Given the low interest rate environment that we are in now, does OCBC 360 still earn you a lot of interest? Else park more money into ASM or you can try out StashAway too.

Rakuten is all stocks? By Rakuten itself you can diversify your investment into stock, reit, etf such as bond / gold / China etc as well.

PRS itself is a diversification as well, as you can choose which fund to invest.

If you opt for exposure in US etf, then can choose wahed or stashaway. Just make sure if you choose aggressive portfolio then it is for long term.

Then I don't think there is significantly better high yield saving account, you can rather try top up ASM. You can also look for property, in terms of interest rate, put money in loan account there is better than FD or high yield saving account.

i kay poh abit here...
i am very impressed with your high saving ratio
with a very high % of your saving is in OCBC, and you already liked the high saving rate, (4.x%pa before the abt 1.5% opr rate cuts)
seems to me you are a very conservative investor, no right or wrong here, just your individual choice and preference and most important is that those investment vehicle selected suits your choices and you are happy with it.

now you wanted to try 10% of your saving into a higher risk investment
at 10% of your asset into it,...if this new found investment were to loss 10% of the invested money, it will affect 1% of value of your asset

with that and coupled with your young age and current strong buffer of cash reserves, i think you can go ahead with your plan

from sui jau's blog...
"...use a small amount. Something you are comfortable with even if you suffer losses.
It can be as little as one thousand dollars because that is usually all you need to start investing into a higher risk investment.

Then, as you invest, you will see how markets and such affect your returns and you will be able to learn from your experiences without suffering too much heartache compared to if you placed your entire life savings into the market and lose half of it in a market crash.

The key thing is you have to accumulate investing experience.
No amount of prior reading up and accumulating of knowledge can compare with actual investing experience which can only be built up by using your own money to invest.
You have to experience the emotional pull that comes from market ups and downs and learn how to handle your emotions during those times.

And learning from mistakes made is the greatest teacher."

too bad, his blog is not accessible from FSM SG since 2~3 yrs ago.
he was the TOP mgmt of FSM SG then,....now retired already

Your assets/saving is much higher than your epf ... I think either you are getting high profit rate from stock or having other second/ passive income to archive this good result
2k per month saving already beats 95% Malaysian and it need high self discipline and determination especially for young people
I’m not a sifu and just my suggestion is to use the 70k saving to invest in property or go more aggressive in stock, ETF or unit trust equity

No offense, yeah can see that you are doing well in the journey of financial freedom but I just curious on the amount as you said they are based on the salary you saved.
120k saving while 49k epf ...
How many years you worked?
I assume you worked 5 years and each month you saved 2k and bonus of 6k saved , 4% pa, you will have 160k now.
But Net salary of 4700 for 5 years you will have at least 80k  in your epf

For someone at 26 with a savings portfolio and discipline like yours, I take my hat off to you. Super impressive.

Perhaps you might want to switch your FD funds elsewhere. Interest rates (even with promo) are well below 3% now and BNM is potentially going to lower the OPR further in the coming months.

You could park that into Rakuten and look into REITs as a relatively safe investment. Here are some info that you can look into:
- http://reitpulse.com/category/blog/reit-an...malaysia-reits/
- https://mreit.fifthperson.com/

Alternatively, if you feel Rakuten isn't doing much for you, you could park the FD + Rakuten funds into unit trusts or equity funds. You can talk to a fund manager at your bank to see what funds suit your risk preference.

I can understand the pain of fishing for units in ASM. It's like nobody ever lets go of any units for you to pick up.

Hi all,

saw the great post by AnAngel65 and thought i would like to post mine.

Age: 29, living in parents house.

Nett Pay: 5k

Monthly Expenses:
Car: 773
Parents: 500
Life insurance: 250
Petrol: 150
PTPTN: 180
Internet: RM105
Electricity: RM150
Food: RM 600
Parking: RM 180
Groceries: 150
Medical treatment: 650
medical supplement: 180
mobile: 30
misc: 200


Issue:
3. I want to live out in few years time instead of living with fam for personal freedom, but its not cost effective..

thanks for great community here.

Wow... I have to echo the sentiments of what some of the others have shared: I'm super impressed! Your savings percentage is very impressive, made more so by your relative young age! Keep it up, and you might achieve the much vaunted financial freedom earlier than most! Well done!

Given your assuming young age, bonds isn't a great idea. You should be more invested into the equities market and play on your longer runway.

Bonds, FDs are geared more towards those reaching retirement.

Thank you for the kind words. However, fuzzy may have a point there. I’m almost twice your age (48 vs 26) and thus my risk appetite would naturally be different from yours, simply because I wouldn’t neither have the stamina nor enough time to recoup my losses if a “bet” goes badly wrong.

Since I don’t have a blog, please allow me to share my personal financial journey here with you - so you can learn from my mistakes and perhaps see a better way for yourself.

When I was your age, I didn’t have the means to invest - junior doctors made a pittance (even in Singapore) and whatever money I had as I progressed in seniority was spent on specialist exams and studies and courses (this is the part about self improvement that every one talks about and - at least in my case - it has proven extremely useful in increasing self-value and earning capacity). In fact, I will have to say I entered investing relatively late, when I was in my early 30’s.

We started off in properties - it was just our conservative natures - and built up a respectable portfolio. Then, we spent the next 10 years paying off all the properties - and that shows up as a big hole in our investment portfolio, as we didn’t add any stocks or derivatives or unit trusts or anything for that time period. All we did was to pare down the multiple mortgages and I was obsessed with paying as little interest as possible. My thinking, rightly or wrongly, back then was that I wasn’t confident of making more in actual quantum of returns (because of my limited capital) than what the banks were charging me in interests. So, the money I saved would be money I earned.

We became totally debt free by our 40‘s, and that’s probably when our personal investment journey (excluding real estate) started. I will admit, I got my fingers badly burned on stocks - to the tune of $50,000, and initially, we lost about another AUD100,000 in an ill-advised joint venture with an acquaintance in Adelaide.

From those experiences, my wife and I decided that we’d rather make do with lower returns in exchange for security and safety and peaceful sleep at night. So, it was initially fixed deposits for a few years, until bonds came into the picture. Before COVID-19, we also invested in Equity Linked Notes, and we have about $3,000,000 tied up presently. Thankfully, most of the prices have recovered and it looks like we will be able to ride out to their maturity, collecting our interest payment in full and recouping our capital - but, when the markets plunged in the initial days of COVID-19, I will confess I was ready to write off that $3,000,000 from our holdings and delay my retirement! This was also a lesson learned for me - it really showed up my risk adverse nature. Even a capital protected (subject to successful maturity and in the absence of knock-in events) product like the ELNs gave me sleepless nights. Once the ELNs mature, I’ll probably stick with bonds and bonds alone.

We are able to do what we do because - respectfully - my wife and I earn what can only be termed exceedingly generous remuneration packages. Bonds (at least the way we purchase them) require a large capital outlay. In the past, in other threads, I’ve shared a few photos of the values in my bond portfolio held by different banks and brokerage houses. As you might know, each bond is at least $250,000 (though some Australian ones used to start from $200,000 - not anymore). We also buy to hold till old - it’s not something we would actively trade. We’re happy to collect the coupons and let other braver, cleverer people do more exciting things with their money.

Thanks for reading. It’s rather fun reminiscing on my amateur steps as a basic investor.

Don't pick stocks, just invest into a index fund that tracks the market, such as SPY or QQQ, or some of the ETFs.