Busy September

It has been a hectic month till date, but I'm enjoying it though.

Commenced on my swimming class and just completed my stock trading class last saturday.

The stock trading class has been pretty intense and useful.

I had been buying stocks since 2012 but had no idea of how to properly evaluate a stock to make sure it is good, and no idea of how to take profit, when to enter and exit etc. I had made profits and losses over the last few years without knowing why.
As the common saying goes: "What you don't pay in school fees, you will pay a bigger amount through losses"
Since the biggest paper loss that I had made was more than the course fees itself, I thought that I might as well go learn how to do trading and investments properly instead of continuing to deceive myself that I'll do enough self study on the various free online resources and I'll be one day become a God of Stocks.
Time to grow up and face the reality.

Sure, I had took Biz Minors in NTU, and went through classes on understanding the stock markets, but back then, it was all theoretical stuff without solid hands on and quantitative analysis done, so it was all talk in the air without working on any examples.
It was akin to finishing my 1sr read on "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and then declaring that I'll reach Financial Freedom by 40 years old, without the know how or plans on how to do that.

Burnt a few weekday nights and 2 saturdays for this short and intense course, and I'm pretty satisfied with what I had picked up so far, and signed up for the advanced class without hesitation to extend my knowledge further.
The only downside is that I have to sacrifice time with Ryan & Dear to attend these classes, but it is temporary and I know that the future payoff will be much bigger than the small sacrifice now.


Also commenced on my swimming classes this month.
Actually I started the 1st unofficial class last month, before the OD race, where I picked up some tips on the optimal swimming technique, but was insufficient to make a significant way to my existing technique.
After attending a few classes, I can tell that my technique is gradually improving, and I'm starting to be able to swim faster with less energy expended.
Of course I did my own homework and watched lots of training videos to improve my understanding as well, to accelerate my progress.
Swimming has now become more of a relaxing exercise than a strength training session like what I used to do in the past.
It seems that I am doing more swimming than running these days!


Picking up new knowledge has always been enjoyable for me, and it continues to do so with the swim and stock classes. Free online education materials and videos really make it much easier to learn, absorb and reinforce new knowledge.

I guess these courses can fulfill my goal for this year for learning new stuff, since I'm going to continue with the stock class, and probably with the swim class as well, so I won't have time to go for martial arts and will have to delay this till next year.

Learning new stuff is always good!

Shifting priorities

Plans to do another 70.3 has been shelved, so my remaining races for the year will be TriFactor OD next month and StanChart 42k in Dec.

I had never worried excessively about my finances until Ryan was born.
Becoming a dad and husband means the extra responsibility of making sure that I provide enough for my family, which will become increasingly challenging as the kids grow up.

Though I have started to invest a bit in the last 2 years, but it has been more of simple buying for dividend payouts rather than fully understanding what I invested it. To put it in simple terms, it is almost equivalent to gambling but on a much lesser level.

Attended a short free class a couple of weeks ago, and decided to invest in getting myself educated and signed up for a short course to learn how to trade and invest better. It may save me lots of headache and heartache that may result from bad investments in the future.

Learning to better manage my finances will be important.
Apart from trying to increase my income, the other aspect of controlling expenses and money outflow will be critical.
After exhausting the child tax relief within 2 years and racking up high income tax again, I have started to take tax reduction planning more seriously.
Been reading up a bit on voluntary contributions to CPF and depositing into SRS, which are good means to reduce/defer taxation.

Despite the fact that I may not fully support or agree with some of the CPF policies, there is no escaping from the fact that everyone has to meet the Minimum Sum. So instead of grousing against the policy, it will be better to make it work for me.

CPF SA cash contribution
Benefits:

• Up to $7000 tax relief can be derived from cash contribution
• Good 5% interest rate on the first $40,000 in SA, and 4% for sums above $40,000
• Counts towards Minimum Sum

Disadvantages:

Locked up till retirement and become annuity (uncontrollable factor so no point fighting against this)

Coming to think of it, this is a really good scheme for retirement planning.
Now I kick myself for not looking into this years ago when I broke the higher income tax bracket and paid so much tax to the gov for a "Thank you for your contribution towards Nation building"
I'll make sure that I won't make the same mistake again this year come Dec when it is time to make the final changes towards my income tax relief.

CPF SRS 
Benefits:

• Tax deferment up to $12750 per year
• Can be used for investment purposes (except for property)
• Only 50% is taxable on withdrawal
• Enforced savings in a sense since I won't be able to spend this pool of money
• Flexible contribution compared to an endowment fund where I have to contribute at a fixed rate

Disadvantages:

• Early withdrawal penalty of 5% (except Death, Medical or bankruptcy issues)
• Locked in till retirement
• Possibly of higher taxation rates if my income falls in a higher tax bracket (not a big issue since I don't expect to work forever so my active income at 62 is probably much lower than compared to my prime)
• Possibility of higher tax rates than current levels when I'm 62 (uncontrollable factor and there is no certainty that this will happen so no point worrying about this)
• Investing is necessary. Cash deposit interest rate at 0.05% PA is horrendous and one will just be losing money to inflation this way.

A combination of these 2 will be able to help to substantially reduce the tax that I have to pay every year.
At least the money is still mine even though I can't touch it for the next 30 years.
Better than letting the government squander it away on Brompton bikes (that is more expensive than my racing bike!)


Instead of hoarding lots of cash through worrying about not having enough capital on hand when I eventually start my own business, it will be better to put these cash to good use instead of just wasting them away in cash savings accounts with extremely poor returns.

My 2014 To Do list included 2 sets of 70.3 races.
Since I'm not going to do another 70.3 this year, learning to better manage my finances will be a good replacement.
Anyway it is best to start proper finance management and investments early, so that compounding over time will works it's magic.

I had been procrastinating for years on better managing my finances. It is high time I look seriously into this.
Another good case of facing up to my fears (or rather short-comings in this case) rather than just running away or pretending not to see them :)