As Year 2011 comes to an end

In case you are wondering, I do know that year 2011 still has one more month to go. But I do think it is time to start reviewing and plan ahead for the next year.

This is the link to Goal 2013 which I had set myself in November last year.

Year 2011 was super busy because of the following goal:

4) Setting up a publishing company and publish my notes
I'm currently about 35% done with my first A level guidebook. With most of my students having finished A levels from my side, I will have lots more free time come end Nov and Dec. This is the time to power up and increase my authoring.

Target timeline: Book completion (Mar 2011), Publish (Apr 2011), Sales (May~Jun 2011)

Sad to say, this was not achieved at all. I'm only currently 75% done with the book due to my heavy involvement in tuition. Nevertheless, I do think I have spent an enormous amount of time on this book.

I have to say I respect people who managed to author good books. It was a rather daunting task. There were much more challenges than I had thought. Writing good notes isn't simply (like some guidebooks out in the market) just putting information and leave it as it is. This leaves students in the lurch, only able to memorize from the notes without deeper understanding. No, I want students who use my notes to truly benefit, to truly appreciate Physics. In fact, I have been giving snippets away for free here and there to students who truly need it, and who truly wanted to learn.

While I didn't achieve this goal at all, there was progress. Which means the goal setting was still useful. Moral of the story: Aim far, and even if you do not achieve your goal eventually, you are still one step nearer to it!




In Year 2011, I have neglected two goals, namely

2) Goal of setting up ExamWorld to a super big site to help more students
3) Goal of building WealthBuch's traffic further

Interestingly, traffic continues to come in rather frequently without me adding any additional information.


As for goal 1,

1) Goal of achieving $2k average dividends per month, i.e. $24k dividends a year

There was a slight increase, having put extra cash into SMRT, SGX and Singtel this year. I also added equities of GLP, CMA and Capitaland along the year. As you can see, I'm inching towards a more blue-chips portfolio consisting mainly of monopolies and oligopolies.

While I'm still far from $2k per month, there was definitely some progress.
Additionally, my uni school fees bond are almost paid out. The interest of 2.6% was low compared to the % dividends I have received from SPH, which was why I left it as it is.


Finally, for goal 5

5) Goal of reaching a million in investable assets between me and my girl 

I'm still inching towards this "daunting" goal. Personally, my investable assets managed to cross a quarter million mark, although it is still less than $300k.



For 2012,

I'm moving ahead with an updated strategy.

Portfolio Strategy
My portfolio in equities are starting to shift towards blue chip companies. I'm happy with a 4% dividend yield for blue chips, to a 7~8% yield for stable REITs.

I hope to be able to exit the following eventually:
1) Aztech
2) Berlian Laju
3) Cosco
4) Hor Kew

Granted, these companies do not look like they will collapse anytime, and I'm still receiving dividends from Hor Kew, hence I'm ok to wait a while longer for I do not need the cash yet.

I will still be looking to add to my portfolio of stable blue chips, i.e. Singtel, Starhub, ST Engg, SPH, SMRT, etc. I will also hope to be able to add SIA Engg, SembCorp Industries and M1 eventually to my portfolio.


2012 Strategy
2011 was rather uneventful for me. 2012 will hopefully be a more exciting year. My plans are roughly up, and my strategy to ensure a sustainable income source for years to come.

1) Setting up of a tuition centre
I've discussed with a tuition centre, and agreed to take a 50% stake in the centre, and eventually a 100% stake. The centre is surviving well, but I hope to be able to bring it to higher heights through a massive introduction of IT in certain portions.

As such, I have moved my current students for 2012 to the centre. Most likely I will be earning MUCH lesser from this action from active tuition as overall hours spent on teaching might be reduced, but I hope it will work out in the long run.


2) Setting up of publishing
While it might be better to find an established publisher to publish and market my book, I want to try my hand in setting up one as I want to keep the copyright of my hard work.

Fortunately, I'm aiming at a market where there is not much books yet for it is rather niche. That is, A level physics. Not aiming to earn much, but aiming to have a head start and a foot hold.


3) iPhone Apps for Education
I was looking at Sitex 2011, and had almost decided on a MacBook Air, before deciding a MacBook Pro is more suited for me.

Since Apple traditionally comes out a new model for MacBook Pro around the start of the year, I will be waiting for IT Show 2012 to get my MacBook.

Why do I link to MacBook? This is because iPhone Apps can only be developed of Mac machines at the moment.

I have an interest in programming, and I'm going to treat this as a hobby for a start (like my tuition services), to develop apps which can complement tuition. I believe no one has done this before (the idea in my head at least) and I aim to be the first to do it. But first, I need the MacBook and to learn the programming required... i.e. Objective C.



All of (1), (2) and (3) while seemingly unrelated, will eventually be able to exhibit synergy in some manners, or so I thought.




Meanwhile, I will still keep my full-time job as I embarked on these new ventures.