Net Worth and Life Update (May 2020) – S$235,085

a cup of coffee
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Written by Liz

Just your regular 27-year-old, queer, super-introverted, FIRE-chasing, frugal Singaporean, who lives a pretty good life while earning only a modest salary, but still plans to retire at age 40 with $1,000,000. Click here to read more

June 7, 2020

Hi! Welcome back to another month-end net worth and life update.

Every month, I track my net worth progress towards my $1,000,000 milestone, which is how much I need to retire early. Let’s find out how May 2020 went.

 

Life Updates for May 2020

To my very pleasant surprise, the lockdown for Singapore got extended from 1 month, to 2 months. This means that May 2020 was another work-from-home month, which was heavenly. I hear stories of many people working crazy hours during this work-from-home period, but thankfully I don’t have to. That’s just one of the benefits of a job that doesn’t pay me more than S$2,000 a month in take-home salary. ?

Because we’re mostly trapped at home for the entire month of May, there weren’t many opportunities for me to go out and take many pictures. Nevertheless, I’ve still got some interesting (or so I think) memories to share.

My youngest brother recently got into water babies, which are little balls of water-absorbent material. Here’s what they look like after you soak them.

Colourful water babies in water

The tiny ones have just been put in, and have not absorbed any water, whereas the big ones are filled with water. It’s interesting. And also pretty.

I used to have so much fun with these back when I was his age (teenager). My friend and I used to grow cartons and cartons of these water babies, and we stored them around our classroom (until we got yelled at by our teachers).

Ah, nostalgia.

Speaking of nostalgia, my highlight of the month was finally getting to play MapleStory, a game I played almost every single day from the ages of 13 to 16 (I was addicted). After 10 long years, I finally got to play again, and it was fantastic. The gameplay isn’t as good anymore, and my online friends have all up and disappeared from my life, but I still cherish the memories from my past. Here’s what the game looks like, cute, right?

MapleStory Screenshot

My girlfriend is already bored of the game after playing it with me so much, but I personally don’t think I could ever stop loving it.

 

Did I do anything productive this month?

Unlike in March and April, where I finished writing and editing an entire book, which you can find right here and download for free, my May was much more uneventful. I think I spent a lot of time doing less important things, like revamping the site and trying to sort out annoying technical issues. These things took days and days, and I personally want to stop doing these things, and finally get down to writing more.

Recognise this picture?

Holding an iPod in front of greenery

This picture was just 1 of the pictures I took to put on my homepage. I spent quite a few hours just on this 1 single picture, trying to get it to look nice. (I guess that’s where all my time went to.) But I do like the end-result, the colours, the scenery. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

I also started publishing blog posts, the drafts of which have been sitting in my computer since February (I was procrastinating!). Most of the posts that I published in May 2020 were actually all written in February. That goes to show how much actual writing I did in May ☹ (Hint: Almost nothing.)

Apart from working on the blog, I still had to work and side hustle, which ate up a significant part of my time each week as well.

But at least I still have money coming in, which is still nice, considering the state of everything else in this world.

As you can tell, I had a pretty carefree month, unlike many other places that are experiencing unrest and tragedy. I know I’m privileged, and I don’t take a second of that for granted.

Financial Updates for May 2020

And now, let’s get into the financial aspect of things. A few things to note, as usual:

  • I track my net worth in Singapore Dollars (S$)
  • But I also include a conversions to U.S. dollars (US$) in my net worth update.
  • At the time of writing, the exchange rate is S$1 to US$0.71.

Without further ado, here are all the numbers.

 

What’s my net worth?

Net Worth30 Apr 202031 May 2020Gain/Loss
CashS$24,001S$23,680(-S$321)
Brokerage (SG)S$127,944S$127,067(-S$877)
Brokerage (US)S$28,644S$32,842(+S$4,198)
Retirement AccountsS$50,687S$51,496(+S$809)
Total Net WorthS$231,276S$235,085(+S$3,809)

As at 31 April 2020, my net worth was S$231,276, or US$163,050.

As at 30 May 2020, my net worth was S$235,085, orUS$166,910.

I was a little disappointed that the stock market kept rising this month, as I still had bonds to divest and cash to invest. Oh well. At least I managed to get a little bit of investment in during the short downturn.

I invested mainly into the U.S. market and the international market, and I’ve since limited investments into the Singapore market. That’s why my U.S brokerage account increased (as I invested), and my Singapore brokerage account dropped (because I divested bonds. Also, because Singapore is a lot more sluggish than the U.S.).

 

What’s my asset allocation?

In my book, “Become a Millionaire and Retire Early on a Modest Salary”, which you can find right here and download for free, I explained why I’m aiming for an asset allocation that looks like this:

 

Aaaaand, here’s what my current asset allocation looks like:

Note: You can click on each slice of the pie chart below to find out the value of my holdings in each asset class.

Not ideal, at all, as it takes time to slowly build up capital and invest all of it in the U.S. and international markets.

But I guess I’ll just work on this, slowly but steadily ?

I don’t include retirement accounts as part of my asset allocation as they are sitting in cold, hard cash. (I don’t have much control over these retirement accounts.)

If you’re looking for more details of my net worth, here they are. ?

Brokerage Accounts

Singapore Portfolio

Bond Index ETF – S$28,305
Stock Index ETF – S$74,675
Individual Shares – S$24,087
Total – S$127,067 (US$90,218)

 

United States Portfolio

Stock Index ETF – US$17,829
International Stock Index ETF – US$2,371
Individual Shares – US$3,093
Total – S$32,842 (US$23,292)

 

Cash in Bank Accounts

Brokerage Account 1 – S$3,531
Brokerage Account 2 – S$27
Bank Account 1 – S$3,905
Bank Account 2 – S$631
Bank Account 3 – S$10,363
Bank Account 4 – S$504
Bank Account 5 – S$1,003
Cash on Hand – S$3,716
Total – S$23,680 (US$16,813)

 

Retirement Accounts

Retirement Account 1 – S$31,923
Retirement Account 2 – S$8,942
Retirement Account 3 – S$10,631
Total – S$51,496 (US$36,562)

 

And that’s it!

I hope to improve on these net worth updates over the months, in content and in form. Hope you stick around for that ?

How was your May 2020?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

Become a Millionaire and Retire Early on a Modest Salary Book Cover

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4 Comments

  1. Mike Wong

    Congratulations on your savings and financial goals.

    Looks like a lot effort went into the blog.

    Looking forwards to your new posts.

    • Liz

      Hi Mike! Thanks for taking the time to stop by, and for your kind words and congratulations. I’m glad that you’re enjoying the blog and the posts, and I appreciate you being here 🙂

  2. Calvin

    Nice to see your net-worth increasing towards your target in May. Just want to share I have opened my Standard Chartered brokerage account and will be doing my monthly investment from July onwards. I will still leave my AutoWealth portfolio alone for now and maybe do a comparison further down the road before making any decision to shift it over.

    Like you said it was sad to see all the bad news from the US but really surprised how the US markets have been reacting to all the chaos. All the best in June!

    • Liz

      Hi Calvin! Nice to see you around again and thank you for taking the time to stop by.

      Wow I’m glad that you opened a Standard Chartered brokerage account! I really like them and I’m glad I could recommend it. Congrats! Glad that you’ll be paying less fees with Standard Chartered than with AutoWealth 🙂 But just one thing to note – Standard Chartered holds our shares in their custodian account, not in our CDP. Not sure if this is something that you might want to look into. Let me know what you decide to do with your AutoWealth portfolio in the future!

      I know, right? It’s jaw-dropping how the markets have been rising like crazy. Oh well. But hopefully you’re closer to your 1M goal than before! 🙂