Sunday 22 January 2012

Happy Lunar New Year


Recent events had taken huge chunks of morale away from me resulting in the above sombre greeting.

Please allow me to rant.

Just a week ago, my dad was admitted to the hospital for severe infection due to him being in the terminal stage of cancer. The doctors didn't have much hope of him making it pass Chinese New Year. Thankfully, not only did he manage to fight off the infection, he even made a remarkable recovery in order to be granted a short and sweet 6 hrs discharge from the hospital.

Just in time for reunion dinner.



Although I tried to be cheerful during dinner, the fact that this is going to be the last reunion dinner with my dad did not elude me. The thought of having the last few meals with a love one have never ever crossed my mind till today and I never knew it would feel so excruciatingly painful.

Prior to my dad diagnosis with cancer, my family had another episode with cancer. That was my mum then and when it was discovered, she was already in the 3rd stage. Miraculously, she survived even though the doctors did not pin much hope.These two close encounters with death have made me realise the fragility of life and thus, set me thinking about how I would like my life to pan out.

Do I want to live a life so frugal and deprive of material comfort that I will regret when I pass on?

No, I do not want to... I will aim for a healthy balance while showering love on my love ones, specifically my mum.Therefore, while my wish of having sufficient passive income will still proceed on, I hope it will never be at the expenses of my family.

I know this sound cliche but still, do cherish your love ones guys, for life is indeed unpredictable.

Sunday 15 January 2012

PassivePeon is born!

A big hello to whoever is reading my obscure blog:)

This blog was set up mainly to gather my thoughts, summarize my financial standing on a monthly basis and to set and review my goals.

The sole reason for doing so is to enable me to rely on passive incomes to feed and shelter me with comfort when I'm unable to work. This wish of mine has been in my mind for the last couple of years. However, it is only now that I've decided to track my progress by blogging about it after I realized I had not made any progress at all for the last 2years.

Therefore, with the set-up of this blog, the PassivePeon is thus born! 

Firstly, let me start off with a summary of my financial status as of now.


Aged 23 years old, I have started working in this cruel society for about 1year without much to show for. This is not very surprising considering the fact that I'm only armed with a diploma cert. I acknowledge that this is entirely my fault as I wasn't a very studious person all my life, happily taking each day as it comes.

It is only when I stepped into office that I realized that I won't be able to get very far without a better 'toilet-paper'. Thus, I decided to join the growing ranks of paper chaser and I aimed to graduate in 2015.

So what or who exactly trigger my awakening to sort out my finances?

The answer to that is none other than my parents. Just in case you are wondering if my parents are wise old sages who imparted words of wisdom to me, the answer to that is a resounding 'NO'!

On the contrary, my parents completely mismanaged our finances. The breaking point came 4 years ago when my mum admitted that she lost all our savings and we were in debt due to her frequent casino visits.

It was during this point of time that I knew that I have to take charge of my monies and have a sound system to manage my monies if I do not want to end up like my parents. It was utterly heartbreaking when my mum revealed that she had no monies for a replacement computer and when my dad had to borrow from me just to pay the bills.

Therefore, I resolved to manage my finances much better than my parents and 'small' steps were taken to gain some knowledge in managing one's personal financial matters. Sad to say, I've not made any progress for the last 2 years but I hope to change this with the set-up of this blog.

Well...That's the end of my intro. Let's have a look at a summary of my assets shall we;)


From the above spreadsheet, my total assets can be seen since all my assets were 'showhand-ed'. There's a few things I would like to take note after the above summary.

1. Review SMRT holding

I purchase SMRT about 2years ago and I completely washed my hands off it since then. However, with the recent bad press and the changes in their leadership (bye SAW PHAIK HWA!), I'm rather incline to review SMRT again to decide if I should divest it since the dividend yield at 4.62% isn't that attractive and I'm not too sure about the fundamental of SMRT anymore. I have also set an interim cut loss limit at $1.50.

2. Precious Metal

My current holding for precious metal consist of 2 tiny pieces of numismatics gold coin. I'm considering whether to take this 2 item out of my portfolio since technically, the reason why this 2 coins were purchase is due more to me wanting to be a coin hobbyist rather than for assets building. However, this does not mean that the precious metal category will be taken out. In future, should I decide to purchase bullion instead of numismatic metals, the bullion will be inputted into this category.

3. What to do with the Cash holdings? 

Currently, my cash holding is about S$5500. While this is not much to begin with, I hope to be able to pick some assets at a fair valuation. Right now, I'm looking into Hyflux, a water-treatment company. However, I might also keep my cash holding due to the fear in the market and also because no other equities have interest me as of yet.


Finally, after the introduction and summary, I would like to set some goals for 2012. No goals, no aims! No aims, no progress!



GOALS for 2012

  • Sort out my insurance. (Am I sufficiently covered using my limited resources?)

    • Increase monthly dividend payout to $50. (Currently stands at $35.42)

      • Achieve honors grades for my part time studies.

      • Gain significant in-depth knowledge on FA.



        With these points in mind, I shall take the first step in my passive investing journey!

        Lastly, I would like to say that all views and comments will be appreciated as I acknowledge my inexperience in this journey of mine:)

        Wish me luck!

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