Back from holiday and getting ready for work

We got back yesterday from a 2-week trip to Croatia (Europe) and it was great! Haha, our last long holiday was a 1-week ski trip to Austria (Europe) several months ago in Feb 2018. Not counting our recent short long weekend trip to Langkawi (Malaysia) last month in Aug 2018. We have missed our long getaways to faraway cities and countries so it’s been really good to travel. Took an extra day off today to rest and recharge before heading back to work tomorrow.

Asset Portfolio

Had some time to look at how our asset portfolio has been performing. We have been gradually increasing our automated monthly investment amount in the past few months as the equity markets dipped due to the trade war unfolding. We have also been manually investing in Global ETFs on days when the equity markets dip is bigger but we have no automated investments happening.

From next month Oct 2018 onwards, about S$1,500 will be automatically invested in Singapore ETFs via bank monthly investment plans while S$1,500 will be automatically invested in Global ETFs via robo-advisors. Which reminds me about StashAway introducing its higher-risk portfolios last month in Aug 2018. We switched both our StashAway accounts to the highest-risk portfolio available and we are happier with the less conservative ETFs selection.

An issue we have always had since setting up our robo-advisor accounts is that our Smartly portfolios are more aggressive than our StashAway portfolios even at the highest risk ratings. They are more even now with the StashAway change and that’s a good thing. The Singapore ETFs automated investment portfolio produces cash dividends and the Global ETFs robo-advisors portfolio re-invests the dividends. We plan to hold them for a long time so it’s important we take on more risk to generate the higher returns.

Although the investment portfolio of our asset portfolio is growing nicely from the capital injections, the cash component has only increased slightly as we spent most of our recent monthly salaries on the Croatia (Europe) holiday, credit cards bills and investment & saving plans. With another upcoming trip planned for Sydney and Melbourne (Australia) in Nov 2018, we don’t expect the cash situation to improve until the end of the year. It’s bad not having leftover cash to spare so we are going to have to be more careful with our everyday spending.

Work

My wife just had her annual performance review this month in Sep 2018 and it went alright. It has not been a good year in terms of the bank’s revenues and continued restructuring is likely to have a negative impact on her remuneration outcome. We are expecting an average rating and hope it goes fine for her. We should find this out in the next few months and will provide an update from there.

More importantly, it looks like my wife might be okay to stay on in her current job role at the bank for now. The promotion and higher salary at the start of the year helps a lot but it’s starting to look like she might want to pursue another challenge in either a different job role or bank. She’s having a difficult time managing this want of hers versus her maybe needing more job stability as we are planning to have a kid next year.

It’s a tough balancing act even just preparing to have a kid and it will just get harder from here as we eventually make our transition into working parents. I reckon it will be a much bigger challenge for my wife as she struggles internally with accepting the limitations on her professional and social lives of going down this working mum route. It takes time and I have to be patient in supporting her transition.

While my job situation is perhaps more stable and uneventful, that presents its own set of issues. Being too safe can result in a boring work life and this gets to me over time. Which is starting to happen but I might also still be okay to stay on in my current job role at the bank for now. Sometimes, I wish we were more contented with what we have and achieved so far. Then I start to wonder whether it’s this desire for new experiences and excitement that drives us forward.