Phew, what a 12 months 2022 has been! Because it involves an finish, that is my annual evaluate of my funds to verify the place we are actually and be sure that we’re not falling too far off from our objectives. Throughout this yearly evaluate, I sometimes look at my earnings development, bills, financial savings, insurance coverage protection, and funding efficiency – which helps me to raised strategize for the brand new 12 months.
This marks the ninth 12 months that I’m doing this on the weblog. Earlier than I am going into this 12 months’s evaluate, right here’s a fast recap of earlier years:
- 2014: Saved $20,000
- 2015: Saved $30,000 and grew earnings
- 2016: Saved $40,000 and grew earnings, hit $100k in web value at age 26 together with CPF
- 2017: Saved $45,000 and doubled my web value in a 12 months
- 2018: Saved $50,000
- 2019: Saved $35,000 (didn’t realise I utterly missed out on a round-up put up, however right here’s our child-related bills as an alternative)
- 2020: Saved $30,000 and achieved loopy (irregular) funding returns
- 2021: Saved $40,000, grew earnings however noticed decreased funding returns
Financial savings & Earnings
| 2014 | $20,000 |
| 2015 | $30,000 |
| 2016 | $40,000 |
| 2017 | $45,000 |
| 2018 | $50,000 |
| 2019 | $35,000 |
| 2020 | $30,000 |
| 2021 | $40,000 |
| 2022 | $45,000 |
I went again to company life in Q2 this 12 months, and stopped educating GP tuition. As an alternative, I began a brand new aspect hustle (fairly by probability) which helped to carry up my earnings ranges. This got here after my enormous achievement in shedding 20kg in 7 months (see how I did it right here), which was achieved by a mixture of things – weight loss plan, train in addition to dietary supplements to make the journey simpler. So a lot of you guys watched my transformation in real-time and stored asking me for steerage on how I did it, so I utilized to turn out to be a distributor and produce within the merchandise into Singapore to promote as properly. That now meant I might now receives a commission for the hours spent consulting and educating every of you on drop some pounds, which made it well worth the time.
And because of this, I used to be in a position to educate and assist 1,000 of you drop some pounds efficiently, which was my subsequent largest achievement this 12 months (other than my very own transformation). As we speak, though I’m now not utilizing the dietary supplements as a lot as I did anymore – primarily as a result of I’m already lighter than pre-pregnancy and might keep my weight simply with train (it was rather a lot more durable to do intense calorie-burning exercises at 72kg because it harm my knees) – I’m nonetheless teaching of us who need my assistance on losing a few pounds through my little Shopee retailer right here.
My technique is not any secret – simply work on the calorie deficit. Should you can management your weight loss plan and train to the purpose the place you’re already in a position to attain a calorie deficit, there’s no want so that you can use any dietary supplements, until you wish to pace issues up. Nevertheless, from private expertise, I discovered that controlling one’s weight loss plan in Singapore (with its abundance of excellent meals and a powerful foodie tradition) is far simpler stated than finished, so utilizing the merchandise positively assist to make the transition rather a lot simpler – to the purpose the place you now not want the merchandise and might wean off them 😉
Bills
Our household bills have risen considerably, and I’ve calculated that we want at the least $5+ok a month to outlive now. As soon as Finn begins faculty in January, this may rise to $6.5k a month, which isn’t too far off from the determine quoted in this Straits Occasions article. The approximate breakdown is as follows:
| Nate’s childcare & enrichment | $1,000 |
| Helper wage and levy | $1,000 |
| Mortgage & residence insurance coverage | $1,000 |
| City council, carpark and utilities | $500 |
| Eating & groceries | $1,000 |
| Household insurance coverage insurance policies | $1,000 |
This excludes our particular person eating bills, the allowances that we give to our dad and mom (a 5-figure sum every year) and different miscellaneous bills that aren’t recurring in nature, so you possibly can think about how the precise sum is rather a lot larger.
I’ve to confess, this got here as a shock to me as a result of it doesn’t appear that way back after I was surviving on solely $500 a month. However to be honest, 5 out of the 6 line gadgets above didn’t exist throughout that point both, so it’s only pure that our bills have shot up after coming into the subsequent stage of life.
For holidays, we did a Royal Caribbean cruise earlier this 12 months (examine our horrendous encounter right here) and a year-end Genting journey, the place we paid for the dad and mom as properly, in order that amounted to a different $5k. We’re painfully aware that we might not have a lot time left with our dad and mom as a consequence of their age and well being, so we’re hoping to have the ability to do at the least 1 flight and 1 automotive/ferry journey in a 12 months with the household to construct extra recollections abroad whereas we are able to. That is additionally our manner of thanking them, for loving and serving to us with the children which allowed us to nonetheless ship at our workplaces.
Insurance coverage
We didn’t add any new insurance coverage insurance policies this 12 months, or make any important adjustments, since most of it was already settled final 12 months previous to Finn’s delivery.
Nevertheless, I did understand that I had been unknowingly paying near $100 a 12 months for AIA Vitality, which I’ve not utilized since 2018 (upon getting pregnant with Nate). Proper now, I don’t have any of the smartwatches that hyperlinks to this system both, so I’ll probably terminate it from henceforth.
Investments
2022 was a tough 12 months to speculate. It took lots of psychological self-discipline and can to stay invested, and never run for the hills as inventory costs began falling.
The very best undervalued alternatives appeared this 12 months among the many Chinese language shares, so I used to be focusing extra time and a spotlight on the Hong Kong markets as an alternative of the US aspect this 12 months. I wrote on this weblog final 12 months that every one my HK positions have been within the pink, and that massacre continued properly into this 12 months, so you possibly can think about my reduction when China lastly introduced their reopening in November, which stopped the inventory market decline and we began seeing some inexperienced once more!
My Singapore portfolio remained flat, as I took some earnings off the desk. My US portfolio took an enormous hit as lots of the positions went into the pink, particularly the newer ones that have been initiated after April 2020. Fortunately, development shares type not more than 30% of my total portfolio, so I used to be spared from an enormous meltdown in contrast to another friends (it was additionally the rationale why I had a 40% funding efficiency throughout the COVID bull in a 12 months the place others have been getting 3-digit returns from shares like SEA, Tesla, and many others).
The largest ache got here from crypto, which types 20% of my whole funding portfolio. Within the aftermath of the Luna meltdown and FTX collapse, crypto has taken an enormous hit, and I’m down by about 50% right here. It was largely as a consequence of my earlier purchases of BTC and ETH within the 2016 – 2018 interval that cushioned the losses.
In whole, my funding portfolio is at the moment down by about ~35%. A few of these are everlasting losses (reminiscent of Luna), however others nonetheless stay to be seen within the coming years.
Conclusion
All in all, this 12 months hasn’t been simple financially. If I needed to sum it up, it will be:
- larger earnings (coming off from a one-year break from company life)
- larger bills
- decreased funding efficiency
I’m being extra energetic with fastened earnings choices for now (largely T-bills and money administration choices, see right here) since we’re in a rising rates of interest surroundings, and that’s positively one thing new as I hadn’t seen the necessity for it within the earlier decade whereas rates of interest have been so low.
Shifting into 2023, I foresee that it’ll stay difficult to speculate, particularly given the awful market and investor sentiment proper now, however I’ll proceed to stay vested and deploy extra capital each month into undervalued alternatives. As for crypto, I nonetheless don’t consider it’s the finish of the business, however I do assume it should take rather a lot longer this time spherical earlier than it recovers from the large lack of belief that has collapsed in 2022.
See you guys over within the new 12 months!
With love,
Finances Babe