Other than ASB loan & direct properties investing:

a. 0% $0 cost 6-12 months credit card balance transfers musical chair, when U can pay off. Thus, put cash into FD/Flexi-mortgage/Money Market or if adventurous, 5-10% into REITs with the balance in Flexi-mortgage/Money Market/FD

b. 9 years' car loan with effective rate of 5.3%pa, when U can buy with cash. Use part or all of the cash in SGX listed REITs, spread amongst countries & sectors, with "low enough" gearing & "high enough" net DY% (eg. 7.5%-8%). While waiting for the opportunity to buy, can plonk into Flexi-Mortgage (costing me 0.7%pa) or ASB (if i'm bumiputera)

c. Savings into flexi-mortgage prepayment & re-draw when stocks/REITs/properties are on sale / "worthwhile".

d. US stock options - selling PUTs for stocks i want to buy & at the strike-prices i want to buy at, thus get paid premiums while waiting & leveraging on my cash in the account.

There are others like futures, forex, etc but i don't actively do those, thus dare not share
Note - some folks may not think re-drawing from Flexi-mortgage as leverage but it is to me, it is a debt creation if i take out the $ for investments.

This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: Oct 16 2018, 08:49 PM

same here - nothing beat the longevity (apps come & goes, then data how) + flexibility (data analysis after capture) of spreadsheets like Excel.

hhehe - simplest & uncomplicated is usually the best.
but some folks may not be able to stomach the non-techieness or upscale-levelness

personally, i use a basic spreadsheet - for sure cannot have application issue or death and data useless in future, when i need to compare/analyze.

As a % of your gross/net active income ie. man-at-work, very good start, even for a veteran saver/investor

IMHO, vehicles to invest in, ranging from "no-brainer" all the way to "hm.. maybe not.."
1. FD <-- checkout thread/topic in LYN
--
2. Fixed Price ASB / ASN <-- checkout thread/topic in LYN
--
3. Mutual funds / unit trusts - equity funds, bond funds, REIT funds, money market funds <-- checkout fundsupermart thread/topic
4. Private Retirement Scheme (PRS) - in reality, unit trusts but under Gov incentivised scheme <-- has tax relief up! google it <-- checkout thread/topic in LYN
--
5. Stocks - listed Bursa, SGX, US, HangSeng, can buy individual stocks/REITs or baskets like ETFs which are similar to unit trusts but listed as a stock <-- google ETFs, REITs, individual stocks
6. Properties - leverage is the game here but it cuts both ways ya. be aware
--
7. Stock Options - Sell / Buy US stock options. Not condoning BUYING options/warrants ya but i do sell options while hoping to get the price i want, and at very low leverages - ie. i'm able to pickup the stock if assigned.
--
8. Stock/Commodity/Index Futures, FOREX, Bitcoins & other ICOs - totally different kettle of fish here. Trading mostly, not investing (ie. buy good & go zzz & watch once awhile)

This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: May 10 2019, 04:02 PM

hm.. U seem to be talking about "saving to spend", ie. plant a tree to chop it down for firewood, killing the tree
not "saving to invest"-->generate $ for reinvesting OR usage, ie. plant a tree to eat its fruits WITHOUT killing the tree.

thus, only U can answer your own Q as most of us have no idea what U are saving to spend on.

to most "investors", we invest to GENERATE multiple streams of income - ie. we plant trees and more trees, to enjoy the fruits later - without chopping down the trees... unless tree infection, fungus or we want different fruits

hm.. i'll play the devil / bad cop here

1. There seems to be some missing costs in your monthly expenses - eg. obvious one being rental (room or entire apartment/house)
Must be realistic to plan cash flow ahead consistently
eg. even if staying with parents please factor in IF U are by yourself - how much will it cost U?

2. When should one start thinking of buying own home?
Any time - to build-up savings, income, etc in preparation to execute
When should one buy is another question +where +how much.

3. Rule of thumb - your housing cost (mortgage+cukai taksiran+cukai tanah+maintenance+etc.) should NOT be more than 30% of your net income (active income +passive income if U choose so).
Reason - the lower the %, the less of a pain it is to own it +more flexibility in investments.
Note - a home is a cost, not an investment. Yes, it's considered an asset but an asset that sucks up cash flow unless U sell it and hope for profit. Investment properties are different animals.


4. Personal opinions on your action plan:
- Place 30k into OCBC 360 (4.1% p.a.) (emergency fund for family, need to be liquid)
Good - never touch this unless emergency.
And NO, your parents unable to pay their personal loan isnt an emergency. Personal loans and the likes are unsecured loans and choy choy if anything happens to debtors of unsecured loans, banks try to go after what's left of debtors' estate. Sorry for being obvious & fatalistic here ya

- Remaining 15k for investment (ASNB ASM1 ASM2, unit trust, ETF StashAway, Stock)
U better have some sort of equity asset sub-allocation plan & execution here.
ie. dont "all-in" into one-hand like 1 ETF or 1 Stock.

- Each month allocate 2k into investment, 1k into saving (FD/OCBC360)
increasing your emergency buffer until?
gotta re-direct the cash into investing after U reach your emergency buffer goals else U'll never win the game playing defence only. Playing good defence is good but offence is needed too to score goals and win.

- 6k-8k per year into EPF (ultimate aim is to have ~600-700k in EPF when I'm around 55 years old, by compounding I hope this is doable...)
EPF, assuming i am self-employed (freelance, no employer EPF right?), i'd treat EPF as my bonds / Fixed income portion of asset allocation & i'd also go for the max tax-relief $4K pa or more (assuming it meets my asset allocation %).
Whether or not it'll hit 600K-700k when 55, can simulate easily with a spreadsheet. Just assume 5%pa or 4%pa returns to be prudent, even though averaging about 5.5%pa

Hope the above helps in clarifying your thoughts/plans a bit without being too much of a bast*rd/hard knock

I'd suggest not lumping up all problems and trying to solve everything in one shot/plan - ie. noticed i didnt bother stating possible solutions about your parents' home loan and stuff?
Plan A first, things that U can control / foresee enough
Then adjust Plan A for parents' stuff and see if can do Plan B - coz U can't control others +others may not want you being nosy/your help.


This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: Aug 8 2019, 05:36 PM

dunno how your rebate will offset / being counted on for reno.. as my buddy, who's also house hunting, told me financiers are MINUSING the rebate, then on the loan on % that net amount.
ie. Selling Price LESS rebates = Net Price, which is the 70%-90% is what the financiers are offering him

just sharing what i saw ya, dont shoot the messenger

yup, understood - that's what the sales agent / property developer tells U.

that's what my buddy was told too, then when he went to hunt for financing... the financiers took the "higher amount" LESS the xx% rebate = net amount,
then offered 80%-90% on that net amount.

U managed to get the 80%-90% loan on the "higher" amount? if so, i guess my buddy's financiers & mortgage brokers sucks heheh. Pity

I've just updated data to share a simplified view with my nieces, nephew & kids + friends to ally their fears & FOMOs. Thus, thought it'll be useful for fellow forumers here who are new to investing and having such fears & FOMOs too.

Summary of the Excel in the ZIP file:
Shows xx years of investing yearly, if bought at each year's HIGHEST/COSTLIEST price and just stupidly held
SPY = S&P500 - US large leading 500 companies
EEM = Emerging Marking large leading companies
VT = Vanguard World Stocks - all developed and emerging markets' leading companies

Data from Yahoo Finance - copied & pasted to the left (yellow cells) and i just use the date & adjusted closing to avoid calculation issues with dividend, splits & rights issue values

Look at Column Q - value held which is stock units *current value
VS
Column R - cost paid to get the stock units
VS
Column S - cost paid if inflation of 3% pa factored in



Bottom line - if just bought stupidly, regularly and held long term (MUST BE ABLE TO HOLD - thus emergency buffer $ must always be built first),
even THE MOST CURSED INVESTOR (always buying at the highest of the year) can still generally get ahead.
No need to trade, analyze-paralyzed, etc - all another job.
Might as well focus on making career or business, then invest the extras too

 SPY_if_invested_at_highest_price_every_year_25yrs.zip ( 280.96k ) Number of downloads: 22

Feel free to monkey around with the worksheet - no macros, all using built-in functions in Excel - can be imported into Google Sheet too if U wish.
Just focus on changing the cells in YELLOW first
and the data from Yahoo Finance must be monthly data & use the beginning of the year (ie. Jan) ya.

This post has been edited by wongmunkeong: Jan 14 2021, 11:27 PM