It’s coming to the end of Oct 2021 and I updated my Google Sheet liquid asset (cash, investment portfolio and CPF OA) numbers for the month. They are looking better than last month (Sep 2021) and every component is showing growth (some more than others). After taking a big financial hit from finalising my private property purchase, I’m pleased with the progress made and it’s a positive step towards resuming my financial independence journey. Even with significant upcoming renovation and car purchase costs in the next few years, they are less likely to derail my financial progress.
With that, I’m now in a position to start our new financial goal setting from next year 2022 onwards. 2021 is coming to a close with only 2 more months to go so I’m not expecting any major changes to my liquid asset numbers. We have just crossed S$1.3m and hope to stay above this level by end of the year. Next year is where it gets interesting because I’m hoping for the economic recovery to kick in even more and for daily life to resume to a new normal. Where we can go into the office to work 2 or 3 days each week on days of my choosing and work from home the rest of the week. And we can meet our family and friends in groups of at least 5 and above. Consistently throughout next year without the flip-flop approach to this year.
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This should hopefully give us the confidence to make more financial progress every month up until end of next year. The new financial goal is to increase our liquid assets by S$180k from end Dec 2021 to end Dec 2022 i.e. average increase in monthly liquid assets of $15k. It’s an ambitious target but something for us to work hard towards. Capital injections using our salary income and bonuses won’t be enough even with the regular CPF contributions. It will have to involve growing our investment portfolio significantly too and this is a challenge given our current low cash balance.
Speaking of bonuses, my wife just received news about hers for this year. The positive is that the 2021 bonus number is higher than the 2020 bonus number. The negative is that the 2020 bonus number was so low that even a few fold increase in the 2021 bonus number doesn’t translate into much in terms of the total figure. We are taking a glass half full view of this because it means that the economic recovery is happening though still slow and uneven. I will only find out about my 2021 bonus number next year but if it’s better than my 2020 bonus number, it should further support the economic recovery hopes.