Tag: Monthly Updates

monthly updates

What Have We Done This Month Towards Our Financial Goals – June 2020

On By Mr BudgetIn Financial Goals, Syfe1 Comment

So June has came and gone now. What this means is that, first half of 2020 is now over, and we are moving into the second half of 2020. Time really flies!

For the whole of June, both Mrs Budget and myself had been mostly staying at home due to the circuit breaker. However, we have also started going back to the office about once to twice a week for office matters and meetings.

While everyone else is doing a monthly portfolio update, we thought it is more meaningful to document what we have done this month towards our financial goals.

Portfolio Transactions

Mr Budget
Position Added: MNAC, Prime US Reit, Syfe
Take Profit: N/A

Mrs Budget
Position Added: MNAC, Prime US Reit, Syfe
Take Profit: N/A

For June, in our previous update, we mentioned that we averaged down on Mapletree North Asia Trust, and initiated a position on Prime US Reit, both of which were still trading at below their NAV.

We have also continued to contribute to our roboadvisor Syfe this month.

In June, we have been tracking the price movements over the last few weeks, and what we’ve noticed is that the market is moving sideways now, and the bulls seems to be losing momentum.

This is expected since May we saw a strong rebound for the various stock prices. With the slow down in price momentum, we probably wont be buying any counters in the Singapore market unless something exciting comes. We may initiate some positions in the US market for the long run and also to increase our US equity allocation.

Home Equity Loan

Regular followers of Mr and Mrs Budget may have noticed that we have briefly included a new portion of home equity loan towards our monthly war chest update last month.

Since April when the market crashed, and along that the drop in interest rates, Mrs Budget has been trying to get a home equity loan so that we can leverage on that as a cheap source of fund to invest in the market.

We are happy to share that the loan has been approved, although the quantum is lesser than what we had hope for. The rate that we were offered by OCBC was 1.6% for 2 years, and Mrs Budget will be taking that up.

The rate is really quite affordable and even if Mrs Budget were to use that whole loan quantum and put it in CPF, the returns will more than double the loan interest.

So if anyone is able to do this, we’d recommend taking up an home equity loan. A few people we know are doing this to leverage on the low interest rate environment now.

The home equity loan process however, took way longer than we thought – since we applied in April, we only received the approval in end June, and are told that the funds will only be disbursed in another 1 – 2 months.

We may probably be sharing an article on the whole process and our further thoughts on that.

Net Worth Updates

Our net worth continue to grow this month, due to contribution from our salary as well as the continued rebound of stock prices.

Our combined net worth is now at S$718,000, including CPF but excluding our property and mortgage. This is up from S$690,000 last month, a change of +S$28,000.

The growth rate these past few months is quite high as we have lowered our spending significantly, and Mr Budget’s Malaysia mortgages are halted.

However, we are mindful that these number may change as we have a significant exposure to the equity market, which currently stands at a total equity exposure of S$280,000.

War Chest Updates And Watchlist

With the various transactions, here’s an update on our war chest:

Mr Budget War ChestS$90,000
Mrs Budget War ChestS$40,000
Mrs Budget Home Loan War Chest (pending)S$70,000

As our war chest has been increasing, and our cash position % is getting slightly larger than what we would ideally like, hopefully we are able to deploy our war chest soon. Counters on our watch list:

  1. Ascendas REIT
  2. Keppel DC REIT
  3. IREIT Global
  4. SGX
  5. DBS
  6. Mastercard
  7. Adobe
  8. Amazon
  9. Square
  10. Tesla (NEW)

We’ve added Tesla into our wishlist as a speculative counter, and may initiate a small speculative position if any opportunity arise.

Stay safe everyone, and happy hunting! We’d be happy to also hear your recent purchases too so that we can keep an eye on them too.

Monthly Tracking

Looking to invest via Syfe? You can use our referral code: SRP6X8B8Y when you create an account.

We would both get $10 to $100 depending on your first deposit amount, and you’d receive your bonus within 5 business days.

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May 2020 Monthly Expenses Update

On By Mr BudgetIn Living ExpensesLeave a comment

At the end of every month, Mrs Budget and I will reconcile our monthly expenses and see what are we spending on, and where we can optimise or cut down our expenses.

We subscribe to the believe that every penny saved is a penny earned – sometimes its easier to save S$100, than to earn S$100, both of which results in the same net worth increase.

In May, here’s what Mr Budget spent on.

ExpensesMay
Meals$286.09
Entertainment$65.49
Groceries / Home$202.15
Shopping / Cloths$7.50
Phone Bill$40.00
Income Tax$206.22
Hair Cut$26.00
Singapore Mortgage$1,113.84
Others$644.33

Mr Budget’s total expenditure for May is at $2,591.62, a further reduction as compared to last month’s expenditure of $2,876.07.

Total essential expenses add up to only S$601.23 (meals, entertainment, groceries, phone bill).

If you strip it down further, bulk of the payment goes into mortgage payments and income tax. There was also a $644.33 expenses under the “Others” category made for a miles redemption program as well as a wedding angpao for a friend.

For Mrs Budget, here’s what she spent on.

ExpensesMay
Meals$126.78
Family$600.00
Groceries / Home$202.15
Phone Bill$25.00
Endowment$303.97
Shopping$63.34
Gifts (Wedding Festives)$55.15

Similarly, Mrs Budget also only spent $1,376.39 this month. Total essential expenses add up to only S$353.94 (meals, groceries, phone bill), while the others are variable expenses. Mrs Budget continued her monthly family contribution of S$600 as well as her monthly contribution to her endowment plan.

This monthly numbers also serves as a good indication of our cash flow when we retire, so now we have a good idea of how much we need to retire.

We don’t foresee any big expenditure coming in the next few months, and we will continue to tighten our belts and watch our cash outflow so that we can tide through this uncertain period.

In terms of our expenses, it is hard to further optimize our monthly expenses as we think they are reasonably low and within our expectations.

Our meals and groceries adds up to S$817 per month. If we divide that to 2 meals a day for 30 days, our cost per meal is at S$13.62.

We can definitely aim towards reducing that to S$10 per meal if we want to, but we would have to give up our indulgence like fishes and our love for vitagen, and that would slightly diminish our happiness.

May Meal and Groceries Total CostS$817.08
Cost per meal (60 meals / 2 meals a day)S$13.62

How has May been like for you?

October 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
November 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
December 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
January 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
February 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
March 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
April 2020 Monthly Expenses Update

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monthly updates

What Have We Done This Month Towards Our Financial Goals – May 2020

On By Mr BudgetIn Financial GoalsLeave a comment

So May has came and gone now. We are almost at the end at the circuit breaker period which means most of the Singapore economy will start to open up soon.

For the whole of May, both Mrs Budget and myself had been mostly staying at home due to the circuit breaker. While everyone else is doing a monthly portfolio update, we thought it is more meaningful to document what we have done this month towards our financial goals.

Mr Budget
Position Added: SEA, Booking, Lendlease, Syfe
Take Profit: N/A

Mrs Budget
Position Added: Syfe
Take Profit: N/A

This month, Mr Budget bought into 3 counters, and these counters should probably be familiar names here at Mr and Mrs Budget. The first counter is SEA – the counter that Mr Budget sold off in March and now bought in again at a higher price.

 What a stupid move missing out on so much. Although Mr Budget took profit (18%) in March and bought back in earlier 2 weeks ago at a much higher price, the counter is now at a 33% profit in just 2 weeks. The profit would have been +120% if he did not sell his initial position.

SEA is really quite an amazing counter as it is investing in 3 main growth areas – gaming, e-commerce, and fintech.

Rather than waiting for the counter to drop and buy in again, the strategy now is to accumulate whenever there is a price weakness, than risk losing out on the upside. SEA is now part of Mr Budget’s coffee can portfolio too.

The second counter that Mr Budget bought in is Booking – a counter that Mr Budget has mentioned a few times here.

Bookings is the dominant player in the OTA space, and has various strategic holdings such as in Grab, Didi, and Meituan. In the short to medium term, travel won’t go away, and Bookings is probably the most well capitalized company to ride on that rebound.

Our entry price is not the lowest as we wanted to time the market even more, but we realised that the current price may never come back. Hence we entered a small position and will accumulate more if there are any future price weakness. 

The third counter Mr Budget bought in was Lendlease REIT – and this is just to average down on our initial purchase.

The good news is that with the Circuit breaker ending soon, all retail Reits are staging a rebound in price. The price level in May is probably the last chance for us to average down our holdings. 

Mrs Budget on the other hand, did not make any purchase as she is looking to build up her cash position. However, both Mr and Mrs Budget did continue our monthly contribution to our roboadvisor Syfe. 

The market had also rebounded a fair bit and our positions entered during the circuit breaker gave us a decent rebound onto our portfolio value:

AIMS AMP+20%
Capitamall Trust+15%
Ascendas India Trust+24%
Keppel Pacific Oak US REIT+43%
Lendlease REIT+19%
Alphabet+25%
SEA+33%

We are slowly thinking and accepting that this is a V shape recovery, although we are still quite reluctant to accept that.

Stock market seems very disjointed with what is happening with the economy. We would have deployed more of our war chest if we truly believe that this is a V shape recovery.

But on hindsight, the government has really helped stabilize the economy by a fair bit – with the GDP forecasted to fall up to -7% this year, the 4 budget announced by the finance minister totalling up to 20% of last year’s GDP can more than cushion the impact of the GDP loss this year.

In any case, we are quite happy with our purchases past few weeks, and if there are any price weaknesses in the counters that we are eyeing, we are happy to pick up more purchases along the way.

Our net worth continue to grow this month, due to contribution from our salary as well as the rebound of stock prices.

Our combined net worth is now at S$690,000, including CPF but excluding our property and mortgage. This is up from S$650,000 last month.

With the various transactions, here’s an update on our war chest:

Mr Budget War ChestS$95,000
Mrs Budget War ChestS$40,000
Mr Budget Home Loan War Chest (pending)S$50,000
Mrs Budget Home Loan War Chest (pending)S$150,000

As our war chest has been increasing, and our cash position % is getting slightly larger than what we would ideally like, hopefully we are able to deploy our war chest soon. Counters on our watch list:

  1. Ascendas REIT
  2. Keppel DC REIT
  3. IREIT Global
  4. SGX
  5. DBS
  6. Mastercard
  7. SEA (bought)
  8. Booking (bought)
  9. Adobe
  10. Amazon
  11. Square
  12. Facebook

Stay safe everyone, and happy hunting! We’d be happy to also hear your recent purchases too so that we can keep an eye on them too.

Monthly Tracking

Looking to invest via Syfe? You can use our referral code: SRP6X8B8Y when you create an account.

We would both get $10 to $100 depending on your first deposit amount, and you’d receive your bonus within 5 business days.

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April 2020 Monthly Expenses Update

On By Mr BudgetIn Living Expenses3 Comments

At the end of every month, Mrs Budget and I will reconcile our monthly expenses and see what are we spending on, and where we can optimise or cut down our expenses.

We subscribe to the believe that every penny saved is a penny earned – sometimes its easier to save S$100, than to earn S$100, both of which results in the same net worth increase.

In April, here’s what Mr Budget spent on.

ExpensesApril
Meals$393.69
Transportation (mrt)$10.00
Groceries / Home$194.99
Phone Bill$56.10
Mum$111.33
Income Tax$103.05
Malaysia Mortgage 1$800.00
Singapore Mortgage$1,206.91

Mr Budget’s total expenditure for April is at $2,876.07, a further reduction as compared to last month’s expenditure of $3,563.78.

Total essential expenses add up to only S$654.78 (meals, mrt, groceries, phone bill).

If you strip it down further, bulk of the payment goes into mortgage payments. There were no expenses recorded under “travel”, “entertainment”, “Haircut”, “shopping” or “Others” as Mrs Budget and I had been holed up at home. This should paint a good picture of our expenses when we retire.

For Mrs Budget, here’s what she spent on.

ExpensesApril
Meals$10.90
Family$600.00
Groceries / Home$194.99
Phone Bill$25.00
Endowment$303.97
Shopping$55.84
Dog$282.63

Similarly, Mrs Budget also only spent $1,473.33 this month. Total essential expenses add up to only S$230.89 (meals, groceries, phone bill), while the others are variable expenses. Mrs Budget bought an insurance for her dog hence that’s recorded as a one off expenses.

This monthly numbers also serves as a good indication of our cash flow when we retire, so now we have a good idea of how much we need to retire.

Before covid and post covid, our expenses has dropped by at least 50% – 60%, showing that we really spend a lot indulging in variable expenses such as travelling, entertainment and shopping – definitely something to think about.

We don’t foresee any big expenditure coming in the next few months, and we will continue to tighten our belts and watch our cash outflow so that we can tide through this uncertain period.

How has March been like for you?

October 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
November 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
December 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
January 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
February 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
March 2020 Monthly Expenses Update

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What Have We Done This Month Towards Our Financial Goals – April 2020

On By Mr BudgetIn Financial Goals2 Comments

So April has came and gone now. 33% of 2020 is now over.

For the whole of April, both Mrs Budget and myself had been mostly staying at home due to the circuit breaker.

While everyone else is doing a monthly portfolio update, we thought it is more meaningful to document what we have done this month towards our financial goals.

Mr Budget
Position Added: SPH REIT, Centurion, Alphabet
Take Profit: Fu Yu, Accordia Golf Trust, Keppel Infrastructure Trust

Mrs Budget
Position Added: SPH REIT, Centurion, Alphabet 
Take Profit: N/A

This month, we bought into 3 counters, namely SPH REIT, Centurion and Alphabet.

For SPH REIT, we believe that the Reit, which is trading below its NAV, may reward its unit holders in the long run due to several reasons – exposure into students accommodation and SPH is slowly realising that it is morphing into a property player. 

Similarly for Centurion, while it may be in the news now for not so good reasons, the counter is still undervalued, and once COVID is over, the price may go up again due to its defensive accommodation nature.

We previously sold off Centurion and bought back in straight after to lower down our entry price further. We spoke about SPH REIT and Centurion in our previous update 2 weeks ago too.

For Alphabet, we have been eyeing this counter for a while now – the parent company of Google is probably the dominant player in the online advertising space, and with its recent battered down share price, we took a position in Alphabet which we will keep for very very long.

To replenish our war chest further, Mr Budget sold off his holdings in Fu Yu, Accordia Golf Trust, and Keppel Infrastructure Trust. To be honest, the selling off are all speculative play, as we foresee the prices to drop further in the next few months. If the price level fall back to lower than our entry price, we will pick them up again for cold storage. 

So the equity purchase movement this month is really just a recycling of our existing holdings into new counters which are trading at below NAV, and these stock purchases are funded by the selling off of 3 existing share counters.

There were some positions which Mr Budget sold off last month which he deeply regretted now: his positions in Amazon, SE, as well as AXXN – all of which he entered at excellent prices and are all now back to their all time high.

The market is really irrational and are not reacting to all the negative news in the economy, so hopefully the prices will come back down for him to pick them up again.

If it doesnt, it’s a really good lesson for Mr Budget to not let go of winning counters in the future and to just let the winners run. That’s probably one of the many lessons learnt from this market sell down.

The market had also rebounded a fair bit and our positions entered last month (Keppel Pacific Oak +27%, Ascendas India Trust +10%) gave us a decent rebound onto our portfolio value.

Overall, the portfolio of Mr Budget has now broken even, which means everything is at cost to Mr Budget now. What this also means is that we are now back to zero since started investing 2 years ago.

However, we think that the market will continue a slow decline over the next few months, and our view is still that we will see further market correction.

That said, in case we are wrong, we are continuing to invest, cautiously, over the next few months.

Our net worth continue to grow this month, due to contribution from our salary as well as the rebound of stock prices.

Our combined net worth is now at S$650,000, including CPF but excluding our property and mortgage. 

With the various transactions, here’s an update on our war chest:

Mr Budget War ChestS$100,000
Mrs Budget War ChestS$40,000
Mr Budget Home Loan War ChestS$50,000
Mrs Budget Home Loan War ChestS$150,000

As our war chest has been increasing, and our cash position % is getting slightly larger than what we would ideally like, hopefully we are able to deploy our war chest soon. Counters on our watch list:

  1. Ascendas REIT
  2. Keppel DC REIT
  3. IREIT Global
  4. Suntec REIT
  5. SGX
  6. DBS
  7. Mastercard
  8. SEA
  9. Booking
  10. Adobe
  11. Amazon
  12. Square
  13. Facebook
  14. Fu Yu

Stay safe everyone, and happy hunting!

Monthly Tracking

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March 2020 Monthly Expenses Update

On By Mr BudgetIn Living ExpensesLeave a comment

At the end of every month, Mrs Budget and I will reconcile our monthly expenses and see what are we spending on, and where we can optimise or cut down our expenses.

We subscribe to the believe that every penny saved is a penny earned – sometimes its easier to save S$100, than to earn S$100, both of which results in the same net worth increase.

In March, here’s what Mr Budget spent on.

ExpensesMarch
Meals$450.07
Transportation (mrt)$40.00
Entertainment$48.40
Groceries / Home$201.05
Phone Bill$56.10
Income Tax$103.05
Hair Cut$34.00
Digital Subs$30.56
Malaysia Mortgage 1$785.47
Malaysia Mortgage 2$407.21
Singapore Mortgage$1,215.26
Others$192.60

Mr Budget’s total expenditure for February is at $3,563.78, a further reduction as compared to last month’s expenditure of $4,868.09. 

The bulk of the expenses are mortgages related expenses, and if we remove all of those expenses, the true expenditure will be at S$1155.83. Mortgage related expenses is at S$2407.95, making up to 68% of the monthly expenses. 

For Mrs Budget, here’s what she spent on.

ExpensesMarch
Meals$154.60
Transportation$80.00
Family$600.00
Entertainment$17.00
Groceries / Home$201.05
Phone Bill$25.00
Endowment$303.97
Insurance$87.25
Income Tax$290.97
Shopping$14.31
Gifts (Wedding Festives)$170.14
Dog$231.35

Mrs Budget total expenditure is at $2,175.64, significantly lower than February’s expenditure of S$10,260.33. This amounted to her 6 months low, and reverted back to the normal true monthly expenses.

We dont foresee any big expenditure coming in the next few months, and we will continue to tighten our belts and watch our cash outflow so that we can tide through this uncertain period.

How has March been like for you?

October 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
November 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
December 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
January 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
February 2020 Monthly Expenses Update

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What Have We Done This Month Towards Our Financial Goals – March 2020

On By Mr BudgetIn InvestmentLeave a comment

So March and 2020 first quarter has came and gone now. And March has been yet another a roller coaster month because of the whole virus situation.

While everyone else is doing a monthly portfolio update, we thought it is more meaningful to document what we have done this month towards our financial goals.

Mr Budget
Position Added: AIMS AMP, Ascendas India Trust, Keppel Pacific OAK, CMT, Syfe Global Equities, Syfe REIT+
Take Profit: Ascendas, Centurion, Amazon, Axon, SEA

Mrs Budget
Position Added: AIMS AMP, Ascendas India Trust, Keppel Pacific OAK, CMT, Syfe Global Equities, Syfe REIT+ Take Profit: Ascendas, Netlink Trust

There were a fair bit of transactions this month, and mostly they can be classified into:

  1. Selling some of our recently added positions to take profit and avoid losses
  2. Buying to remain vested in market as well as adding counters which are below NAV and are oversold.

For Mr Budget and Mrs Budget, we took profit off Ascendas which we bought in November last year, and still manage to clock in a 10% gain before the counter plunged to below our entry price.

We may initiate a position to buy Ascendas again when the price drops further. 

To accumulate more cash, Mr Budget also sold off more than half of his US equities, as well as his stake in Centurion before it dived lower than his entry price.

Similarly, Mrs Budget also took profit on her Netlink Trust holdings. 

With the proceeds from the sales of shares, we rotated those capital into the following counters:

  1. AIMS AMP – dropped to a 8 years low, with a price/nav of 0.77 and 45% upside. There was insider buying too when share plunged.
  2. Ascendas India Trust – dropped to 1 year low, with a price yield of 8.21% and a 54% upside. Our first exposure to the India market.
  3. Keppel Pacific OAK – dropped to all time low, with a price/nav of 0.61 and a 80% upside. 
  4. Capitalmall Trust – dropped to a 8 years low, with a price/nav of 0.84 and a 55% upside. Finally manage to get this REIT.

Overall, we recycled our invested capital into new REITs with better prices, and this month our investing activity is still net capital outlay for our Singapore equities.

We also continued our monthly Syfe DCA contribution.

Here’s a graphical representation of what we have done this month towards our financial goals:

While our portfolio went down by a lot, it is cushioned by our employment income as well as constant CPF contribution. Mrs Budget also received her performance bonus which help lifted her net worth up.

Our joint net worth is at around S$590,000 now, almost hitting S$600,000, excluding our properties and mortgages but including our CPF. 

In our previous updates, we shared that cash is king and that we will be accumulating cash.

Hence we are treating our stock purchase this month as our first deployment of our war chest during this COVID 19 outbreak. 

PhasesMr BudgetMrs BudgetDeployment Signals
1AS$20,000S$20,000Singapore market STI -20% 2400 – Deployed
1BS$20,000S$20,000US NASDAQ -25% 6750
2AS$30,000S$30,000Singapore market STI -20% 2000
2BS$30,000S$50,000US NASDAQ -25% 5400
3AS$50,000S$120,000Singapore market STI -20% 1600
3BS$30,000S$70,000US NASDAQ -25% 4000
Current: STI 2440 NASDAQ 7500

We have done 1A last week, and will monitor the US market for phase 1B.

Phase 1 is funded by our existing capital in the market. 
Phase 2 will be funded by our current cash in bank.
Phase 3 will be funded via a combination of home equity loan as well as credit card cash advance.

Assuming we do hit phase 3, here are some of the counters we will be accumulating:

  1. Ascendas REIT
  2. Keppel DC REIT
  3. Comfort Delgro
  4. CRCT
  5. Suntec REIT
  6. Centurion
  7. SGX
  8. DBS
  9. Mastercard
  10. SEA
  11. Booking
  12. Google
  13. Adobe
  14. Amazon
  15. Square
  16. Facebook

Hopefully we will be able to scoop up these counters at good price and they will reward us in the future. 

Stay safe everyone, and happy hunting!

Monthly Tracking

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January 2020 Monthly Expenses Update

On By Mr BudgetIn Living ExpensesLeave a comment

At the end of every month, Mrs Budget and I will reconcile our monthly expenses and see what are we spending on, and where we can optimise or cut down our expenses.

We subscribe to the believe that every penny saved is a penny earned – sometimes its easier to save S$100, than to earn S$100, both of which results in the same net worth increase.

In January, here’s what Mr Budget spent on.

ExpensesJanuary
Meals$318.56
Transportation $65.00
Entertainment$176.20
Groceries / Home$121.82
Shopping / Cloths$382.53
Phone Bill$56.10
Income Tax$103.05
Hair Cut$34.00
Digital Subs$30.56
Malaysia Mortgage 1$877.73
Malaysia Mortgage 2$366.51
Singapore Mortgage$1,231.80
Travel$1,819.94
CPF Top Up$7,000.00
Wedding Expenses$4,855.54

My total expenses for January ended up to be a whopping $17,439.34, consisting of a $2,699.75 fixed expenses and $14,739.59 of variable expenses.

The expenses increases significantly mostly due to the final payment of our wedding expenses ($4,855.54), our recent honeymoon to Japan ($1,819.94) as well as a CPF SA contribution (S$7,000).

Removing all of these one off expenses, the true expenses in January would have been a more manageable S$3,763.86. Of the S$3,763.86, mortgage payment is at S$2,476.04, and the rest is at S$1287.82.

Daily Expenses$1,287.82
Mortgage Commitments$2,476.04
Wedding, CPF Top Up, Honeymoon$13,675.48
Total January Expenses$17,439.34
January Expenses Category Breakdown

For Mrs Budget, here’s what she spent on.

ExpensesJanuary
Meals$107.82
Transportation$80.00
Family$600.00
Groceries / Home$121.82
Phone Bill$65.58
Endowment$303.97
Insurance$87.25
Shopping$305.00
Travel$1,819.94
Gifts (Wedding Festives)$20.00
Wedding Expenses$4,716.54

Mrs Budget spent a total of $8,227.92, of which $1,244.62 is the fixed expenses and $6,983.30 is the variable expenses.

Similarly, wedding and travel expenses made up the bulk of the expenses in January. 

We don’t foresee to have any big expenses for the rest of the year other than some small travel expenses to Malaysia, so that should ease our cash flow as well as help us build up our cash savings for the year. 🙂

How has January been like for you?

October 2019 Monthly Expenses Update

November 2019 Monthly Expenses Update

December 2019 Monthly Expenses Update

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December 2019 Monthly Expenses Update

On By Mr BudgetIn Living ExpensesLeave a comment

At the end of every month, Mrs Budget and I will reconcile our monthly expenses and see what are we spending on, and where we can optimise or cut down our expenses.

We subscribe to the believe that every penny saved is a penny earned – sometimes its easier to save S$100, than to earn S$100, both of which results in the same net worth increase.

In December, here’s what Mr Budget spent on.

ExpensesDecember
Meals$432.84
Transportation $65.00
Entertainment$71.80
Groceries / Home$2,181.93
Shopping / Cloths$946.50
Phone Bill$56.10
Family$1,000.00
Income Tax$103.05
Hair Cut$36.00
Digital Subs$30.56
Malaysia Mortgage 1$879.83
Malaysia Mortgage 2
$141.89
Singapore Mortgage$1,231.78
Others$2,222.01

My total expenses for December is S$9,399.28, consisting of a fixed expenses of S$3,479.20 and variable expenses of S$5,920.08.

The expenses high an all time high as in December, Mr Budget made a few wedding related expenses, all of which are one off expenses. 

It is scary to think that Mr Budget is spending close to S$10,000 in December, but find consolation in the fact that some of these expenses were recovered via the wedding angpao, as shared in our previous update.

Hopefully 2020 will be a year of high savings and personal finance growth! The one part which can not be optimised further is the various mortgage payments – 3 in total, of which one is for the current Singapore house, and another 2 for the condos in Malaysia, both of which are for investment purposes. Hopefully we can reap the benefits in the future.

Also Read: We Spent A Net Total Of S$16,000 For Our Wedding, Or S$80 Per Wedding Guest.

For Mrs Budget, here’s what she spent on.

ExpensesDecember
Meals$274.52
Transportation$109.80
Family$600.00
Groceries / Home$2,181.93
Phone Bill$39.71
Endowment$303.97
Insurance$87.25
Shopping$439.71
Gifts (Wedding Festives)$388.00

Mrs Budget’s total expenditure was S$4,424.89, out of which S$1,415.25 is the fixes expenses.

Other than contributing a monthly stipend to her parents and contributing to her endowment plan, the other high expenses is the wedding table downpayment which we captured under our “Home” category. As per usual, Mrs Budget’s spending is well within our satisfaction.

October 2019 Monthly Expenses Update

November 2019 Monthly Expenses Update

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November 2019 Monthly Expenses Update

On By Mr BudgetIn Living ExpensesLeave a comment

At the end of every month, Mrs Budget and I will reconcile our monthly expenses and see what are we spending on, and where we can optimise or cut down our expenses.

We subscribe to the believe that every penny saved is a penny earned – sometimes its easier to save S$100, than to earn S$100, both of which results in the same net worth increase.

In November, here’s what Mr Budget spent on.

Meals$266.74
Transportation (mrt)$113.19
Entertainment$374.81
Groceries / Home$2,114.37
Phone Bill$56.10
Family$278.33
Income Tax$103.05
Hair Cut$34.00
Digital Subs$30.56
Malaysia Mortgage 1$851.74
Malaysia Mortgage 2$127.50
Singapore Mortgage$985.74
Others$1,014.75

My total expenses this month is $6,350.88, consisting of a fixed expenses of $2,467.02 and variable expenses of $3,883.86.

The variable expenses is higher this month as we made our usual wedding downpayment for our banquet next year, and we foresee some recovery in that aspect next month when the ang Pao comes in.

Entertainment cost is higher as Mr Budget went overseas with his company. Other than that, managed to cut down on grab food meals this month hence the overall expenses is lower than last month. Mr Budget also incurred a S$1000 cost under “others” as he made a voluntary contribution to his EPF account. 

For the month of November, I would say that we are fairly satisfied with Mr Budget’s monthly spending. 

As with last month, mortgage payments make up to S$2000 of Mr Budget’s monthly fixed expenses. Hopefully we will reap the reward in the future. 

For Mrs Budget, here’s what she spent on.

Meals$200.95
Transportation$80.00
Family$600.00
Entertainment$16.00
Groceries / Home$2,114.37
Phone Bill$39.71
Endowment$303.97
Insurance$87.25
Income Tax$0.00
Shopping$182.34

Mrs Budget’s total expenditure was $3,657.59, out of which $1,311.88 is the fixes expenses.

Other than contributing a monthly stipend to her parents and contributing to her endowment plan, the other high expenses is the wedding table downpayment. As per usual, Mrs Budget’s spending is well within our satisfaction.

October 2019 Monthly Expenses Update

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