I checked my wife’s Central Provident Fund (CPF) balances today and found out that her contributions from last month’s annual performance bonus and this month’s salary have been credited. It’s a pleasant surprise because I was expecting the crediting to only happen next week. As I load the net worth Google Sheet on my phone to key in the updated figures, I know this is an important moment.
For the first time in our lives, the total assets (cash, investments and retirement funds) sum to more than S$1 million. I don’t count us as having joined the double comma club because our net worth (after subtracting for the entire mortgage, tax and credit card liabilities) is way below that. I don’t include the value of our owner-occupied apartment in the net worth calculation because it will only inflate the number unnecessarily. Does nothing other than make me feel better about my self.
But I already consider it an achievement for our total assets to hit S$1 million. It’s still satisfying to see the double comma in the cell and I had to expand the cell width in the Google Sheet to see the full figure. It represents 8 years of hard work, especially in the last 4 years in Singapore. At the beginning, we felt like we were going no where with our wealth-building journey but our efforts eventually made a difference.
There are still a few problems with our total assets distribution, which is probably overweight on cash holdings and retirement funds. I found it difficult to increase the investment component aggressively when the equity markets have been priced at such high levels for a sustained period of time. The Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) approach still ensures I keep myself invested just in case the bull market keeps going for the rest of this year. Only time will tell whether I am an idiot for not investing more of the cash holdings.
Which reminds me about something else I’m not doing. I stopped tracking the profit/(loss) performance of my investment portfolio a while back. I still refer to StocksCafe to track the profit/(loss) on my individual stock holdings because I hope to one day sell those worst-performing stocks at a profit. Though I fear I may have to wait a long time for that to happen.
But I figured the profit/(loss) performance of my investment portfolio mattered less the more I relied on DCA. Isn’t that the point of monthly capital injections? Once it gets high enough and I don’t plan to adjust it downwards but only upwards when there’s market dips and crashes, I’m not sure why I should be worried about the portfolio performance anymore. At least not in the short to medium term. As long as I keep this up over the long term, odds are it should work in my favour.
I know it’s a stupidly simple approach but I’m lazy and I can’t be bothered doing too much thinking and planning. I guess capital injections inflate the investment portfolio growth performance but it’s not even a key indicator for me with this strategy. I just need to ensure that every component of my total assets grows over time and I can’t see how this is a bad thing.
Wow, $1 million by your metric is a great achievement. I doubt any of my friends in my inner circle has achieved that. My wife and I are quite some way off too. Goes to show that being able to grow and maintain your income is really important!
I can sense a bit of worry and pessimism in some of your previous posts but I really think there isn’t much to be concerned with. Minimally, your already should have attained financial security.
At the same time, the broader economy seems to be recovering and I reckon if your continue earning and saving at this rate for a few more years, there should really be minimal impact even if one of your decides to leave or gets laid off.
Anyway, time to celebrate the milestone by spending 0.02% of it on a good meal? =p
Haha, I reckon the worry and pessimism is coming from us finally starting to plan for a family. Kids comes with serious financial and non-financial responsibilities and obligations. And we understand the good times don’t last. Probably just the weight of knowing we will eventually have to deal with the bad times.
But yes, it’s an achievement that we are happy about and worth celebrating as you said. We should be heading out this weekend to do that. Well, I hope the economy does continue to recover. Could do with a few more years of it if we are lucky!