It’s a big dividend month for us despite the recent sale transactions and portfolio restructuring. Let’s get into it!
SGX
- M1 (B2F): S$360
- Starhub (CC3): S$423
- Semcorp Industries (U96): S$164
- SembCorp Marine (S51): S$55
- Vicom (V01): S$148
- SPH (T39): S$60
- Starhill Global REIT (P40U): S$9
- Keppel REIT (K71U): S$60
Dividend income for May 2017: S$1,279
This came at a good time since we just returned from our US holiday and our credit card bills skyrocketed from the overseas spending. Our expenses should stabilise after this since we have no major travel plans for now.
Precautionary measures
Anyway, we are gathering more news on the upcoming major divisional restructuring at both our jobs. It should happen over the next few months but things are not looking positive. We will probably stick to the end to see what happens to us. Not a good idea to jump out to other divisions and firms in a weak employment market. We might start taking precautionary steps to guard against potential retrenchment. E.g. getting our CVs up to date and reaching out to our recruiter contacts to get a feel of our suitability to the available job roles out there.
We don’t usually tap into our personal and professional networks at this stage because it’s still too early to gauge the impact accurately. Maybe when things become clearer and we are seriously considering looking outside of our current firms. On the financial front, it’s time to gradually reduce our spending to build up the buffers against possible loss of salary income. This is not our first time going through such a situation and we have applied these steps before. They get easier with time but the stakes become higher as well.
When you have lived and worked overseas while having to keep to a tight budget, cutting back due to necessity is ingrained in you. It’s like learning how to ride a bike, a skill that once acquired, is never forgotten. Just takes a while to get back into it. No matter how our careers have been progressing, we have never believed ourselves to be indispensable to any organisations. Retrenchments can be right around the corner and we will be foolish to think otherwise. Hence the practical approach to our jobs – work hard but don’t overdo it and never get comfortable.
awesome job for the month. for an off month that is rocking good job keep it up
Thanks! Doing what I can to increase dividend income by investing every month!
Cutting back on expenses is good. I’ve lived & worked in a cold angmoh country before, and know what you mean about being able to get by on shoe string budget. The biggest expenses in S’pore are mortgage & car loan. Damp down on these 2 and the rest are quite OK as they’re pretty variable.
Anyway my gut feel is that economy overall will get better over next 12 months or so. But it’ll be uneven across sectors, and may well be false dawn to major disruptions in markets & economies a bit further down the road.
Yup, we don’t have a car loan but have a big mortgage. Not looking to move out of our current apartment yet because the housing loan monthly repayments are still manageable. Might tap into our CPF Ordinary Accounts more if we run into cashflow issues.
Haha, a good way for us to reduce our living expenses is just to eat in more either by cooking or having dinner at my parents-in-law house. And shop less when we are out walking around.
I’m hoping the Singapore economy improves as well so the job market can get stronger. Would be easier to look for new roles/positions internally or at other firms then.