The year is coming to a close soon and Mr and Mrs Budget will be busy attending to our year end catch ups as well as our upcoming wedding.

As such, there won’t be any much articles and updates coming for the next 2 weeks. 

As per our annual habit, we do our annual reconciliation and look back at how we did financially this year and then chart down some actionables for us in the new year.

For Mr Budget, 2019 has been a great year in the personal finance side of things. Mr Budget’s net worth grew 87% from S$153,000 last year to about S$285,000 this year.

The main source of the growth is from his salary and bonuses, which would be case for most Singaporeans at our age. 

For investment wise and dividend wise, investment capital gain was roughly at S$7000, while dividend collected for the year is at S$2140. 

One interesting thing to note was that, the dividend collected this year was more than doubled from the dividend collected last year (S$1065). This coincide with the fact that Mr Budget doubled his Singapore portfolio from S$35,000 last year to the current S$77,000.  This is mostly due to capital injection as the overall portfolio only performed 6-7% in terms of IRR. 

Item	2018	2019	Change
Net Worth	$153,000	$285,000	+87%
Singapore Portfolio	$35,000	$77,000	+106%
US Portfolio	$46,000	$45,000	-2%
Dividend Collected	$1,065	$2,140	+101%

One of the biggest thing for Mr Budget this year was that, we have very high variable expenses. My total expenses this year is about $95,000, of which $66,000 consist of variable expenses. These variable expenses are:

1. Housing renovation
2. Wedding related expenses (bridal package, wedding dinner)
3. Wedding Ring and wedding dowry
4. Travelling expenses

Other fixed expenses like mortgage payments, income tax and utilities will still be the same expenses category that we have to pay for the new year.

The good thing is that, these are all what I call life milestone expenses, and would be a one off expense. For 2020, I don’t foresee any big expenses that we will be incurring, so I am really looking forward to a year of wealth building. 

So for 2020, here’s what Mr Budget expect to be doing:

1. Increasing Mr Budget’s Singapore portfolio to at least S$110,000 via capital injection and portfolio gain / loss
2. Continued annual S$7,000 contribution to CPF SA Account
3. Net worth should be hitting S$350,000
4. Reduction of annual expenses from current S$95,000 to a more manageable S$60,000. 
5. Start renovation for Malaysia property and then rent it out for rental income to balance off the monthly mortgage payment

Wow typing these out and reading it makes me realise that these are boring stuffs – but I guess this journey is a slow and boring process. Hopefully we can hit our 1M mark sooner so that we can move on to do more interesting things in life. 

For Mrs Budget, she only started tracking her net worth and expenses this year, hence there are no year on year comparison. However, this year, her net worth grew from S$186,000 in January to S$250,000 in December, registering an increase of 34%. We will be able to do a year on year comparison starting from next year onwards.

For Mr and Mrs Budget, you can expect us to write and share more on the following topics in the new year:

1. Our regular updates on investing with roboadvisor Syfe
2. Our financial preparation towards having our first kid
3. Our portfolio updates on which counter we are buying and selling along with the quick thought process behind them
4. Our thoughts on living expenses, cost of living and salary matters
5. More Q&A sessions with Mrs Budget
6. Managing finances as a couple

Thank you all for following our journey so far!

Although we have only starting writing in October, we have reached over 40,000 Singaporeans to date, and hopefully by this time next year, we would have reached 400,000 Singaporeans! 🙂

In case you missed them, here are some of our best articles to date:

The Ideal Minimum Salary Range For 30 – 35 Years Old Singaporean Is Between S$3,500 To S$4,500

Civil Servant’s 0.1 Month Bonus – What It Means And What Are We Doing About It

At 30 Years Old, Your Monthly Salary Should Have Been S$2,600 For You To Feel Financially Secure.

What Is The Ideal Stock Amount To Buy For The Brokerage Fees To Make Sense

Our Portfolio Is Probably Lacking A Roboadvisor Component – Here’s Why

We also want to welcome our new subscribers TWK, Credit Counselling Singapore, Kah Bian, Ritesh, Chin Poh, Alliance, Valerie, Nooruddin for following us. And to all the commenters who are actively sharing your thoughts on our articles, we want to say we enjoy reading and learning from them, so do keep it up. 🙂

Have a great Christmas ahead everyone!

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