We received a letter from our bank informing us of an upcoming upward interest rate adjustment of our housing loan from 1.8% to 2.5%. Our monthly home loan instalment should be going up from S$3,300 to S$3,500. We took out a housing loan of S$750,000 about 8 years ago and the mortgage has gone down to S$585,000 currently.
It’s a quick snapshot of our debt situation. While I’m not going to justify our decision to purchase a Private Condo over an Exec Condo, Resale Flat and BTO Flat, the high level of debt we carry has been a persistent issue ever since we started work. It’s nice to have so many benefits staying where we are at that we will probably try to find a bigger Private Condo in the same area if we have kids. But saying it’s expensive is an understatement.
We like shopping for nice things, going out to drink & dine and splurging on long holidays to faraway destinations. This probably explains why our monthly minimum credit card spending is S$3,000. While this increase in our monthly housing loan instalment of S$200 is not significant, it does add up when combined with everything else.
As our income levels go up, the spending levels have also risen (albeit proportionately). Which means we still save and invest the same percentage amount every month despite our income and spending levels increasing at different rates. It’s not ideal but it’s progress nevertheless. We keep waiting for the ball to drop and our luck to run out. In the meantime, it’s better to be cautious in everything we do.
Anyway, my remuneration outcome from my performance review for 2018 should be released in the next 2 weeks. I will probably provide an update here after I receive it. Wish me luck!
Wanted to comment on the robo post, but was not able to. Your previous blog posts on stashaway have encouraged me to start investing and I’m really happy with the performance thus far. I don’t come from a banking/finance background and am clueless about investing when I first started out. I’ve been consistently putting in between 50-100 dollars a month into Stashaway and that has made all the difference. It has given me confidence to try out Monthly Investment Plan with Maybank KE. Perhaps at some point in the future I will earn enough, and learn enough (SGX academy has great resources) to confidently invest on my own. Robos are a very good introduction into investing. You don’t need a lot of money to start, you get exposure to a broad range of equities, and I’m assured that the algorithm is allocating the funds in an intelligent manner based on my risk appetite.
It’s good to hear that my blog posts have been helping you. Nice to know you are gaining more investing confidence. Keep learning and going!