As the year come to a close, its time for us to do our annual reconciliation and look at how we did financially this year, and then chart down some actionables for us for the new year. The new year is just next week!
Mr Budget’s Net Worth Grew 89% From 2019
For Mr Budget, 2020 has been another great year in the personal finance side of things. Mr Budget’s net worth grew 89% from S$285,000 last year to about S$540,000 this year. This represents an increase of +$255,000 excluding our mortgage and property calculation.
| Mr Budget | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | % Change |
| Net Worth | $153,000 | $285,000 | $540,000 | +89% |
| Singapore Portfolio | $35,000 | $77,000 | $60,000 | – 22% |
| US Portfolio | $46,000 | $45,000 | $250,000 | +455% |
| Dividend Collected | $1,065 | $2,140 | $5,000 | +133% |
This is quite a pleasant surprise and we couldn’t believe it too. Hence we dug deeper onto our finances to see what contributed to the growth and found the following:
- Fixed and variable income: +S$116,500
- CPF Growth: +S$40,000
- US Stocks Gain: +S$80,000
- Singapore Stock Gain, Dividend, Crypto Gain: + S$15,000
- Total: +S$250,000
When we look back at our net worth growth this year, we were very lucky to have jumped and ride on the rise US equities, resulting in a huge return on our equities portfolio.
In fact, since started investing 3 years ago, all the returns from the market so far were from the gains this year. It is as though we had only started investing this year.
Mr Budget’s US portfolio grew 455% from end of last year, jumping to over S$250,000 in value. SG stocks and dividend on the other hand, only returned us a small return in relative to what we had invested in at the start of this year.
While we have trimmed down our Singapore equities to fund our US stocks, the dividend collected from our SG stocks doubled as compared to last year. We expect dividend return to drop further next year as we shift our focus onto US growth stocks.
Mrs Budget’s Net Worth Grew 74% From 2019
For Mrs Budget, 2020 has also been a great year. Mrs Budget’s net worth grew 74% from S$250,000 last year to about S$434,000 this year. This represents an increase of +$184,000 excluding our mortgage and property calculation.
| Item | 2019 | 2020 | % Change |
| Net Worth | $250,000 | $434,000 | +74% |
| Singapore Portfolio | $35,000 | $46,000 | +32% |
| US Portfolio | $17,000 | $151,000 | +788% |
| Dividend Collected | N/A | $2,165 | N/A |
For Mrs Budget, the increase of S$184,000 is mostly attributed by:
- Fixed and variable income: +S$40,000
- CPF Growth: +S$12,000
- US Stocks Gain: +S$20,000
- Singapore Stock Gain, Dividend, Crypto Gain: + S$15,000
- Unlocking Of Home Equity: +S$70,000
- Misc: +S$20,000
- Total: +S$180,000
Similarly for Mrs Budget, we went overweight on the US market, and because of that, have been rewarded with positive gains and provided a huge lift to our individual net worth. Mrs Budget also took advantage of the low interest rate to refinance our private home loan, and hence we manage to increase Mrs Budget’s net worth by a fair bit this year.
Overall, our total combined net worth excluding our properties and mortgages, is at S$974,000, and we are slowly eclipsing the S$1,000,000 mark!
Although this is quite a lot, both Mrs Budget and I dont “feel rich”.
We still cook at home, we dont own a car yet, and Mr Budget has yet to pull the trigger on getting that watch that he has been eye for a more than 5 years now. Our mindset is still at the wealth building stage where we are aggressively investing in long term assets while actively manage our expenses. We are still 2 regular working adults trying to build a better future for ourselves.
Also, a very big portion of our net worth are all paper gains and they are invested in the market. If the market crash 20-30%, our net worth will drop by at least that amount and more.
And I think we constantly remind ourselves of that. There are also no changes in terms of lifestyle and we continue to live life as it is last year / 5 years ago.
In 2021, both Mrs Budget and I will focus on:
- Continue building up our long term coffee can portfolio consisting of high growth US stocks
- Continued annual S$7,000 contribution to CPF SA Account
- Hitting our S$1,000,000 combined net worth!
- We will need to optimize for our tax as we expect this year we will be hit with a hefty tax bill. I think there are still time to do contribution but we are fully invested in the US stock market now and are quite poor in cash.
Last year, we also mentioned that we were hoping we will reach 400,000 Singaporeans this year through our content, but unfortunately, our total views this year only stood at 150,000.
Hopefully in 2021 we will be able to grow that pageviews to 500,000! So if you enjoy our content, do share them with more people so that we will be more motivated to write more often. Or simply drop us a comment – we love reading them! 🙂
In case you missed them, here are some of our best articles this year:
Ark Greatly Affects Our Strategy – Here’s How We Are Investing Moving Forward
Why We Redeemed Our SSB and Sold Our DBS Shares
Our Misconception About The S&P500 And The Local Economy
Our Current Thoughts On The Local Economy, Investments, And Personal Finance
What We’ve Learnt This COVID19 – Price Levels, Selling And Coffee Can Portfolio
Merry Christmas everyone and have a happy new year!
Also Read: 2019 Year End Note From Mr and Mrs Budget
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Mr And Mrs Budget 
Congrats! You guys will definitely reach your goals!
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Thanks JC! Hopefully one day we can have a portfolio like yours too! 🙂 Happy new year!
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