Goodbye Xiao Lan, Hello Da Bai

 

 

After serving me and my loved ones faithfully for the past 7 years, I finally had to part with my workhorse Xiao Lan.

 

It was honestly not an easy decision. Even a pen if used for long, I will find it hard to throw it away.

However judging from the government's policy on cars, I think it's pretty clear EV is the future and if I don't cash in on the remaining value now, it would be pretty taxing for me in 3 years time when I have to change car. Who knows how much the COE will cost by then.

As a matter of fact, COE for my first car in 2009 was $4,000+.

 

COE for my second car which is Xiao Lan was $26,301.00.

COE for my new car which I got in February this year is $108,220.00.

I still remember I got Xiao Lan when my daughter was around 9 months old and since then she has ferried us around. She was also the one who fetched my son home after he was discharged from hospital after birth.

On a personal note, Xiao Lan has accompanied me through my many ups and downs and has never given me any major problem for the years I've been with her. She's robust.

 

She is such an easy drive. When I'm with her I understand the feeling of 车人合一.

I am still missing her after parting with her on 13/3/2026. So do our whole family. We took a family photo with her on the day of parting.

 

It is my good fortune to have you, Xiao Lan. Good bye and all the best. I hope to see you on the road one day.

 

Da Bai came into our family on the day Xiao Lan left. I have since driven her for slightly more than 2 weeks with slightly more than 1,000 km mileage.

 

It seems almost fated to have Da Bai. I visited the showroom because the agent for another brand was having his day off when I called. I then decided to visit Da Bai's showroom with the intention to just get a best deal for comparison.

However the agent who served me was so sincere and I managed to get almost whatever I asked for. In the end I put pen to paper and confirmed my relationship with Da Bai on the spot.

 

I am slowly getting used to Da Bai now. She has lot more functions than Xiao Lan, not least the voice command which the kids loved to play with.

 

"Hello Baby. Please open the sunshade."

 

"Hello Baby. Please turn on the aircon."

 

"Hello Baby. Please play some music."

 

I guess Da Bai is also a head turner. Recently a lady approached me to chat about the car. She said she has seen my car for 2 days already and was hoping to catch the owner.

 

Also unlike what others said, there is no range anxiety for me at all. I don't actually understand why would some people feel that.

 

EV chargers are everywhere now. Nowadays when I enter a carpark I just move into the EV charging lot, plug in and go run my errands. When I get back I just remove the plug and drive off. Just like juicing up your phone whenever you see a wall socket.

It doesn't matter how much it got juiced up. Just let the charging do the job in the time the car is idling in the parking lot while you do your stuff.

 

To me this is the premise of EV. To charge while you do your stuff. Not finding stuff to do while charging.

 

Couple of days ago I had this shiok experience. I was meeting a friend at Ang Mo Kio for lunch and the carpark was full with several cars waiting for parking lot.

 

I literally just drove into an EV charging lot, plug in and went off to meet my friend.

 

I will probably write a review on Da Bai, maybe with the running cost too, when I get to know her deeper.

 

For now I'll continue to tinkle and have fun with the different functions.

Net Worth 2020: A Quick Estimate

Around this time last year, I did a quick estimate of my net worth just for fun and curiosity sake. Although it didn't paint a 100% accurate picture of my wealth (or the lack of it), it is still fairly accurate.

So this year I am going to do a quick assessment again. I have actually wanted to do it several days back but I didn't have time to log in to write this post until now.

I might do this on an annual basis since I find it quite motivating to me at least.

Again, this is a back-of-the-envelope calculation.

All figures are based on point of writing (14 July 2020 5.20 pm).

Insurance Cash Value: $105k

Investments: $131k

CPF: $178k
Singlife: $10k

Cash 1: $15k

Cash 2: $140k

Property Value (50%): $250k

Watch: $8k

Housing Loan (50%): ($25k)

Car Loan: ($52k)
CC Bill: ($1k)

Net Worth: $759k

I have excluded the car related values such as PARF and COE rebate.

I bought my watch at $8k+ about 9 years back. Current price for the same watch is around $11k. I have used the purchased price for my net worth calculations.

I guess I am not doing too badly. At least the figure is higher than last year and I'm glad it's not in negative territory.

Still can't retire yet. Work hard JASS. Work hard.

Taking Stock of 2019

Is it me or time really seems to fly when you are getting old. We have reached the end of 2019 in the blink of an eye. Time to take stock for the year again!

Family

Wifey and I are spending most if not all of our free time we have with Baby M who arrived on Father's day 2018.

Having turned 1.5 years young recently, she has been getting more active by the day. Grabbing our hands to walk around, dictating where should we sit, dancing when there's music and basically exploring all stuffs around her.

Her vocabulary is also expanding everyday. Sometimes she surprises me by saying a word or pointing out the correct thing when I ask her where is it. 

I have noticed this little cutie likes three things in particular - music, dancing and reading. If she wants to pursue interest or enrichment in these areas I will support her.

On the other hand I do not want to be like some parents who send their kids to tons of classes and tuition, thus depriving their kids of the happy childhood that all children should have.

Sometimes we should draw a line against kiasuism.

Our biggest wish for her remains the same. That is for her to grow up happily and healthily.

Healthy Lifestyle

I feel I have done quite well in this area. As far as I can remember I have not fall sick for the past year or two. Touch wood!

I attribute this to my healthy lifestyle which I try to adhere to as far as possible. Aspects of this lifestyle includes:

1) Cold shower

I have not been using the water heater since at least two years back. Whether it's the morning shower before I go out or the night shower when I get back, it is always a cold shower for me and I firmly believe it helps in building up my immune system.

A cold shower helps in muscle recovery too especially after an intense workout.

2) Exercise

I always try to start my day with a workout after I get off bed. This helps to jump start my day and secondly, builds up my fitness and muscle mass obviously.

Most importantly, it acts as a counterweight against my diet which I do not restrict because I can't! There's just too much good food in Singapore which pushes my will power to the abyss.

I do not have a fix routine for my workout. The type of exercise and repetition varies but generally it is something like this.

50 ~ 100 x Pushups
50 x Toe Touch Crunches
2 min x Plank
50 ~ 100 x Bicep Curls
25 x Squats

I try to do the above during the evenings too but that doesn't always happens especially when baby M is around..

I run for cardio exercise. I enjoy running for the longest time. It's good for de-stressing and helps to clear my mind. Mileage-wise of course the more the merrier. But for 2019 I only done about 216 km.

Last run did for 2019: A morning run near my neighbourhood. 

Healthy lifestyle, healthy body. Totally worth it!

Work

With my financial year ending in February 2020, I still have two months to charge ahead. 

Results so far are not bad. I can't say I'm totally pleased as the targeted turnover has not been hit yet. However bottom line is encouraging due to the high margin in several projects.

Year-to-date top line is already higher than whole of last year while bottom line is close compared to whole of last year.

I expect the latter to exceed last year's when we close the book by year end.

Moving forward, my focus continues to be growing the business and buy an office space as part of my recurring income plan.

Financials and Other Incomes

Bought a new car this year due to the expiring COE of my previous car. Luckily did not have to touch my investments but it did affected my cash flow.

Previously I have set these targets for 2019.

Targeted passive income: S$7,200
Targeted side income: S$3,000

Actual passive income achieved: S$4,471.25* (vs S$6,069.08 in 2018)

Actual side income achieved: S$5,314.78 (vs S$3,042.86 in 2018)

Results: One target achieved.

For 2020,

Targeted 2020 passive income: S$7,200
Targeted 2020 side income: S$6,000

Investments

My holdings as of 31/12/2019:

Relatively quiet year for me. Opted for scrips for MLT and ESR REIT.

Total number of holdings increased to 13 compared to 12 last year. 

However portfolio value at end of the year decreased slightly to S$122,453 (vs S$123,356 in 2018). This is due to several reasons:

1) Cash received from my sold transactions have not been fully redeployed to the portfolio.

2) Share price of Japfa has not recover fully to the pre-swine flu level.

Tabulated summary*:

As shown in the above summary, I am actually at a slight paper loss excluding dividends. However the power of dividends is evident here.

The overall portfolio is mainly bogged down by ISOTeam of which I am having a S$9K paper loss currently.

Although the dividends help to cushion the lousy feeling abit, the opportunity cost is mounting. I will make a decision on this counter within this year or two depending on the share price.

This year ISOTeam should be presenting a nice set of results due to the following:

1) The numerous contract wins which add to the already high order book.

2) SG Bikes which should turn profitable this year.

3) Integration of Pure group into ISOTeam which will further contribute directly to ISOTeam's expected good results.

4) The election year which should means more public projects out for tender in ISOTeam's area of expertise.

Of course whether these will serve as catalysts for the share price to move up is anybody's guess.

My transactions for 2019:

Not much transactions done for 2019. Accumulated Japfa in batches. Yeah it's not really a dividend stock which goes against my style. But I can't resist my itchy fingers. Bad habits die hard.

On the other hand, wifey's portfolio performed much better.

 

Did some re-balancing for her. Number of stocks remained the same as compared to 2018.

However year end portfolio value increased to S$63,158 (vs S$52,371 in 2018).

Tabulated summary:

Her paper gain + realised dividends hit S$11,981. Looks good I must say.

You can see the risk attitude I adopted while managing her portfolio as compared to managing my own.

If I had been as prudent in managing my portfolio it would have performed much more beautifully.

So this is it. A long post of 2019.

Last but not least, I wish everyone a happy new year ahead. Good health and good wealth!

* Reclassification of RHT special dividends

New Year, New Car

Hello everyone. It's a new year again.

Here's wishing everyone and your loved ones a Happy Lunar New Year!

Just a quick update for this week.

Over the weekend wifey, baby M and I went to the show room to check out some latest car models as my current COE is expiring next month.

On hind sight I should have started my car shopping earlier due to a reason which I will give below.

Prior to the show room visit, I have narrowed down my choices to two models:

1) Kia Cerato
2) A certain European brand starting with 'S'

Taking option 1 would mean less financial obligations and easier on the wallet for me. I also do not have to touch my investment portfolio.

Taking option 2 would likely involves me drawing down a certain percentage from my investments which would translate to lesser passive income for me from this year onwards and this is something I am very reluctant to do.

However the allure of driving a conti car for the first time is the reason why it is among my options in the first place.

Anyway my original intention was just to take a look, get a package price and decide later. However as we sat down with the SE for the discussion on the price and 'freebies' package, he was able to meet all my requests.

So in the end I decided to book the vehicle with him on the spot.

And my impending new ride is....

2019 Kia Cerato EX
(rims are of another design from this pic)

I am glad I chose the easier on the wallet option. In this way my investment portfolio remains intact, only downside is that I will have lesser cash for deployment.

Pros:

Best bang for buck car in the market now in my opinion
Nice design for both exterior and interior
Easy on the wallet

Cons:

Lead time of 3 months and above
Not so nice rims for the EX variant
(Probably will change them after getting my ride like what I did for my current one.. Haha)

And now it's a waiting game for the COE as I chose the 6 bids non-guarantee COE.