dropped enough to make me test drive new cars.

Aug: Son had diarrhea while we're out going to the doc for his vaccination. On a day that I decided not to bring any diapers because it had been fine all along and it's a short trip. I learnt my lesson very well. I ALWAYS bring along diapers now. Bought a new laptop for my wife. Son started climbing flights of stairs on his own. Back then, he was managed maybe 1 floor. Now, he is doing 3 floors of stairs, and doing it repeatedly up and down for 6 to 8 times. That is progress.

Sept: Went ahead and booked a new car. Met up with my long-lost primary school friends. Even my teacher is there. The entire block of my HDB flat had a blackout, which lasted for a few hours. Sold my old car to a dealer. A bit sad to see it go, but I knew it was a right choice.

Oct: Collected the new car. The smell of a new car is ...over-rated. Started going to the library more often as my work starts winding down. I'm still trying to hit my 30 books a year target. Majority of work is done.

Nov: Went omakase dinner at Teppei sushi. Wasn't up to my expectations though. Been going out a lot with my son. I realised I'm very proficient at taking care of him now. Going to send my kid to a childcare centre in 2019.

Dec: Met up with a group of friends for steamboat dinner. Had a lot of fun, though most of them are strangers. Had a very quiet Christmas and a very quiet new year's eve. Just the way I like it. I also deleted facebook and messenger app from my handphone. No more of it.


If not for the diary, I would have forgotten most of these stuff. Looking back the year by browsing through all the daily entries is really a very good exercise to be grateful for what had happened and also to have faith that whatever is happening now, is happening for the best.

Since I'm a self employed, I also noted that my working hours had reduced by about 12%, leading to a corresponding drop in income by about 12% too. I don't really care about that as long as my savings goals are reached (it is). The time that I didn't spend working, I spend it all on my family. I think with the new responsibility as an involved daddy, it's inevitable that I will reduce my working hours. I had to. There's always a cost to everything, of course, but I think as long as my savings goals are achieved, anything more is just a bonus. I'm okay with the reduced working hours and income. 2019 might be a better year for me, as my order book had been more or less filled up to a comfortable level. We shall see.

My investment portfolio had a time-weighted return of -7.7%, doing worse than STI's -6.6%. XIRR for 2018 is -8.4%. It's auto calculated from stocks cafe. I think it's actually worse than that, because stockscafe didn't include the suspended Hyflux perps that I had. In my own spreadsheet I had already treated it as totally gone. So be it. 2018 is a tough year for most people, and I know I'm not one of those investment greats with double digits gains, lol! My strength is not in investment, but in my active income and savings. And I'm very sure I'll still achieve some sort of financial freedom in 10-15 yrs time. That's comfort enough for me. I'm not dying to hang up tutor's boots anytime soon.

And just as I'm very well trained in my current parental role, the new year 2019 brings along new challenges as I'm going to send him to a child-care center. Starting half day first but planning to put him for longer hours. I heard the first few months will be enduring illness and also the heart breaking of leaving a child in a strange place. I'm a bit apprehensive, but I'm sure by the end of 2019, I'll be looking back in hindsight and seeing that as a wonderful decision.

I don't really do new year resolutions, believing more towards long term plans. So there's nothing 'new' that I resolve to do for the coming new year. It's the same old boring stuff:

1) Save at least 30k, preferably 50k and above
2) Read at least 30 books
3) Cultivate peace of mind and gratefulness

Verdict:

Attack of Takashi castle - SUCCESS!

Since 2018 is better than 2017, I'll give myself 5 stars out of 5 stars again, LOL! I know how it sounded - a bit self-congratulatory and delusional perhaps. Punch me :)

Wishing everyone great health, great relationship and great wealth in the coming new year 2019!

Read More

2018 viewed in the eyes of the books

I set up a goal to read 52 books way back in 2007. I saw the list of all the books I've read, all typed out neatly in a Microsoft word document spanning over 11 pages in size 10 font. It was easily the best habit I've adopted and the effects are still rippling through me. It has been 12 yrs since I started this habit, and still going strong. I was a little behind my reading list last year when I only read 11 books, and that's because I just became a father, and so it took some time for me to discover my new roles and to carve out personal time for reading.

This year 2018 is so much better. I didn't shirk away from any fatherly duties but I integrated the duties together with my reading. How? I read more physical books instead of ebooks so that my son adopt a reading culture. After several months of me reading physical books, he no longer disturbs me. He sort of understands this is what I do, and hopefully, when he is able to read on his own, he will see that reading is part and parcel of our family.

I also read more books from Singaporean authors. I've no idea why I started reading more local books. Maybe as we get older, we start to think more nostalgically about the concept of home. Or maybe I finally get over the revulsion which is English literature, a much-hated subject that I took in school but I know I love deep in my soul. The subject usually uses local literature together with the usual core of Shakespeare to inject a local flavour. I hated it because I don't think I've had good passionate teachers, or maybe truthfully, I am not of the right age and of the right mind at that point in time. Nevertheless, I started devouring those from the nearby national library.

Here's the list of books read in 2018. Again, I'll pick a couple of memorable books.

Singapore, Incomplete - Cherian George
Rise of the King - R.A Salvatore
Night of the Hunter - R.A. Salvatore
Roll out the champagne, Singapore! - Catherine Lim
Timeless: A Drizzt novel - R.A Salvatore
Sayonara Singapore - Parapuram Joseph John
Factfulness - Hans Rosling
Sundays with Sumiko - Sumiko Tan
The good earth (graphic novel) - Pearl S. Buck/Nick Bertozzi
Tall Order: The Goh Chok Tong story - Shing Huei Peh
Billion dollar whale - Tom Wright / Bradley Hope
My best with honour - William Wan
Bang my car - Ann Ang
Quiet girl in a noisy world - Debbie Tung
Dying to meet you - Angjolie Mei
Personality driven portfolio - Sam Phoen
Conscious Parenting - Dr. Shefali Tsbary
Internal drive theory - Dr. Petunia Lee
Good grief! - Alan John
Raising financially savvy kids - Ernest Tan
Starting out with python - Tony Gaddis
Orange is the new black - Piper Kerman
The myth of the spoiled child - Alfie Kohn
This is how inequality looks like - Teo You Yenn
Tribe of mentors - Tim Ferriss
Skin in the game - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Never split the difference - Chris Voss
Montessori from the start - Paula Polk Lillard/Lynn Lillard Jessen
The Undoing Project - Michael Lewis
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Child Development - Laura E. Berk

1) Singapore, Incomplete - Cherian George

This is my first introduction to Cherian George. I know he is a controversial figure, and I first know about him when he was denied tenure-ship in NTU. This book is about a series of essays, which are pretty friendly to read. They are not written for academics, so it's fit for consumption by everyone. The essays, sometimes like blog articles by yours truly, touches on various topics and themes that concern Singaporeans and Singapore. I thought they are very good, thought-provoking. I especially like the last essay, titled "Accidental losers". It talked about SG50 celebration in 2015, so 1990 should be the SG25 celebration right? Alas no, SG25 celebration was in 1984. Why is that a 6 yrs difference? Is history being re-written and for what purpose?

I might dig out more books from the local library penned by the same author. I like his style.

2) Internal drive theory - Dr. Petunia Lee

I've heard of this book before and only when I chanced upon it in the local library that I actually borrowed and read it. This book is useful, both professionally for me as a tutor and also as a parent. In fact, I found it so useful that I wrote a detailed summary of the entire book in order for me to revise and revisit them in leisure when I needed the lessons again in the future. I like the author's principles with regards to studying, in that she not only wants students to do well, but to do well because they themselves wanted to do so. Interwoven with the theory, there are personal examples of how she treated her own children in various case scenarios. I found that very helpful in interpreting the theory. This is like Robert Cialdini's classic Persuasion, but written for kids and specifically in the context of encouraging them to study. I'm into books that delves into the science and art of motivation, so will gladly devour anything that falls within that sphere. This is one of the special ones that I know I'll keep coming back to.

I highly recommend all parents to read this. If you're a tutor or teacher teaching primary school kids, I think this is great too.                       

3) Skin in the game - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

NNT is another of my favourite modern philosopher and author, and I'll gladly read anything by him. This book essentially gives the reader a framework to evaluate if someone has skin in the game. I like this chapter titled "Surgeons should not look like surgeons". In it, he talks about choosing a surgeon who looks like a butcher, works as a surgeon but totally doesn't look the part of a surgeon. The fact that he succeeds as one despite his appearance is an indication that he is the real McCoy. Among all his books, I find this the most friendly and accessible, with lots of everyday examples that people should be able to relate to.

If in 2019, you are going to read only one book, then let it be this.

4) Never split the difference - Chris Voss

If you've read Robert Cialdini's Persuasion and the more recent Pre-suasion, then I think you'll find Chris Voss's Never split the difference taking on the topic with a different feel. Robert Cialdini's approach is more academic and scientific, with all the controlled laboratory-based experiments. Chris Voss's approach is born from the fire of actual FBI hostage negotiation. There are no controls, no academic reports to write at the end of each negotiation - only humans lives saved or lost in the process. So he only talks about what works, based on his experience dealing with stressful high stakes negotiation in real life. This is a book that is worth re-reading because I'm very sure it doesn't sink in with the first reading.

Highly recommended to all who are interested in the science and art of motivation.

5) The Undoing project - Michael Lewis

This book has the characteristic smell of the works of Michael Lewis, the author of Liar's Poker. He talks about Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and how they came to destroy the notion of human beings being rational. Like his past works, Michael Lewis starts from the very beginning and leads us to understand and empathize with these two persons, leading us to understand why they think as they do and why they write as they wrote. He expertly weaves in personal anecdotes and shows us as readers how that little incident can lead to a particular point in their lives. The two friends are like lovers, started off inseparable, but eventually becoming strained in their relationship. A very lovely read. 

I will personally read anything written by Michael Lewis.

Read More

Networth update in 2018

2018 is a rather slack year for me. I don't think I work as hard as I do in previous years in terms of work, so the time that is otherwise spent working is channeled to my family, especially my growing child. This year is also a bad year for those who invested in equities. It seems like if you put money under your pillow, you'll end up being better. Will it affect my net-worth? Let's see.

The last I wrote on my net-worth was back in 1st Dec 2017, here. I'm going to do the same below.

There are so many ways to calculate networth, but I've always done mine this way. It's essentially assets minus liabilities but how you define assets and liabilities makes all the difference. Like in the past, I excluded the asset part of my stay-in property, but included the liabilities portion. This year I incurred new debts too, in the form of a car loan of 3 yrs. I'm also not going to include the value of my car in the assets part, but will include the liabilities part.

The assets part include:

1. Cash in my wallet
2. All the money in my various bank accounts
3. Cash holdings under mattress and milo tins at home
4. Money in my paypal account
5. All the money in the 3 accounts in my CPF
6. Money market fund account
7. Marked to market investment portfolios
8. Surrender cash value of whole life insurance plans

Again, I do not include the value of my 5 room flat that I'm currently staying in, and also the value of the family car that I own.

The liabilities part include:

1. Credit card bills
2. My portion of the HDB mortgage loan (total remaining loan amount divided by 2)
3. My portion of the car loan I took this year (total remaining loan amount divided by 2)

Here goes:

2014: Assets: $226k, Liabilities: $220k, Networth: $6k
2015: Assets: $295k, Liabilities: $207k, Networth: $87k
2016: Assets: $351k, Liabilities: $188k, Networth: $163k
2017: Assets: $449k, Liabilities: $182k, Networth: $267k
2018: Assets: $483k, Liabilities: $191k, Networth: $291k

There's a few things I should be glad and grateful for in 2018. Firstly, despite the downturn in the stock market, my networth is still up. Of course it didn't go up as much, like the crazy almost 100k increase from 2016 to 2017, but the fact that it is still positive is good enough for me. This year is also when I paid a hefty down payment for my new car, so that is also why the asset didn't go up as much. Secondly, overall I saved about 55k this year and that surprises me. These days, I no longer consciously check how much I saved. Just perhaps a brief look every half a year or so to make sure I'm generally on the right track. Not all the savings are in cash too, because I transferred a part of it into my CPF to fulfill my self-employed contribution, and also to shore up my OA for my reserves. My work income dropped a bit, but my dividends pushed it up, so net net I'm not that far off. That is exactly what the dividends are for, and I'm thankful for stabilizing my income.

Market can go up and down, but my net worth must go up all the time. That's the philosophy that I adhere to. If not, there's nothing to show for at the end of a year of hard work.

Financially, there's more things to look forward for year 2019. It looks like my work income is going to have a boost as I have a very robust order book for the coming year. If all things go according to plan, I should be running when Jan 2019 comes, instead of strolling. There's also more expenses to come, because I'm sending my child to a child-care center next year.

Till December 2019 then!

Read More

Nuances of financial independence

When we talk about financial independence, it suggest that we are trying to stand alone and be self sufficient. It reminds me of those doomsday preppers, where they store their own preserved food, carefully canning them to hoard a stash of years to come. Self-sufficiency is the key. And for a while, I thought that model is what I aspire to become too.


After becoming a father, I saw from first principles how relationships are formed. My boy is the catalyst to forging new relationships. He is like the fire in the forge, melting hard cold steel together. I think my neighbor's place is like a second home to him. They are a couple with an adult child that had long since flew off the nest to start a new life. Hence, they welcomed my boy with open arms each time. It started from there, then my mum starts preparing some meals for them, and before I knew it, our relationship had elevated to just mere acquaintance. As my boy runs around in his whirlwind of activity, he spreads joy all around him. Strangers sometimes step in to help him when he falls while I stand there and just observe (I don't tend to help him unless it's serious; and it's seldom serious). The entire market near my home probably knows him, and because of my boy, I share with him the joy of having new found friends. This is not something I do very well, as I tend to keep to myself. Don't we all?


Humans are not meant to be isolated. And so when we talk about financial independence, we should steer away from the idea of being self-sufficient. There is value in being dependent on others, but the key is whether you have the strength to let others be dependent on you as well. That is how new relationships are formed. You treat me a meal, next time I treat me, ad infinitum. There is something to look forward to, and the relationship is sustained through such relational transactions. If you're self-sufficient, and I'm self-sufficient, and I don't want to owe favours to you because I want to maintain self-sufficiency, then the whole thing breaks down. I know I'm in a better relationship with someone if I'm getting fuzzy with money. I'm very sensitive to money and that's how my mind works, but I don't necessarily show it. If I want to strengthen a relationship from acquaintance to friends, I will get more and more fuzzy about money. On the other hand, if I just see someone as a hi-bye acquaintance, I'll pay the exact right down to the cents. I won't want to owe them any favours because I don't want to have to expend the energy and time to return it.


No relational transactions equals no relationship.


What has this got to do with financial independence? I want to be financially free so that I can have the freedom to build deeper relationships. With whom, with what? I want to build deeper relationships with my family, but more importantly, to expand my circle of what is commonly termed 'family' so that it grows bigger and bigger to encompass more people. It is NOT based on an ideology of self sufficiency, but that of mutual dependence, and hence as a result, creating deeper relationships with people. Family shouldn't be just related by blood; it should be defined by how much blood you are willing to shed for another being, and him to you.

And now I know why I dislike the idea of 'FU' money. It is so antagonistic. It implies the breaking down of relationship with a certain degree of arrogance and anger in it too. It suggest you want to flip the table and flip someone the bird.


No, that is not what I aspire to be. Someone is looking up to me as a model, and thus I must be exemplary in conduct and manner.

Read More

Children as great teachers

I used to hate putting my child to bed. It might take anything from 1 hour to 2.5 hours. You might want to have your child sleeping at 8pm sharp, but that will never happen. He'll toss and turn, he'll play around, he'll do anything except sleep. In the past, this used to vex me, because I was mentally counting the personal time that I had left. I love my kid, but hey, I've been looking after him for the good part of the day, and daddy needs some personal time alone to be 'myself' again. Out of 12 waking hours, surely having 2 hours alone is not an unreasonable request?

Apparently so. Just 5 mins ago, my son finally fell asleep. We tried putting him to bed at 9pm, so that was 1.5 hours of trying hard not to doze off while trying to make him doze off. It was only after a few months of dreading this nightly routine that I came to the realisation that it was not him who needed to sleep on time, but me who needed to let go of whatever is on my mind and live at the present with him. That thought freed me from the shackles of a regulated schedule and made me fully enjoy being with him. Yes, even those fussy moments when he just didn't want to sleep.

That's the essence of being a parent. It's not so much about the kid who needs to adjust to you, but more about you adjusting to the kid. If you see children as spiritual mentors who are here to educate you, then things are much easier. What have I changed to adjust to my child?

1. I started reading more physical books. I have a few e-book readers but in order to inculcate the habit of reading to him (or perhaps the culture of reading), I've been borrowing more physical books from the library. If we're not reading to him, we'll be reading in front of him. I seldom see a child that is a voracious reader and the parents are not. Not impossible, but it's just less likely.

2. I'm using an electric toothbrush for almost a year now. I wished I had it when I was much younger because it was such a great cleaning tool. But it seems I will now have to switch to analogue toothbrush now because I need to teach him how to use a toothbrush real soon. There are reports of children having very bad tooth decay at a very young age. As a compromise, perhaps in the morning when he's up I'll use the analogue one, and when at night after he fell asleep, I can use back the digital one. At least with that, I won't have to sacrifice my tooth for his!

There are many such incidents but I think I'll not bore readers with such mundane details. Suffice to say, before you want your child to change, perhaps you as the parent should begin and lead the way. Children are super sensitive towards double-standard. You smart, but they are not stupid too.

Read More

Cars as memory markers

There was a time when I thought I will never get a new car. Why pay a premium for the smell of ‘newness’, I said. That was part of a conversation that I had with my wife many years ago. It goes something along the line that when we retire (without kids at that point in time), we should ‘heck care’ and get a 2 seater mini coupe to drive. That was when we had a debate on the merits of buying a new vs pre-owned car. You can see which side we are won over because we went on to have 2 pre-owned cars.

Each of our pre-owned cars represents a certain epoch of our lives. Our very first Mazda 2 hatchback represents a very significant change in my career. I had been going around on public transport for 30 over years. My tuition career back then involves going around in Singapore to my student’s home. It was a very tough period because, in my peak season, I could be going around to 4 or 5 different homes over the span of one day. With the waiting time and travelling time, I could be spending another 2 hours just to get to the venue where I will work. My meal times are not included because I will eat on the go, or just spend like 10 mins eating at the nearby hawker centre or fast food. Or, I could be eating a very late dinner at 1130pm. It was crazy, and I knew it was unsustainable especially when I have a family in the future. The purchase of our first car changed all that. It practically erased the annoying waiting time and so I can go to and from work with a lot more reserve energy at the end of a super long day. To me, saving and protecting my reserve of energy is far more important than the monetary value of the car. During those times, I don't have much life after work and this is important for me.

Our very first Mazda 2 hatchback

The first car is also the car that we went around Singapore, going to different places that we normally wouldn’t go on public transport. We could be having lunch at Liang Court, then pop over to Suntec city for a coffee and then back to Bedok for grocery shopping. It was ideal for us as a couple as we had a lot of utility for the car and the travelling to different places created a lot of experiences and happy memories. When times are tough in taking care of our baby, this is always the epoch that we will reminiscence. We’ll say in our past life, we used to watch a movie without a care in the world. Or, in our past life, we used to spend the whole weekend outside just trying out different cafes.

So you can imagine how hard it was to let go of our first car. Understandably, my wife cried when we handed it over to the dealer. It was like letting a part of our memories go. That was the end of the first epoch.

Our second car is also a Mazda 2, but this time it’s a sedan and not a hatchback. We bought it over from a dear friend, who is also a financial blogger. While our first Mazzie, as we affectionately call it, was a little cranky with the air-conditioned sometimes spewing hot air, this new Mazzie was in a very good condition. Personally, I would never go for a bright red car, but we have to work with what we have. This brings about the second epoch in our lives. If the first epoch signifies my change in career and a focus on living together as a couple, then the second epoch represents the start of my journey as a father and for my wife, a mother.

Our second Mazzie 2, a rare sedan instead of the usual hatchback

It was during this epoch that I learnt for the first time I’ve become a father. With this new Mazzie, I will always remember driving my wife to the hospital for her checkups and also eventually for the delivery of the baby. It was in this car that two persons went but three persons came back. We sneaked out after the confinement period to breathe a little and came back with a bagful of groceries each time. We installed baby seats for our little one, and also had very memorable trips when we can still carry him around while he looks around the world he inherited with his big curious eyes. When he grew a little older, he even recognised the car among all the cars in the car park and will run-walk over to Mazzie, waiting to be carried into this throne in the car. I’ll remember this Mazda 2 as our baby car and it represents our transition into parenthood. Our previous identity as a couple is all but wiped out with the coming of this car.

And that brings us to the third epoch with our newest car. It is the very first car that we bought that is not pre-owned. It’s a Hyundai Elantra that was bought at a steal when the COE comes tumbling down from its zenith just one or two years ago. I know how silly this will sound when the COE plunges even lower, but let me have my fantasy. As mentioned earlier, I thought that I will never ever buy a new car in my lifetime, but I did. It was very exciting viewing the car, waiting for the car to drop to our price range and eventually buying it

Our 3rd car: Hyundai elantra. So, do we call it Trannie or Lannie? LOL

What new adventures and new experience will this new epoch represent? What new memories will we create together as a family of 3? I suspect it has a lot to do with bringing out son to the zoo, the bird parks, Sentosa, science centre and all the other ‘touristy’ attractions. It will also be about bringing him to enrichment classes, ferrying him to and from school and all the other admin runs. This car will witness our son growing from a babbling toddler to a talkative primary school kid taking PSLE.

I wait with bated breath to soak in all these experiences.

Read More

My thoughts on the Mid-year exams removal

There are quite a few people in my circle asking me what I think of this news here. This news is regarding the planned removal of the mid-year exams for primary 3 and 5, as well as secondary 1 and 3. The intention is to withdraw from the narrow focus on grades so that students can discover the joy of learning. I can put on two hats to analyse this. One is that of a parent and the other is that of a tutor.

As a parent:

1) My first thought is that there will be less feedback on how my child is performing in schools. As a result, I will get more anxious as the whole focus will now be on the final year exams.

2) I will have to spend more time and effort to check if my children really understand what is happening in school. There are no more mid-year exams to alert me to take actions or to remedy the situation.

3) With the removal of the mid-year, will there will more of the less formal assessment and grading? If that's the case, then the stress is not concentrated on 2 major exams, but throughout the school semester.

As a tutor:

1) There are usually more students signing up after major exams. One is in May (mid-year exams) and the other is around Oct (final year exams). With the removal of the mid-year exams, my first thought is that I might have fewer students signing up. Thinking about it a bit more, I think it'll work out to be the same. Now my intake of new students will probably come towards the end of the year.

2) I kind of like it that there are no mid-year exams now because currently, it is one major disruption to teaching. Every time there is a major exam coming, I will have to stop teaching and focus on revision and drilling. That's not teaching. It's super boring for me and super boring for the students as well. With the removal of the mid-year exams, I will probably have to test the student's understanding myself. That might be better and should have a better workflow.

3) Without a reason to study, some students might really slack throughout the year and study seriously only towards the end. With the removal of intermediate assessment, I hope I won't have to face more attitudinal problems when tutoring.

4) Those vendors selling mid-year exams packages either huat because these are now precious resources, or they will lose a lot of revenue because now nobody will be buying them. Somehow, I think it's more likely to be the former than the latter. Each package can cost up to $50, consisting of several top schools and worked solutions. It can be serious money for a one-time effort in compiling.

5) Those tutors who are not so good might end up having less 'grading', since there is no feedback mechanism for the parents to tell if their children had improved, and so neither can they tell if the tutors had helped in their children's grades or not. It might be harder to differentiate between the good tutors and the truly bad ones since it's now an annual assessment of the tutor's prowess in teaching vs semi-annual assessment.

Read More

The returns of OCBC 5.1% preference shares

I bought the OCBC preference shares, OCC 5.1% NCPS, a while ago for my parent's retirement funds. I didn't even know that OCBC had redeemed back the perp on their first call date until I saw the capital returned to my bank account. Another one bites the dust... So how had it performed? Let's take a look at the details:

1st tranche:

Buy date: 3rd-Feb-2014
A) Buy price: $106.10
B) Quantity: 100 shares
C) Comms paid for buying: $37.19
D) Dividend collected: $2551.40
E) Total profits: 100*B + D - 100*A - C = $1904.21
F) Recall date: 20th Sept 2018
G) Total duration: 4.63 yrs
H) Total % profit: E/(100*A + C)*100 = 17.88%
I) % returns/yr = H/G = 3.86% per annum

2nd tranche:

Buy date: 14-Jan-2015
A) Buy price: $106
B) Quantity: 100 shares
C) Comms paid for buying: $36.30
D) Dividend collected: $2041.39
E) Total profits: 100*B + D - 100*A - C = $1405.09
F) Recall date: 20th Sept 2018
G) Total duration: 3.68 yrs
H) Total % profit: E/(100*A + C)*100 = 13.21%
I) % returns/yr = H/G = 3.58% per annum


I think the returns per annum is pretty decent, especially at those times where the Singapore savings bond is not even available yet. Those are the times when the interest rate is super low. In fact, so low that I am compelled to help my parents because their default action is to put into fixed deposit.

I'm glad I didn't screw it up for them.

Read More

17 months of being a father

After nearly 17 months of being a father, I think I have that little bit of experience to talk about the changes that happened to me. The changes are significant enough that sometimes me and wife will say BC and AC, which stands for Before Child and After Child.

"Oh, we used to be able to watch movies in the cinema BC 2012...", laments the wife.

"This is AC 2018, I don't think we can afford to have a late lunch at Tim Ho Wan at 2pm anymore...", I complained.

Of course, mothers and fathers experienced the changes differently, but I think we seldom hear about the fathers' side to the story. I'm here to share.

1. I am much more expressive now. I didn't know I can smile so much. This little boy of mine is like a second ray of sunlight. The first is, of course, my wife. I think my life will be so much blander without them.

2. I didn't know I can survive so long without proper sleep for so long. After a few days of less than 5 hours of sleep, every day starts to feel the same. Everything is like the copy of a copy of a copy. In my line of work as a tutor, I sometimes feel the merging of weekdays and weekends. I might be eating lunch and I'll suddenly pop a question, asking which day it is today. This effect seems to be exacerbated by lack of sleep. On the flip side, I think my insomnia is cured temporarily.

3. Before having a kid, I thought my life was very good already. I don't think how having a child can make my life any better; I seriously thought so. After having a kid, I didn't know how I could live my life without one. Every little thing seems to take in more meaning. I think my life before having a kid seems too indulgent. Too much time wasted on frivolous things. Of course, back then, it didn't feel like that.

4. I never stopped worrying for my kid. Before he was born, I'm worried he might have genetic flaws. After he was born, I'm worried that his hearing might have some issues. After a few months, I'm worried about his jaundice. When he still hasn't started crawling, I worried maybe there are some issues with this mobility. Up till now, he is a little slower than the median month where kids are already speaking, so I'm worried if there is anything wrong.

So you can't imagine how relieved (and proud) when he started calling very clearly, papa and mama, just a day ago. I think I'll never stop worrying about him. That's parenthood.

5. I don't know how to fly a kite, but I think it's similar to parenting. There are times you must let go and times you must rein the kite in. Hold too tightly, the kite won't fly high. Held too loosely, the kite will drop too quickly.


Is it all worth it? I guess that question depends on how quickly you shed your role as an individual or as a couple living together. The sooner you accept that your life will never be the same again, the faster you can adapt to the new one that is thrust straight to you. I think it'll be a very long time until I can sleep for 8 hours, or I can just go out on a whim around midnight to Mustafa to go grocery shopping. Those times are fun and memorable, but they are over.

A new season dawns on me, and I think it will also have its own beautiful scenery to admire.

Read More

On why we do anything

There are 3 reasons why we have to do anything:

1) We want to do it
2) We have to do it
3) We do it so others don't have to do it

Reason (1) is more ego-centric, where we focus on the needs of ourselves. Reason (3) is more focused on the needs of a larger community of which we are a part of. 

This concept came to me when I observed my 17-month-old child transition from (1) to (2). Initially, all the things he does is just because he wants to do it. As he slowly understands our household rules, and later, the rules of the society of which he is a part of, he starts doing things because he has to. He might not like it and it might not be what he wants to do, but he will have to do it. I have not seen him doing things because of reason (3) and hopefully, that will come when he gets older.

I have an example that illustrates these 3 reasons - that of clearing trays in hawker centres. Usually, nobody wants to do the dirty work of clearing trays. In Tampines, at the site of the old Tampines stadium, there is a food court when there is an automated tray clearing thing that looks somewhat like those conveyor belt system carrying plates of sushi around. I thought that was pretty cool, so I really wanted to clear my trays just to see how it works. I guess the novelty wears off after a while. But when do we really have to clear trays? Maybe when they start charging a fine? Or giving an incentive? In another perspective, the cleaner is the one who has to clear the trays, because he/she is employed for that purpose.

The really interesting part comes when we talk about clearing our own trays so that others don't have to do it for us. Or we clear trays left by others that are not even on our table so that a person carrying a tray of hot food does not have to clear it. I thought that idea really gels with the philosophy of leaving the place better than when we came in. I think the Japanese are really great at this. We always read reports of Japanese football fans picking up rubbish and clearing the place after the event ended.

I also realised that after having a kid, I tend to do things based on reason (3) more often. My wife and I are the primary care-takers and we have no domestic helpers. After work, I'm usually tired and what I really wanted to do is to have my own me-time to recuperate. But I have to do some baby stuff so that my wife doesn't have to do it. I mean there's only me and her. If not me, then who? Perhaps I can also extend this idea to the larger society, treating them like my family. If I don't do things, then who shall do it? If I see a piece of rubbish on the streets, and I didn't throw it there, so while I don't want to pick it up, neither is it my responsibility to pick it up, I should pick it up so that others don't have to do it.

That should make Singapore a much better place to live it for everyone, yes?

As such, I strive to teach that to my kid. I want him to take care of himself first, then take care of others. He cannot be doing things mainly because of reasons (1) and (2) alone. He exists in a larger community of which he is a part of, and he ought to do more things out of reason (3). For him to do so, I must also show him that I am doing so. I need to be a good role model for him to follow.

Thanks, son, for making me better than I am now.

Read More

The problem with grit

Grit is defined as the ability to keep persisting in something, regardless of personal discomfort, until you succeed or die trying. Grit is said to be a good predictor of future success, meaning that grittier kids have something in them that makes them able to take the necessary beatings in life to make it work out in the end. This concept is popularised by Angela Duckworth's TED talk, which I think many of you had seen before.

Let's deconstruct grit.

VALUE JUDGEMENT

Grit involves value judgement. When someone didn't do homework all the time, that is grit. When someone plays truant in school despite knowing all the possible punishment that may come, that is also grit. When a gamer sits at home all day to work on his Xbox, that too is grit. But somehow these activities are perceived unfavourably by society, hence it is not considered as examples of grit. Usually, when we talk about grit, we see them through a lens of what we think is the idealised version of a successful person. Working through the night to do homework, or sucking it up and working OT to do a project, or working over the weekend...these are activities that are judged favourably by society. Hence, when we say someone has grit, it also means that society has judged whether it is worthy or not.

Look at the picture below. 

The person below doesn't have grit because he didn't persist. And he is inches short of hitting pay dirt and would have realised his rewards if he just persists for a little longer. That is a value judgement. Why? Economic work and earning more money is seen as a good thing by society. Nobody talks about the sacrifices these people have to give in order to do these work.

Perhaps the person below gives up digging because he realised that having more diamonds isn't what he wanted in the first place. He already had diamonds, in the form of living, warm-blooded people sitting at the dining table waiting for his return. There's no need for more. But somehow he is defined as a failure in the eyes of society, for having given up early before hitting pay dirt. He doesn't have the grit in him to succeed.

Did we also impose our values onto others when we use the word grit?

WHO BENEFITS?

Who actually benefits from people having grit? To persist in doing something despite it being boring and still continue doing so seems a little psychotic to me. It depends on who says that, isn't it? If it's the employers complaining that workers are not gritty these days, then we need to think why they want employees to do that. Perhaps the conditions are really bad and the salary really low, and since there is nothing material to be hopeful of, they use ideology as a self-control mechanism to exert influence on behaviour. Employers do need employees to have grit if they are going to exploit them by squeezing more of their labour output for the salary given to them.

If it's by teachers, we also need to think hard on who benefits. Maybe grittier students are less troublesome to teach and it's much less work compared to a student who is less gritty. When we frame it like this, the conversation shifts away from asking ourselves why the students are subjected to learning uninteresting things, rather than something that interests them. I've not seen people describing doing something that they are passionate about as grit. The usage of the word implies doing something distasteful in the hope of getting something good in the future.

Usually, grit is determined by people with positions of power and authority. We just need to trace the path to see who benefits to understand why they complain people are not gritty enough. 

MARSHMELLOW TEST

In the 1960s, Mischel did an experiment regarding children and different treats, including the infamous marshmallow. Basically, the children are given a treat, which they can choose to eat right away or wait until the researcher comes back with two. This becomes known as the marshmallow test that is designed to determine self-control and delayed gratification and how it leads to success, better health, happiness and so on. Though it's not specifically used to test for grit, it's related. Grit is how much you can endure shitty situations while waiting for the payload at the end, and that requires a lot of self-control plus the ability to delay gratification. It's commonly concluded that those children who pass the marshmallow test, meaning that they get two treats by waiting instead of satisfying their gratification of one treat right away, are predicted to be more successful in the future.

But there are many reasons for this. It could be a sign of class differences. If you are a child who has access to different kinds of treats all day long, (including marshmallows), you can delay your gratification longer than someone who only eats it once every blue moon. The different access to treats, because of the child's background, could play a part.

And there is a value judgment again when we deem that the child who eats two later is somewhat stronger in willpower than a child who chooses to eat it right now. In an environment where food is scarce, it is irrational to delay satisfying your food craving and hold on for a bigger reward in the future. Due to the difference in the child's background, forgoing present rewards and gunning for a bigger one in the future might not be rational because trusting that the future is going to be better is highly dependent on past experiences by the child. A promise of a better future is going to be harder to fulfil to a child in a lower class than a higher one.


HOW THIS CHANGED ME

In light of these reflections, I want to be less judgemental. I'm a tutor and I face students who don't want to study all the time. Not too long ago, I have a tendency to judge students who are less gritty as having less motivation to do well and thus, a predictor of future failure. I mean it's so easy to blame it on grit and wash my responsibility off because I don't have to do more work for students who are gritty. The truth is a lot more complicated than this. Judge less.

I think being a parent made me a much more empathetic person. I can imagine all the good and bad students as being an innocent baby once. No matter what I do, at the end of the day, show compassion and show love. Long after the incident, that might be all that they remember of your interaction with them.

I also want to stop using grit, because it's so cringe-worthy. It's like the word 'passive income'- everytime someone uses that, my soul dies a little. There's a lot of negative connotation in using the word 'grit', so I'll stop using it.

Read More

Analyzing an Aphorism

Have you seen this quote before?

On my social media feeds, I've been fed this quote a couple of times this week. The first time I read it, it seems pretty logical. In fact that's the thing I told my wife too when she goes on some bulk purchase to save a couple of dollars. The second time I've seen it, I had a nagging feeling that something isn't quite right. So I went to think and analyse deeper into this statement.

Firstly, what is savings? Savings is what's left of your income after spending. Mathematically, the formula is:

Savings = Income - Expenses

Let's just put a number to these items in order to illustrate the situation better. Let's assume the following:

A) Income = $3000
B) Expenses = $2000
C) Savings = $3000 - $2000 = $1000

The above illustrates the base situation where we did not make the purchases. In our base scenario, our savings is $1000.

Let's analyse 3 possible cases:

1) Discretionary purchases (things you can do without)

For frivolous and discretionary purchases, we usually compare against the case of not buying it vs buying it. Why? Because we can well do without it. If you spend $750, your expenses increases by $2750, so your savings becomes $3000 - $2750 = $250. Between not buying and having a savings of $1000, vs buying and having a savings of $250, you save lesser by $750.

2) Non-discretionary purchases (things you can't do without)

For non discretionary purchases, we usually compare against the case of buying the item at non-discounted price vs buying at discounted price. If u buy at a non-discounted price of $1000, your expenses increases to $3000. Hence your savings becomes $3000 - $3000 = 0. If you buy at a discounted price of $750, your savings becomes $250. Since it's an item that you have to buy anyway, you save $250 if you buy at this discounted price. Notice that we do not compare against the case of not buying it and having a savings of $1000, because it is a purchase that we must make.

3) Investments (things you buy that increases your income)

For purchases that increases your income, the spending of $750 may result in a rise in future income. If your future income increases by more than the amount spent, you save more even after the purchase. If future income increases less than the amount spent, then net net there will be less savings. So, it depends on the investment returns to see if we save more or we save less or we don't save at all.

It's not so simple now, isn't it? As with all aphorism, the simple statement works as a good soundbite - catchy, memorable and impressive. But it simplifies the truth of the matter too much. There's a lot of details that need to be mentioned.

We can put this analysis to the test by analysing the purchase of a car. If a car is a discretionary purchase, the fall in COE has nothing to do with you. Having the cost of the car dropping from 100k to 80k still means that you have to spend 80k. However, if a car is a decision you are going to make anyway, a drop in the cost of the car is great for you. Now you can make the car purchase at a cheaper price, resulting in a net savings of 20k. Finally, if your car can make you earn more income because it extends your range and reach and allows you to save time and energy, it doesn't mean you should commit to the purchase immediately. The next step is to see if the potential increase in income is worth more than the purchase. Frankly, it need not even be just the increase in income, because we could be looking at other intangible stuff that we cannot put a money value to it. If after weighing all the good against the total cost of the car, and you think it's worth it, then we can go on and make the purchase.

Next time when someone says buying something is not a good purchase, you'll have to ask yourself first : out of the 3 scenarios, which one fits your situation the best?

Read More

Learning new things for fun

In the last week or so, I've been learning programming. I've done programming in the past using an ancient computing language typically used in old ancient physics or engineering lab (Fortran, if you must know) back in my university days. This time, it's a new age computing language called Python.

I've never been so excited about learning new things for a long while. One fine day, I just decided I wanted to continue my coding journey, so I just picked a language and started reading about it. I downloaded the python software (free) and started working on it. The time that I usually spent playing games is now replaced with learning and playing with Python.

The very first thing that I did is to code this algorithm I came up with 3 yrs ago here. I've been thinking about this problem for quite a long while (easily 6 to 8 yrs), but chanced upon the most efficient way to mathematically describe the problem 3 yrs ago while teaching some new subjects to a new student. Once I know the math behind it, the next logical step is to code it in this new language.

Next, I tried to code this problem that I knew will be somewhat challenging to me at my current skill level. I want the user to key in the birth month and date, then the program will be able to give the appropriate astrological signs (e.g. Taurus, Aquarius, Libra etc). I like the challenge of transforming a simple idea into something concrete and I was definitely in the flow yesterday as I came up with the process. 3 hrs flew by and I didn't even notice!

A few interesting insight:

1) This is the first few times I do something first before knowing something. What do I mean? I have an objective in mind. I just try coding it immediately. I fail because there are some things I don't know. Then I'll read up and search around, and try again until I succeed. This problem-based learning makes it frustrating but it's this frustration that the thing is nearly within your grasp that pushes you to dig a little deeper. This exponentially increases the way I pick up and retain new knowledge. This iterative process is usually not the way I learn something.

2) I didn't learn this for work purposes, nor for some certification. I did this purely for fun. I'm actually dreaming up interesting projects every now and then, and try seeing if I can succeed. Actually I'm not so interested in the actual coding part, but more about how to come up with the algorithm of doing things. Might be useful in life, but hey, I'm having fun, and that's the most important!

3) A student asked innocently if I teach coding. Hmm, maybe this might turn out to be a money making hobby after all. Totally unexpected and I definitely didn't plan it this way, so it's quite a bonus for me if I did make some income out of it.

4) How come I didn't sign up for those courses at Udemy or skillsfuture? I don't know. I am 'iron-teeth' (colloquial slang for stubborn) perhaps, wanting to do things my own way. I just got a textbook and jumped straight in. I think structured courses makes life easier, but I prefer charging up the hill. The learning is more robust, more practical to my needs and also more open ended. It's important for me to feel like a total newbie trying to master a new skill, based on my own effort. Puts me deep in the seat of a beginner, and so I can understand the difficulties of learning new things. As a tutor, it's important for me to experience being a beginner every now and then. This will put me in the right perspective when I'm teaching.

5) I'm definitely playing. How do I know this? I didn't just code it, I played with the code. I tried ways to make it more efficient, or set my own limiting constraints. Basically I don't just want to see a program done, I want to keep working on it until it's no longer fun. If I just want to get it done, I'll have paid a small sum and used fiver or other freelancing work to outsource it to an expert.


With the internet and google plus youtube, all the information in the world is out there waiting for an interested student to read it and learn.

Read More

The key to unlock doors

Today, my wife and I went to grocery shopping. We're looking for a pack of Origins Organic hulled millet that my son is eating as a porridge daily. It's running out and we desperately needed a packet to refill it up. It probably didn't help that it was about to rain heavily and I only have about 30 mins turnaround time to get back home because a student is coming for lessons. In other words, I'm looking for a grab and go situation, not really in the mindset for shopping around.

Not my wife.

I went to the usual shelf where the millet is, but it was empty. I searched around neighboring shelves to see whether there are any hidden packs, but I couldn't find any. I thought that it's time to go back empty handed now, and I'm all ready to give up and go home.

Not my wife.

She saw a employee packing some stuff at a nearby shelf, with several large carton of unpacked boxes on a trolley near her. My wife went ahead to ask her if there's any more stock left for the hulled millet. She said it's still in the process of packing. Right now, most people would have left there and then and accepted the fact that nobody is going to buy any hulled millet today.

Not my wife.

She asked if she can help her unpack the cartons containing the hulled millets. And we started partly opening each carton on the trolley to see if they contain the stuff we wanted. If not, we pack it up and move it to another spot, and repeat the process. To an oblivious observer, it seems like we're actually packing the store. Eventually after moving like 5 to 6 big cartons, we managed to find the exact carton with the hulled millet. I think in the process of helping ourselves, we also helped the auntie just a little to unpack the super heavy cartons off the trolley.

This is one of the lessons I'm trying to learn after coming out of school, that there's no definite yes and no and everything is negotiable. Life is not an MCQ (multiple choice question) where there is only one answer in the marking scheme. Human relations is the key to unlock a lot of locked doors out in the real world. Apparently, I needed a revision course on this particular lesson.

Not my wife.

Read More

Evolution of worry

Before my kid is born, I am worried about whether he will have genetic faults. The worry is real so both of us went to do some checkup to see if we have any hereditary illness that might be passed down to the next generation.

Then when he is born, I'm worried about whether his hearing is alright. He initially failed the test, but was okay after a second try the following day. When he is still crawling, I worry about whether he can walk. When he starts walking, I worry about when he will start talking.

Basically the worry is always there, just that the thing I worry about changes. That itself is a good thing because the nature of my worry evolves as we grow and mature. It'll be a problem if we keep worrying about the same thing over and over again, because that will mean that we never grow bigger and thus our problems remain the same.

It's interesting being a parent to a growing kid, because you start to see things from its very basic form, evolving to become more complex, and I hope that in the future, it'll become simpler again. A to B and back to A, isn't that back to square one? Isn't that a waste of time? No, I believe the journey itself is the point, not the end point.

My student is sitting for his common test these few days. He worries about whether he will complete the exam on time. But not too long ago, he was worrying about whether he will even pass his O'lvls. I reminded him of it, and he smiled. I also smiled. At the same time, I worry about whether my income can feed the family. Maybe in the future when my health deteriorate, I will worry about whether I can still see my family in the next hour.

While I worry about when my son will start calling me 'papa', I think back about the time when my biggest concern is whether he will be born healthy. All in due time.

And I smile.

Read More

MyRepublic's Uno plan speed testing

Towards the end of May, I switched my mobile plan from a sim only plan from M1 @ $25 per month to MyRepublic's Uno plan @ $8 per month. This plan suits me to a T, because I don't like having a lot of excess data since I only use only 1 Gb per month working at home. I love the free caller id and best of all, there's this thing called boundless data. The plan gives me 1 Gb but if I exceeded 1 Gb of data in that month, I won't be charged for it. Instead, they will throttle the data speed so that you can do the bare minimum of things. If you want a speed that you don't have to rage, then you just need to top up the data and pay more.

The full details of the plan are as follows:

MyRepublic Uno plan 
 - 1Gb data
 - 1000 min talktime and 1000 sms
 - boundless data (throttled speed after 1 Gb)
 - free caller id
 - free incoming calls and sms
 - No contract

The main aim of this article is to highlight the throttled data speed after exceeding the allocated 1 Gb. Does the throttled speed allow you to do the basic stuff like checking email, surf, call (using data) and youtube?

These are the test parameters:

1) I stay in the east, specifically Bedok/Tanah merah area. I work at home and occasionally I'll travel also around the east side. It matters because MyRepublic is under Starhub, so the coverage for different areas will be different.

2) I'm using Android phone, Xiaomi Mi5 and my app for the speed test is Speedcheck Pro.

3) I tested the speed at various timing throughout the day during working hours. No early morning or midnight tests. Also the places where I tested is not crowded with people.

4) I did not do any speed test at any mrt lines while travelling

I'm going to comment on the data speed and quality, email checking, surfing, data calls and also some common apps before and after the throttle.


Here's my data speed before and after the data throttle:

* DL - download speed
* UL - upload speed

I did 6 sets of speedtest before my 1Gb limit is up, and another 6 sets after my 1Gb limit is up. Test parameters of the test had been described above already. You can see that before the throttle, the average download speed is 33.6 Mbps and the upload speed is 9.45 Mbps. After my data limit is hit, the download and upload speed of my data is throttled to 0.23 Mbps and 0 Mbps respectively. In fact, the speed test is interrupted by intermittent connection, especially during the upload part. Can't blame it...each test sends takes 100 Mb of data.


According to the speedcheck pro app that I'm using, they mentioned a rough guide on what is considered laggy and good speed (DL/UL) for different uses. These are screenshot as follows:

Email:

Browsing:

Streaming:

Video chat:

Gaming:

Based on the above guidelines, my usage experience before throttle gives me this:

Email: green
Browsing: yellow
Streaming: green
Video chat: yellow
Gaming: yellow

And after throttling:

Email: red
Browsing: red
Streaming: red
Video chat: red
Gaming: red

Wow..is it so bad after my 1Gb limit is reached? I tried emailing myself using a small attachment of about 200kb and felt no difference. Maybe it's a bit laggier, but I wouldn't know much because I don't have a lot of experiences sending email with attachment using my mobile phones. But normal email experience is perfectly fine. While the rating for email is red, I will say it's still usable. Just don't attempt to attach big files to your email and it should be fine.

Browsing feels appreciably laggier. I have to wait for the entire site to load and you can see parts of the site being loaded while others are still waiting. Pictures takes forever to load. I mean I can finish the entire text and still the pictures are still loading. I think browsing experience really deserves a red rating. Don't do serious browsing here, or you'll go crazy and start pulling your hair.

Streaming is a mixed bag. Netflix recommended at least 0.5 Mbps download speed, and we don't have that kind of speed after throttling. I tried to watch Netflix and the "loading...." screen seems to be there all the time. I gave up after a while. As for youtube, you can still continue watching. I find that the best experience for me is to watch it at 240p. Anything higher will have to be continuously interrupted by the loading every 10 s or so. I think 360p is also okay, but you might have to wait a while longer for the loading to be done in ahead before you actually view it. I'm actually surprised I can watch a you tube video after throttling.

Facebook work fine, until you start clicking on the video or the comments. It'll take a little longer than usual to load but it'll work. It's not as irritating as browsing though, so I feel it's still acceptable. Whatsapp messaging feels as normal and I tried the data call from whatsapp too. To me it's okay, and not especially lagging (data call are already laggy). But why would anyone want to data call when there are 1000 mins from voice call? I didn't switch on the face mode though, so perhaps there might be a suitable lag with the data throttle.

I don't game online with my handphone, so I've no comments on that.

Someone did a speed test before and after throttle too and got about the same result as me. The post is linked here. He practically got the same numbers as me, with the download/upload speed as 0.25 Mbps / 0.08 Mbps, so altogether we have 2 sets of independent study on the data throttling by MyRepublic after hitting the data limit of 1 Gb on the Uno plan.

As a side note, I really love their app. At a glance, I can see how much data I have, the number of sms and min of voice call left. If needed, you can top up and get instant data boost. This is one of the most friendly app I've used. I've used starhub and M1, but not circle line. But I suspect these days the telcos are really ramping up on their app to boost user experience.

I especially like it that the app have a date and time to tell me when the next reset is. There are many times when I have to check my contract and guess when the reset is when I'm with starhub and M1. Their app is just not that intuitive. This app even give me the exact time of the reset.

Verdict:

What's not to like about this? As I said, this plan fits me to a T. I understand that there are people who uses more than 1 Gb and this will not be a good fit. As for me, I'm smiling broadly because I save about $200 per year off my handphone bill.


Update 1: 21st Jun 2018 2pm

I just got wind of the fact that 3-4 hrs after I posted this article, MyRepublic no longer have this plan. Now they have 3 plans with the cheapest at $35/mth. Thankfully I didn't wait longer, otherwise I will regret for the rest of my life! Haha, I exaggerate, but yeah...

Update 2: 21st Jun 2018 5pm

A bigscribe member told me that the Uno plan is still available.
1) Go to : https://mobile.myrepublic.com.sg/plans/promotions
2) Go check out forum to see the promo code to get the Friends Of MyRepublic
3) Sign up Uno plan for $8/mth

But better hurry, not sure when they will really stop the plan once and for all.

Read More

Easier to be a good dad than a good mum

When I go out, I always see wives scolding or complaining that their husbands are doing a super bad job taking care of kids. The husband literally just stand there and suck it up while their furious wife is pouring out all her troubles in public. I ever asked my wife if she'll do that to me in the future, and she asked if I'll do that to her instead.

The truth is that it's easy to be a good dad. In fact, it's easier to be a good dad compared to a good mum. The standard of a good dad to hurdle over is way way lower than that of a good mum. I mean a dad just needs to do a little housework, maybe cook a little, wake up at night perhaps once a week and change the diapers once in a month, and he'll be hailed as a national hero to be lauded with praises. "He's a good catch!", says random friends and relatives.

But the mum, despite having to work, look pretty, do housework, cook daily, do night duty almost every day and change the diapers almost every time, will still fall short of expectations. "How come you're still so fat 2 yrs after giving birth?", asked concerned random relatives during family gathering. "How come the baby is waddling in the mud, tsk tsk...the mum is not doing a good job", says observant random passerby.

I see it and I try my best to correct the inequality and unfairness in the whole dynamics. I did my fair share of work, but due to conflict of interest, perhaps only my wife can comment on whether I am really fair and equal in sharing the duties of child caring between ourselves.

To all the fathers who are ticked off by their wives in public, I wish I can help you deflect some of the attention, but you know I can't. The best thing you can do is to step up to the challenge and start being a good dad, by living up to the standard of being a good mum.


Happy Father's day.

Read More

Astrea IV private equity Class A-1 bond

Astrea IV is a wholly owned subsidiary of Azalea Asset Management Pte. Ltd, which is indirectly wholly owned by Temasek Holdings. They are issuing bonds from their private equity funds, so this marks the first time we have a retail bond linked to companies that are not publicly listed and thus not accessible to the general non-accredited retail investors like you and me. Wholly shit.

BOND DETAILS

Name: Class A-1 Bonds 10NC5

Interest: 4.35% pa, semi annual payment. If not redeemed after 5 yrs on Jun 2023, will step up to 5.35% pa

Maturity: 10 yrs, on 14th Jun 2028 with scheduled call date on 14th Jun 2023. "Scheduled" is not "optional". If there is sufficient cash set aside for the class A bond to be redeemed, it must be redeemed. It's not an option. 

Application for IPO: Min $2k, with integral multiples of $1k thereafter

Period of application for IPO: 6th Jun 2018 9am to 12 Jun 2018 12 pm

Rating: Expected to be rated Asf by Fitch and A(sf) by S&P

Extra features: There is a bonus redemption premium of an amount not exceeding 0.5% of the principal amount. This means that if the par value if $1.000, the bond might be redeemed at less than or equal to $1.005, if conditions are met. The condition is that the sponsor receives 50% of its total equity (US $313 million) on or before 14th Jun 2023.

You can read more details from the full prospectus here. Product highlight can be found here.


Kyith has a more in depth and detailed write up on this same bond, so if you're into the nitty gritty details, you can check it out here. Kenichi kindly shared this video by Azalea regarding the bonds. Have a look below:

PERSONAL TAKE

1) Firstly, this is not Hyflux. This is a rated A bond by the rating agency. While I don't give a shit what they say about the bond, ultimately a rated A bond is still better than an unrated bond because the financials support it.

2) Putting money into a bond is lending money to others, who are likely going to take the borrowed funds and invest at a higher returns while giving you a lower interest. If you're not comfortable lending them at 4.35% while they earn an astronomical returns of 15 to 30% and pocketing all the difference, then don't lend. The risk profile of investing in private equity fund directly and lending money to private equity fund in the form of bonds are totally different. While it's true that private equity investors have higher upside, they have a greater downside as well.

3) After IPO, the bonds is going to be transacted in the open market at SGX on 18th Jun 9am. If you're not going to hold until they redeem back, you can sell it off at the market price. The market price is just what the name suggests - it can be higher or lower than the capital you put in, and you still have to include commissions. If you hold until maturity at the 5 yr or 10 yr mark, then you'll get back all your principal, and perhaps plus a little more because of the bonus redemption premium.

4) The interest rate is going up now, so in the event of a huge rise in interest over the next 5 yrs or so, the market price of the bond might go lower. If you can't hold for the entire duration of the bond until they redeem it, you might have to suffer a capital loss. But if you hold till redemption, it'll be redeemed at the principal value, minimally. In other words, it's capital guaranteed upon maturity.

5) Since the interest rate is going up, there might be more enticing bond than this in the future. I wouldn't put my whole warchest into here. A suitable allocation here should be fine. I'll be applying for this. Initially I wanted to put in some new funds from my parent's retirement fund into here, but I think I'm having second thoughts.

Read More

Voluntary contributions by self employed

Not too long ago, I received a letter from IRAS that I have to pay for my mandatory contribution to my medisave account as a self employed. It comes up to be $6393. I was mulling through the options that I have, so I might as well share it here since I know there is a dearth of write up just for self employed by self employed.

My situation:

1) I've done voluntary contribution to my CPF for ages, and the reason is to reduce my income tax and also to build a buffer in my OA so that if I have a bad year of income, I can rely on my OA to make payments to my mortgage, which is my biggest expense. And since I've switched to a loan with a floating interest rate, there will be a time when I need to prepay the loan when the interest rate shoots up sky high.

So far, I've saved up about 14 months of full mortgage payment in my OA account. Usually the mortgage payment is split 50-50 with my wife, so this 14 months is full payment for both of us. This means that if both of us are in a tough situation where we don't have income, I can use my OA to pay for the entire mortgage for another 14 months. I'm using a floating interest rate now, and I'm using the figures for the monthly mortgage payment with the assumption that the interest rate increases by another 40%. Should be safe enough but I can do more. Maybe 24 months?

2) Based on my age band, every dollar contributed to CPF will contribute to the accounts in the following ratio:

     OA :     SA   :  MA
0.5677 : 0.1891 : 0.2432

Since I need to do mandatory contribution of $6393, if I were to do voluntary contribution to 3 accounts, I will need to contribute $26,287 (6393/0.2432). That is way way too much for me. I don't want to put in so much into the CPF, tax relief or no.

Of course there is another way out for me. I can also do a voluntary contribution direct to MA alone. So since I need to do mandatory contribution of $6393 to MA, I just need to pay $6393 to MA.

In summary, it's a contribution of $6393 direct to MA or a contribution of $26,287 to the 3 CPF accounts. Both have tax relief, if you satisfy certain conditions.

3) It's a bit more complicated than that, because of the conditions for tax relief. I wrote about the conditions and the various types of contribution here.

I didn't do any voluntary contribution direct to MA in tax year 2017. According to the rules, if I didn't do VC to MA alone in last year, and I want to do VC to MA alone for this year, I won't be eligible for tax relief for this particular contribution. I've checked and confirmed with an officer from IRAS and got affirmation that my thinking is correct.

I did, however, done voluntary contribution to the 3 accounts in tax year 2017, hence if I do the same thing in tax year 2018 (that is, this year), I will be eligible for tax relief.

This means that in tax year 2018, I won't get tax relief for doing VC to MA. There will still be tax relief for VC to all 3 accounts.

3) Hence I came up with 3 plans. Basically it's a combination of both VC to MA direct (without tax relief) and VC to 3 accounts (with tax relief).

Plan A:
Contribute a total of 12k, of which 4.6k is directly into MA, and 7.4k into the 3 accounts.

Based on 7.4k contribution to the 3 accounts, I'll have 1.8k in my MA (7.4/0.2432). Add this 1.8k to the 4.6k contribution direct to MA, I'll have a total of 6.4k into the MA, which satisfies the mandatory requirement for me.

Plan B:
Contribute a total of 14k, of which 4k is directly into MA, and 10k into the 3 accounts.

Based on 10k contribution to the 3 accounts, I'll have 2.4k in my MA (10/0.2432). Add this 2.4k to the 4k contribution direct to MA, I'll have a total of 6.4k into the MA, which satisfies the mandatory requirement for me.

Plan C:
Contribute a total of 16k, of which 3.3k is directly into MA, and 12.8k into the 3 accounts.

Based on 12.8k contribution to the 3 accounts, I'll have 3.1k in my MA (12.8/0.2432). Add this 3.1k to the 3.3k contribution direct to MA, I'll have a total of 6.4k into the MA, which satisfies the mandatory requirement for me.

It's all summarised in this table below. The tax relief is only for the VC to 3 accounts because I didn't do any VC to MA in tax year 2017 (stupid me).

4) This morning I saw the post by Kyith about 2018 July's Singapore savings bond here. The 9 yr rate already exceeds OA's interest rate of 2.5%. 10 yr rate average interest is at 2.63%...wow. This instrument beats OA's interest rate, yet allows you to withdraw relatively short term (1 month max) compared to the CPF. What more do you want?

So, instead of having the CPF contribution, maybe we can do a plan D:

Contribute a total of 6.4k directly into MA. Then put in whatever amount (likely in the range of 8 to 10k) in the Singapore savings bond to get a return similar, if not better, than the CPF-OA account. There is no tax relief for this plan, but I can treat that as a 'cost' for more flexibility in the usage of my funds without the hard lock in under CPF.


I still have half a year to decide and think through the options, and I bet I'll be coming back to this post around Dec to decide by then.

Read More

Bigscribe mega event of the year: Investors Exchange 2018

Bigscribe is running the mega event of the year, called Investors Exchange 2018, coming this July. They are known for their value for money courses with down to earth speakers that everyone can relate to. Last year's event was a sell out, so they thought it's time to up the game by introducing a great line up of speakers. Take note that these are not sneak previews to entice you to sign up for the 'real' course. THIS is the the real course.

Here's a brief introduction to them:

Stanley Lim (from valueinvestasia)

He writes for Value Invest Asia, a blog with a wealth of information, with his team of equally knowledgeable analyst. He will be sharing on how to spot growth stocks with real case studies of existing companies.

James Yeo (from smallcapasia)

I know him as he frequents investingnote, focusing on finding the gems from the investing universe. He will be sharing on the 'GARP' strategy, and hopefully you can use it to sieve out the real gems from the Garbage out there. There will also be real life case studies on how it works in the markets.

Brian Halim (from foreverfinancialfreedom)

Everyone knows Brian as he shares his insights from his stock picks from his blog. Unlike the previous two speakers, he will be sharing more about dividend investing, titled Evolution of Dividend Strategy. As a bonus, there will be a peak into his current portfolio. This will be of interest to people who prefers the real hard cash of dividend in the pocket rather than from capital gains.

Rusmin Ang (from fifthperson)

Rusmin is from The Fifth Person, a group that introduced a series of great courses for the general public. Quite a number of my friends had attended their course and found it very helpful. Here, he will be sharing on how to build a consistent stream of passive income and to maximise the dividends. If their courses are anything to go by, there should be plenty of pointers to take note of here.

Christopher Ng (from treeofprosperity)

Chris is the scientist among the local financial blogosphere. I'm very sure he will share his latest well research findings in his talk, backed with journal articles. In this talk, he will talk about the concept of F.U money (no, it's not what you are thinking of) and how we can retire earlier by understanding the concept of FIRE.

All these great line up for an early bird discount of $49, valid until the 30th June. If you are interested, do not wait until the last minute to grab the tickets. The Bigscribe events, especially the mega events like this, are known to sell out way before the last day.

The link to more details can be found right here.

Pro tip #1: Since there are no slides given, do bring along the good ol' pen and paper. Oh, and make sure your handphone is charged fully because you might want to take pictures of the slides. And to take pictures of your famous investing idol/oppa, of course.

Read More