Restarting this blog with a slightly different focus

I have not been blogging actively for about 3 years plus I think. That was when I was at my late twenties and approaching the thirties.

Since then, some of the people who known me have asked me to continue blogging my financial journey. I have not done it due to a variety of excuses and reasons, including the reason that there are now many excellent financial blogs on the individual stocks.

Now, being in my early thirties, been just married, with a HDB, I think it will be interesting to chronicle the financial struggles, and growth of a newly married couple, both at 32 years old as of today.

The aim of this journey is to grow our retirement nest, yet not scrooging on the little comforts in life like I have been doing for the early part of my financial journey. As my wife always says, money is meant to be spent and enjoyed. It doesn't mean excessive spending, but it doesn't mean excessive scrooging either.

Over the past 3 years, I have learned, understood, and realised a variety of things that I will be sharing slowly. 

I have slacked...

I will admit, I have slacked LOTS. I have not been aiming to grow aggressively in business. I have not been really monitoring my own personal expenses. I have not been monitoring the household income/savings vs expenses. 

Portfolio growth has been slow over past few years due to expenses on wedding (~$40k spend on photos and rings, don't ask :x), housing, and misc comfort stuff.

Personally, my portfolio is about $310k at the moment. My wife's portfolio is about the same amount, so our combined invested assets (exclude CPF and HDB and $$ sunk into business) stand at about $600+k. This comes from frugal spending earlier in life, unearthly working hours and some luck in the game of investing. However, due to mistakes in the past, not all of it are in good quality assets, although most are. That will be something I aim to fix slowly over the next few years. With some luck, I hope to hit past combined S$1 million without being way too aggressive over next few years. 

I did not really track our average monthly dividends, but offhand, I think our combined average monthly dividends is about $2.5k (I think this probably exceeds our monthly expenses for now... I think)

In short, I think I need to do more tracking. But it's hard as my wife is pretty unclear about the technicalities of investing, and her bank account is pretty "mixed up" with her parents'... the finer details I think I will keep to myself.

Priorities changed...

Being in the early 30s, and being newly married, priorities have changed. The priorities are mostly geared towards catering for my family, in case we have kids, as well as retirement planning. 

I plan to restart aggressive wealth accumulation again (I hope). The following are probably a brief of my plans in the near future...

1) Growth of tuition business

I need to find a consistent way to bring in students for not just me, but my other tutors. 

I have been reading up lots, and attended courses, to learn more about this. Need to implement and not slack. 

2) Growing Examworld

Finally.... the first book is almost ready to be published by end Dec. It took me too long... My weakness is that I strived too hard for perfection, because I want to give my best to potential users of my book. And on the way, I discovered that there are just so many things needed to be done just to get a book out... Will share more about this in the future.

3) Increase CPF savings

I'm a supporter of CPF. Where else can we find 4% compounded almost risk free? Plus the additional 1% for the first $60k... having OA wiped flat for HDB reduced my CPF to below $60k. 

Since start of 2015, I have been contributing 37% of my income into CPF every month (I pay the employer portion of the CPF too).

4) Increase investable assets

I want to increase my total investable assets over the next few years. Need to work very very hard for this because many things may happen over the next few years. If my wife leaves the work force, we will be left with one less income source. 

5) Paying down the HDB

Currently, I pay for housing expenses while my wife pays for the HDB loans since my income is more unstable. With my CPF OA having more cash since contributing monthly to it start 2015, I will probably be looking to do a partial repayment using OA, and might be converting into a POSB home loan later on. 

6) Getting a life insurance

I'm looking to get a simple life insurance to insure against diseases in older age. I will post more about this, and probably invite my agent to post his thoughts on financials and insurance as well.

Lots to look forward to, ending 2015 and starting 2016. I really need to stop slacking as much as I did, start putting in more time and effort into all these plans.