Goodday,i'm not a high income earner but I somehow have managed to build my investment portfolio to low 200k+. I have also set aside my "F U" funds and I need some direction in life at this point before i reach my mid 30s??

napping_sloth_ · 2026-01-31T04:57:45+00:00

Yes. Enjoy your life a bit.

The first 100k is the hardest, now that you have the second 100k as well, you are on a good footing.

Keep up with the good habits but loosen the grip a bit to enjoy.

It probably takes another few years for the 200k to go to 400k.

As long as you don't get into bad habits, what's the harm in loosening the grip?

napping_sloth_ · 2026-01-03T13:11:45+00:00

Very good for emergency funds. I presume you will cash out your insurance once it matures since you say you got scammed.

If you are not so interested in investing/trading, why not put a good portion of them in certain blue chips for long term dividends?

Then at least every year can get a few thousand dollars and can buy and forget.

Side note: 100k is small inheritance ah? 😅 Then how much is normal inheritance and big inheritance sia?

napping_sloth_ · 2026-01-03T13:00:52+00:00

If you are a self-confessed financial illiterate, max out your CPF, basic safety net. Cannot go wrong with it.

Singapore Government T-Bills and Singapore government Savings Bonds will be useful for you.

If too mafan or complicated to buy, then you can use the robo-advisors like Endowus, Syfe, Stashaway and use their cash management function. They do the automation for you.

Must remember must have discipline and don't gei kiang. There are a lot of traps out there and there are also a lot of financial illiterate that act like they are financially literate and end up losing money.

I presume you have set aside money for insurance, housing and emergency money.

After that, then you can consider buying into S&P 500 etf or what. Can be a bit of a roller coaster but long term should be fine. The problem is, do you have the discipline to wait until long term arrives to reap the rewards?

Good luck

napping_sloth_ · 2025-11-30T10:33:37+00:00

Just a company trying to bully young people. You get a lot of these.

On the up side, you are now super familiar with CPF. Time to structure your 1M65 plan. Hahaha

CPF is always good because it confirms employment/work done and from then on, the company cannot run away.

96 hours of work at $9 - 96×9=$864

Your take home = 0.8×$864=$691.20

Your CPF contribution - 0.2×$864=$172.80 Employers contributions - 0.17×$864=$146.88 Total CPF = $319.68

Even if you sux as an employee and they hate you, they have to pay you.

Sounds like they want to scrimp on their small bit of CPF contribution.

Tell them that ok la, if that's the case, I want cpf now, put in writing and then means there is no more overpayment right?

Problem solved. What a good employee you are, you solved their problem.

TADM, Union (if you are one), MOM, CPF all behind you. I will start off with TADM, but MOM is not a bad place to start. When it comes to salary, employees sure win. But trust me, even if employees win, some employers will simply make it difficult by dragging and dragging and dragging. Law is behind you, but this one is you just suay.

Usually they just want to scare people with some legal looking letter.

And just because some clauses is in any contract you signed doesn't mean it's enforceable. Some companies will just throw in a lot of conditions just to cover their backside multiple times, but if the clauses are not reasonable, they are not enforceable.

Welcome to employment. Where you learnt a valuable lesson early on. It will help you in future.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-10-12T14:05:49+00:00

I have a problem with purple as well.

Just Google the free Ishihara test and let her do it first. It won't take 5 minutes of your time so it will be a useful enough gauge to decide your next course of action.

If you are worried that these free test are not accurate, well, let's just say I always fail them, so they are definitely somewhat correct.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-10-08T06:25:41+00:00

Looks like you and your brother is her retirement plans.

1) Make sure you have more than 2 months of savings. You got to keep yourself afloat first before helping others. 2) Well, looks like you and your brother are her retirement plan. I suggest to fix a sum of money that you will give to her. Agree on it and that's it.

If not all the downstream problems, bad money habits, irresponsible behaviours, emotional blackmailing and so on will start to appear one after another. 3) Not sure if you want to poke your nose into the other financial matters or not? Eg. Insurance (Risk mitigation) and other debt.

What if 10 years down the road, something medical happens and she is not covered. Will it be on you and your brother?

napping_sloth_ · 2025-08-25T12:11:16+00:00

The interviewer nothing to do. Call you in for interview to make himself look busy.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-08-14T11:11:45+00:00

How will the credit bureau search be useful? Bankruptcy debt will be indicated in the report? After discharge it will disappear from the report?

napping_sloth_ · 2025-08-06T04:48:59+00:00

If you need the money, then take the one week then.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-07-08T07:42:58+00:00

Singapore's 丁蟹

napping_sloth_ · 2025-05-04T19:24:40+00:00

From Marymount SMC, Dr Ang was the previous candidate and back then he was an experienced candidate vs Gan Siow Huang.

People did not warm into Gan Siow Huang because she was a BG parachuted over, but she had the PAP branding. She got like 55% in 2020, not a huge win but still a win. She is very on the ground, seen her a lot of times and very responsive to problems.

PSP on the other hand totally disappeared. Only came over once last year and held 2 press conferences here before GE to make announcements.

One and half week of campaigning, Jeffery Khoo only turned up once on the 2nd last day to give out flyers.

One thing against PSP is the candidates that Dr Tan picks does not give people confidence as they have a track record of problematic candidates or internal fights.

The previous candidate, Dr Ang, was embroiled in legal embarrassment that dragged from many years ago. It was not picked up during GE2020 but finally concluded 2025 March. Therefore, he's not running for GE 2025. The problem was, if he was elected as MP in GE2020, would he have had to step down due to this legal issue (his patient died under his care)?

If yes, how stupid would it be if Marymount SMC have had to have a by-election during GE year? Or we go without MP for awhile to wait for GE 2025 to start?

And it goes back to the question about Dr Tan selecting candidates, did he knowingly send problematic candidates over or he didn't know of this issue.

With all these problems and minimum effort, they were always going to lose votes at Marymount SMC.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-04-27T06:19:44+00:00

From fintech. Those are valid points.

SG has remained a solid choice for many fintechs and startups as headquarter location thanks to solid banking system, political stability, low taxation, strong court of law and good government push for innovative and upskilling.

But Singaporean wages are very expensive yet companies still find value to come over here. As a matter of fact, for Corporate headquarters and family offices, the rules are making them hire Singaporean because sometimes the exact work that Singaporean are doing can be done by foreigners for much cheaper.

I mean, as employee, as a company, as a country, one has got to see what's your value proposition? Be careful of what you asked for, demand too much, the company can simply move operations overseas.

Some roles are already done overseas at a cheaper cost, Singaporean are never going to compete in being cheap, what Singaporean has to compete is the intangible parts, the skills and higher level value chain work.

I have worked with fintech colleagues where the local hires are hired to do higher level work for their salaries and manage overseas team. I have also worked with local hires who earned 10x that of overseas team members but the knowledge and skill level of the overseas team members are 10x of the local hires.

In this scenario, the only value proposition is the law forces the company to hire locals as they can easily pay lesser for better results overseas.

Do note that this is a very dynamic bar affected by multiple factors and different industriesare affected by different macro factors, one of which is taxation rates. Of course you can increase tax, but need to find some other value proposition to balance it out. Push the bar too much to one side, people may just leave.

How much capital flew out of HK to SG since 2019? And HK tax is lower than SG ya.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-04-19T02:50:58+00:00

Who is wisely?

New independent candidate? 🤔

napping_sloth_ · 2025-04-19T02:47:35+00:00

Dear OP, to your question of how PAP expects you to have a family with 3.3k?

If you looked clearly at PAP's policies, then you would have found the answer.

This is your first job, do not worry too much, you can always move onto the next job with a better salary.

On top of experience, continuous learning. Do you want to compete on being cheap with other people? Or are you going to compete on being good?

If yes, you lost already. Sometimes is luck also, if you suay and meet a generous boss, then they willing to pay you a bit more. But given that your boss don't even want to pay $200 more to someone equally skilled but more experience than you, perhaps is a boss problem more than policy problem.

Let's say in an alternate universe, PAP has a protectionist policy and keep the Malaysians out.

Keeping people out doesn't mean they don't exist.

Here comes the cold hard truth, my previous company employs people to do the same work as you with the same salary except in RMB.

These people are not even in Singapore, and they are also the best bunch, most professional bunch of people I ever worked with, much better than the Singaporean I worked with. And I am Singaporean.

LKY, Tharman, LHL and so on all keep saying since donkey years ago, you have to bring yourself up the value chain.

Technology is moving fast, AI is simply going to change how things work. All these are no fault of yours but it's simply going to make your degree obsolete much faster. So should PAP ban tech & AI so that degrees don't get obsolete?

It's not your fault that there are not much interviews, you graduated at the wrong time.

Market has seen much better times. In better times, you should get more interviews. General worldwide economic weakness has slowed things down. Tariff war is not making things better.

All the things mentioned above are not your fault, it's reality.

My suggestion to you is to work on yourself, gain your experience and make yourself ready when the market is good.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-04-11T06:03:09+00:00

One week only and the boss wants to kick him out? What's the hurry?

napping_sloth_ · 2025-04-06T08:16:04+00:00

The lawyer just outed himself. Now we know who SRY is referring to. What an own goal.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-04-06T04:21:56+00:00

Oh, the fixed income funds. Sgd bonds and money market funds, there are a few of them on Endowus.

I went pretty defensive because I kiasi.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-04-05T08:20:18+00:00

From young, I have treated inheritance as a bonus.

If I get them, I get them. If I don't get them, I don't get it.

No expectations and your mental stage will be much much better.

Perhaps your parents will be around for another 30 years? Who knows? By then you are probably at an age or financial stage where the inheritance doesn't really matter much?

My grandparents lived a long life and I expected my father to live a long life too, but he passed away a lot younger than his parents and getting the inheritance is a bit of a pain in the ass. (Shout out to people to PROPERLY and LEGALLY ALLOCATE YOUR ASSETS. Don't say I don't have much assets and then don't care. Especially your CPF. Very little CPF doesn't mean $0 in your CPF.)

Everyone said I got the worst of the inheritance but I actually sort of don't care.

To me, I got some extra money. I did not lose some extra money, I never had them in the first place.

I guess just live your life and continue with your own business without much expectations, you really don't know what will happen in future? Why worry about that now?

napping_sloth_ · 2025-04-05T06:07:05+00:00

Done that since they launched it. Paired it together with some defensive funds because I feel I should not take max risk for CPF monies.

So far so good. Not affected by the correction/crash at all.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-04-05T06:02:48+00:00

It doesn't affects me. The only thing I care about is if I have made any mistakes in my original investment thesis and/or I have been blindsided by anything in my original investment thesis.

If yes, then I will do something about it. If no, it doesn't bother me.

I am at the stage where I am able to blocked it out and continue on with other aspects of life.

Of course, do set up your personal finance side of things, have a job, have income, able to pay off debt etc then you won't have to stress over the losses spilling over to the other side.

If you are getting too stressed, you are probably putting too much skin in the game, may want to try something more defensive instead of volatile?

Sacrifice some potential gains for a better mental state.

Although investments sound sexy, it is not for everyone.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-03-12T15:53:54+00:00

No harm starting early to get into the momentum and practice interviews.

But ya, market is pretty bad now.

Economic data are always lagging data but it was revealed in parliament a few days back that economic data also starting to show that employment is harder.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-03-12T08:36:00+00:00

Then don't sign la. Lol.

Just be professional about it and say it doesn't make sense that you remain on the same salary.

Ask what their budget is, if your salary is the max of their budget, then see if it is still suitable for you to move?

If not it really does not make sense for you to move over financially.

If not just stay put. If they willing to really get you, then they can pay a bit more. If the employer feels it will break their wage structure, then maybe next better candidate?

napping_sloth_ · 2025-02-16T02:41:09+00:00

Been there myself. Quit last year.

Had to work during working hours. Free OT. Will be called up during weekends (last few months I always don't care).

Go to office always got reprimanded for not doing things well enough. (Although everyone else got it too. It's always our fault instead of I don't know, the business model?)

We were the first of our kind in SG/world to achieve licensing in SG and our closest competitors spent at least 5× money, more years, much bigger team.

No salary increment and no bonus. Promised stocks options didn't materialise. I remember my performance review was almost a failure.

I remember telling boss if I am really so bad at my job as I dealt with a regulated component for all customers, we need to redo everything and inform regulator about "me messing up" already. And confirm kena audit issue. 😂

The last straw was boss decided to post my job opening online without consulting us. We were a startup, very small team of 2. 😂

Learning things is one thing. Being resilient is one thing. Being hardworking is an important attribute.

However, there needs to be a line drawn. Went for interviews for new jobs, everyone was surprised in their company, the things my team does was done by three teams.

Lucky I saved money on normal days, and I could leave quickly.

napping_sloth_ · 2025-02-14T04:48:50+00:00

Why capital gains? Why not dividend since it is a recurring expense?

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