2017: A year in review

Thought I'll do a review of 2017.

On my own personal finances  
Achieved investing savings target of 24k/yr, achieved 25.1k actually.

This excludes funds diverted for a side venture of mine.

Had kept my expenses as low as I could, seems like focusing on how to allocate every dollar well seems to be working.
It was also boosted by a one shot OT which was about half of my one month take home pay.

Creating a future expenditure budget and planning on expenses in advance (by deducting as a monthly expenses) seems to be working well too.

This year I managed to increase net profit margin from work from 55% to 56%, it would have been higher, however as this year I took up more financial responsibilities to share the load with my family so it was not as much as I would like (it would have increased to 60%).

Happily, I am also pleased to say that my net worth less CPF has managed to hit 100k, and that it has almost matched the value my CPF as well.

I will probably look to terminate my ILP by end 2018, then divert funds to my side venture and investing.

Applied for 2 credit cards in hopes of using them for my side venture plus balance transfer to get a few months of savings in advance to grab opportunities when they present themselves (kinda like a few months savings advance).

Also, I have noted that a rising trend of transport expenditures by taxi, so I will look into scheduling time better and reduce this cost.

On my Stock Portfolio

Portfolio XIRR this year is about 14% but it is still lagging the STI, the recent upward trend probably helped with this.

But overall XIRR performance is average I guess, but much better (+6.79%) than last year (-0.38%).

Let's see if I can improve or maintain such a performance.

Total Dividends Collected in 2017 is at 2701.01 (I have not included Singtel upcoming dividends as it would be paid next year).
This makes up $225.08 in dividends per month :) (increased from last year)
Hope I can keep it up :)

Still far from my first port of gold, so hope to get there soon! Hope to hit 150k portfolio in about 3 more years (from Cai Haoxiang article here), which currently I am on track, fortunately.
That being said, it has grown from the prior size of ~43k to the current ~54k. Unfortunately, the rest are still in cash and not really vested (on 34% cash), so hope to find opportunities as I go along.

I am kind of behind in my watchlist numbers population due to working on my side venture, so I'll probably look to purchase what I already have looked at (list keeps increasing). There's still a lot more work to be done. :(

I have made my fair share of mistakes on hindsight, such as averaging down on Comcfort Delgro (disruption seems to be really bad) and adding M1 (competition might further press down profits, doesn't seem to have much growth either).

My portfolio profit&loss is mostly red, but overall net positive due to dividends, but that's not exactly a comforting thought.

On my CPF
My CPF SA is ahead of my projection schedule (still waiting for the funds in my PSEA account to come in, so it can be transferred to SA).

My stance on OA is still the same as last year, I might look at investing my CPF OA money with the same strategy as I am using with my cash, but probably focused on dividend growth counters (probably only 1-2 shares). Not sure when, but I'll think again when I have funds.

On my job
I am given a new role at work. It's quite taxing on me (I've lost quite a bit on sleep) but I'll continue to try my best at learning while adding value to my company. It is also to decide whether this would be something I would like to be moving up my career, but time will tell.

Hope I get a decent increment and bonus next year ^^"

Also, I calculated that working OT 2 days a month would give me another 2 months "bonus". Perhaps it is something to think of as a form of extra funds should my side venture require more funds/does not work.

On my personal life
It is unfortunate that I killed one e-ink ebook reader, and got a new one (same brand different model).

I managed to complete 16 books, including 1 fiction book, exceeding my target of 12 books per year. However, some of those books were short reads, so I'm not sure I could do it again. So my target for next year would still be 12 books per year.

The list of books read are:

1.  Portfolios of the Poor
2. Stock Market Cash Flow by Andy Tanner
3. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
4. Building Wealth Through REITS by Bobby Jayaraman
5. International REITs by Kaiwen Leong
6. Amazon FBA Blackbook by John Fisher
7. Chris Green – Arbitrage
8. Chris Green – Online Arbitrage
9. The Singapore blue chips : the rewards & risks of investing in Singapore’s largest corporates
10. Investing in REITs by Ralph Block
11. The Little Book of Sideways Markets by Vitaliy Katsenelson
12. Private Label: The Easy Way by Ryan Reger
13. eBay to Amazon Arbitrage Guide by Simon Charlton
14. The Newbies Guide to becoming a successful dropshipper by Sam England
15. Origins – Dan Brown
16. Asian Godfathers – Joe Studwell

On a side note, I finally finished two games from my childhood this year too (1 last year)! Looking back, it is already 16 to 17 years for them. Kept them waiting. :)

Games list:

• Megaman Legends 2 PSX
•  Pokemon Crystal GBC

Well, let's look forward to 2018 and make it a better year for ourselves :)

How was 2017 for you?