Millionaire or not, plan for retirement.

Being a millionaire today is different from being a millionaire 30 or even 20 years ago. This is simply because a million dollars is worth less now due to inflation in the cost of goods and services. These days, even a HDB flat could cost a million dollars!

So, someone with total liquid assets worth a million dollars does not impress me. What might impress me is how he got it and what he is

Tea with AK71: Ipoh Hor Fun (Holland Village).

Some time ago, I blogged about a higher purpose in having passive income in our lives which, to me, is to be able to spend more quality time with family as we spend less time at work. Of course, being able to spend money more freely is a nice feeling too.

Since moving back to stay with my family, I have been spending more time with my family, especially my mother. We would go and exercise in the

Young working Singaporeans, you are OK. Really?

This was just in the news:

Young Singaporeans in the workforce today will have adequate savings in their
Central Provident Fund (CPF) accounts by the time they retire, according to an
independent study by the Ministry of Manpower.

A recent study using the Income Replacement Rate or IRR indicates that
Singaporeans are adequately covered. Pension economists measure
retirement adequacy by

The very first step to becoming richer.

Singaporeans have a reputation for being very good at complaining. This is not a bad thing per se. After all, if some things are really bad and in urgent need of correction, we should complain. How else would the relevant authorities know about the problems and to take action? I draw the line at taking videos and photos of minor incidents and posting it on Stomp!


However, what I really find

To be richer, be comfortable with being invested.

I met someone recently who told me he is swearing off the stock market for good. I asked him why. He told me that he lost a lot of money in the global financial crisis but he managed to recover all his losses in the ensuing recovery. That is good news, isn't it? Well, apparently, Mr. Market took back some of the gains in the last one year. So, he is still in a nett loss position.

I asked if his

Voices, noises and choices.

The amount of information out there is enough to make one feel somewhat overwhelmed or even faint. I have not been reading blogs as much in the last one week and kept my reading primarily to Channel NewsAsia, The Business Times and Yahoo!Finance. Even so, it probably is enough to make heads spin.

Some proclaimed that the U.S. housing market has bottomed and is picking up! Conventional wisdom

Market gyrations, my portfolio and a sabbatical.

My investments in S-REITs are holding up nicely which gives credence to my strategy to overweight S-REITs in my portfolio. Their relative price stability and high distribution yields provide some solace in a volatile market.

A brief look at some of my larger investments in S-REITs:

1. AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT closed at $1.20 per unit. My cost per unit ranges from $0.775 to $1.10.

2.

Tea with AK71: Reel fight to real fight!

I enjoy Chinese period drama. I enjoy Chinese pugilistic movies with good kung fu too. Two actors I particularly like watching in such movies are Donnie Yen and Zhao Wen Zhuo whom I recently found out is called Vincent Chiu.



Donnie Yen

I don't usually follow the entertainment news and I usually skip the "Life" section in The Straits Times. Due to this, I have been said to have no life by

Trading to put food on the table.

I read an article in today's Sunday Times by Goh Eng Yeow on how to sniff out good stocks to invest in. However, I am not going to blog about sniffing out potential winners in the stock market. I am going to blog about something that's probably less exciting: the day trader who wrote to him saying how he lost a big fortune in the stock market last year.


"With mounting bills, and zero financial

Towards a modern day good life.

We have our own circumstances which make demands on our finances, time and energy. Often, we hear people saying that they do not have enough money, time or energy to do all the things they have to do or want to do. How do we work towards having the money, time and energy to have a modern day good life?



Finances:

How much something costs is quantifiable, of course. Although people might find

A common piece of advice on saving.

I want to say something about a very common piece of advice dished out by many financial advisors and that is to save at least 10% of our take home pay. Now, this is an easy enough one liner but is it easy to put into practice?

For me, however, I have always said that saving even 10% is too little. Of course, everyone's circumstances are different. So, for some, 10% is all they can manage. For

2011 full year passive income from S-REITs.

On 7 Dec, income distribution from AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT was received. It was also the final income distribution to be received from my portfolio of S-REITs this year.

Total income distribution received in 4Q 2011:
S$ 29,040.65.

Add this to S$ 75,785.49 received in the first three quarters of 2011, the grand total for the year 2011 is S$ 104,826.14.



I received more income this

How did AK71 overcome his losses and grow his portfolio?

I get quite a few comments in my blog and some comments require more detailed replies than others. I have decided that for more detailed replies, I should put them up as blog posts from now. This one is in reply to Ray's comment here.

Hi Ray,

Actually, when I finally fully divested from CitySpring, I did not lose money.

See: CitySpring Infrastructure Trust: Thoughts on divestment.

I was also

$120k annual passive income from S-REITs next?

With the end of 2011 more or less in sight, I decided to take a look at how my aim to generate at least $50K in annual passive income from the stock market has fared this year. Of course, compared to the end of 2010, many things have changed. Don't they say that the only constant in life is change?

Saizen REIT was my largest investment up till early this year. The massive earthquake that struck

No change to my plan as I plan changes to my life.

Recently, I have not been blogging very much about the stock market or anything to do with investments, I am sure regular readers have noticed. There are various reasons for this but the primary reason is because I have put in place a plan for whichever direction the stock market may go.

If the stock market should trade sideways, I will keep the status quo and simply collect income from my

Bullish on Noble, IndoAgri, Genting and DBS?

I was reading The Straits Times online edition. Yup! AK71 is catching up with the Times! I love this pun!

There is an interesting article by Andy Mukherjee titled "Don't get seduced by analysts' darlings" and he selected four stocks as examples.

Andy is of the opinion that "analysts are overly bullish. They are beginning to turn nervous, but are far from throwing in the towel."

He also said

Wage slaves should be fearful.

I had a conversation with someone who said he is living hand to mouth and that he is somewhat worried with how things are developing in the world now.



Source: Bloomberg.

The Eurozone debt crisis, the persistently high unemployment in the USA, the political instability in the Middle East and the credit tightening in China seem like a recessionary cocktail.

Although Asia is where we find