Archive

As 2025 comes to a close, I reflect on what worked in my personal finances. Here I break down my passive investing approach, key lessons from recent years, and the savings, asset allocation, and debt goals guiding my 2026 plan.

IP rider reforms: new deductible and co-payment cap rules, why I support the changes, and considerations for policy holders.

Understanding mandatory fire and mortgage insurance for home owners, plus optional home insurance to protect personal property and belongings.

My natural delivery experience at KKH: detailed cost breakdown totaling $14.3K, prenatal to delivery expenses, CPF claims, and why I chose public hospital.

Nine practical steps from Burton Malkiel's 'A Random Walk Down Wall Street': save more, build emergency funds, understand taxes, and invest wisely.

Comparing downside-protected IUL investment logic with direct index investment and 40/60 portfolios: 25-year backtest of floor-cap strategies vs market.

Comprehensive guide to Singapore's baby bonus, MediSave grants, parental leave reimbursements, preschool subsidies, and tax reliefs for newborns in 2025.

Analyzing maternity insurance options: bundled policies, standalone term plans, and why I chose not to purchase—plus alternative solutions to consider.

Key investment theories from four finance legends: Markowitz's MPT, Sharpe's CAPM, Fama's EMH, and Bogle's CMH—and how they shape my portfolio.

A critical look at medical concierge services: conflicts of interest when concierges earn commissions from clinics while claiming to serve patient needs.

I’ve followed several bloggers/ploggers who are well worth recommending. Many of them openly share their own financial situations, including income, expenses, and portfolio allocations. This transparency and neutrality make their content especially persuasive.

Four common investment mistakes: being overly conservative, single investment channels, over-focusing on passive income early, and chasing growth in retirement.

Real-life lessons from two insurance agent failures: missing basic coverage, pushing policy replacements, slow claims, and lack of product knowledge.

In Singapore for dual-income households, reasonable planning can save a lot of tax. I’ve always used a simple Google Sheet to calculate family income tax, and the results are almost always consistent with the actual tax paid. Here are some tips to share.

Comparing seven passive income sources for retirement: CPF LIFE, annuities, bonds, dividends, and property, across maintenance effort, stability, and returns.

Still, staying committed to broad-based index fund DCA remains my long-term strategy, even in volatile markets

My medical and critical illness insurance strategy: why I prefer term coverage over whole life, and what elderly truly need for lifelong protection.

A practical guide to children's insurance focusing on essential hospitalisation and critical illness coverage while avoiding unnecessary policies.

Analyzing Singapore property investment returns vs S&P 500 and REITs: data-driven case study with Python calculations comparing expected returns.

Our S$70K renovation budget planning. Comparing 5 different IDs' quotations

Understanding Singapore's healthcare subsidy system: how PCHI determines your subsidy rate and recent policy updates expanding coverage.

Our strategy for selling our first condo and buying a second property, with budgeting principles to avoid financial strain and maintain investment flexibility.

My son’s first hospitalization for Kawasaki disease gave me a deep understanding of the healthcare system. During the COVID-19 period, with international travel restricted, I worried about the affordability of medical care for my foreign-national parents living in Singapore, which prompted me to insure them with hospitalization policies. Later, when my family member was diagnosed with cancer and I lost my job, the first thing I did was to upgrade our family’s insurance coverage.

My rationale for regular REIT investment: lower risk than stocks, risk hedging benefits, and confidence in Singapore's mature commercial real estate market.

Using public resources responsibly is every citizen’s duty because the cost will eventually be borne by consumers in the form of premium increases

Plan your life goals first, then plan your finance towards that; Live below your means; Buy term life and health insurance, that's it, then forget about insurance

Beginner investors who have overcome greed, by passively investing in this relatively efficient market, can ride the tide and win effortlessly.

Shiller believes that people are inherently driven by incentives, willing to take risks, and selfish. Financial markets leverage people's self-interest to accelerate the flow of resources and increase social efficiency. Financial markets encourage risk-taking, and a healthy sense of risk and adventurous spirit is the source of innovation that drives the human civilization progresses. He encourages people to actively participate in the market and supports advanced financial products that enhance risk control and market freedom. Socialism is not the ideal scenario. Humans are complex, always evolving. A simple and ideal utopian world would deprive humans of the joy of invention and progress. Financial markets or the world are unlikely to become simpler, but with new inventions, they are becoming better and more interesting. He also constantly emphasizes the market turbulence caused by human factors, noting that greed sometimes drives financial markets to extreme madness, for which the participants ultimately have to pay the price.

The greatest value of financial markets lies in the optimal allocation of resources across time and space. Here's some thoughts about agent theory, incentivisation and insurance commission rebase learnt from Coursera course - Financial Market by Yale

Inspired by Howard Marks's famous book The Most Important Things, I am sharing some thoughts about brokerages, fund firms, insurance companies and banks and how to navigate through the different service providers wisely.

It's the time of the year that the annual renewal of some of my family insurance policies is needed. While organizing my family's insurance policies, I thought that since I've discussed various insurance topics, why not share my family's insurance principles and strategies directly. Here I am sharing how I plan my family's insurance, with some useful

On the first day of 2024, just like usual, I woke up early to enjoy my me-time. I opened my CPF account to check if the government's New Year's red packet (CPF interests) had been credited. However, I discovered that the system was still under maintenance. It was only after 8 AM that it could be accessed 😅. Later, I received New Year's greetings from CPF's official Telegram account along with six financial tips.

For long-term investments, what options should I consider for low-risk investments?

This is a story about how we resolved an insurance dispute due to irresponsible agent and insurance company and protected our rights through FIDReC.

In this post, I am sharing our ways to do family wealth management as an ordinary income earning family, bascially answering the following three questions: how much assets do we have? how much do we earn, spend and save? and what are our life goals?

A transparent, unbiased comparision of 101 ILP (FWD), Robo Advisor (Endowus) and direct ETF investment, with actual numbers and python scripts.

I stumbled upon a YouTuber whose content was very informative, sharing investment knowledge, methods, and promoting a healthy investment mindset. I greatly benefited from watching his videos. He summarized the knowledge of listed company categorization, which is very suitable for beginners.

This is a reading notes on a book about financial planning from a women's perspective. I am sharing some learning points as a female investor.

If I could go back from my twenties to thirties, here's how I would approach buying insurance.

The Singapore government, often affectionately referred to as 'Government Daddy' is renowned for meticulously planning the lives of its citizens and providing a safety net for them always. From the globally well-known HDB housing policy that ensures every Singaporean has a roof over their heads, to the continually improved CPF policies that offer basic housing, medical and retirement security. There's also one aspect that often goes unnoticed: insurance coverage. It's worth studying how the Singaporean government ensures insurance coverage for every citizen; I believe it serves as a good example of insurance portfolio construction for the general population.