My performance bonus got credited today and I was excited to see the cash injection into my bank account balance! It was a tough week at work as I struggled to adjust to the new advisory portfolio with my insufficient technical knowledge that I am still building up on. Though I’m happy with the opportunity to learn new stuff and expand my job scope, which came with the promotion.
But it’s been a few years since I had to start from scratch in a new area and it’s taking a while. Hence, it felt good to be financially rewarded even if the welcome relief is only temporary. And it’s a nice way to enter the long weekend too. Plus my wife and I took half day off today for personal appointments, so we kind of started the long weekend early, which I’m glad for.
Anyway, if you are wondering how I plan to spend my bonus, it has already been decided. The entire amount should be spent within the next 2 months. It’s a combination of the outcome of those personal appointments, possible holiday trip, shopping for wardrobe upgrading and my wife’s 30th birthday celebrations including the gifts. By my estimates, I doubt we will have anything left over by the time we are done.
I know we are splurging a lot but I feel like we deserve to spend on ourselves after achieving our professional goals for 2017. Besides, Q1 of 2018 hasn’t been going well for us and we are hoping this does a refresh & reset for things to improve in Q2 of 2018. I’m getting tired of us hitting new walls at work and don’t seem to be making progress on many fronts.
As for investments, we have been manually transferring cash funds into our Smartly & StashAway robo-advisor accounts and making purchases of ETFs recently to buy the dips. This is on top of our usual automatic transfers and purchases. It’s just a matter of being consistent and I’m hoping I can continue to be disciplined when the markets dip even more.
For now, I’m looking forward to resting this long weekend. We don’t have much planned so it seems to be a relaxing one that doesn’t involve dinners, drinks and late nights with friends. Instead, we might be hanging out more with our families since we haven’t been spending as much time with them. Hoping to be recharged and ready for the new work week by Sun!