Things got very hectic (read: chaotic) at workplace with a large scale project with at least 50 project members involved cross-functionally & across the globe. As much as I wanted to empower my team and other departments, unfortunately there are still significant dependencies on me (and my knowledge) hence unconsciously my attention shifted back to my works/careers (and of course not forgetting to take breaks in between to recharge). In the end, it was tiring, but still rewarding to see the accomplishments after almost 9 months of hell.

At initial glance, it felt to me that time just flew by, just like that, another year has passed, and nothing much was achieved. Now that I finally get some time to have peace/quiet moments, here I am - writing my (belated) reflection for 2024. And this year, I'm going to try out a new tool that my coach had shared with me when I had the opportunity to work with one to help me to accelerate growth in both personal and career space.

The "Wheel of Life" was to help provide better clarity on where I am at today, and determine what I would like to focus on next. When doing the exercise, it was very clear to me where I had excelled in (and also areas requiring "some" work on). What's tough for me was the middle-tier ones as I was hesitating the most, before choosing a "safe" mid-ground answer. There's plenty of free template online so I just found this one pretty simple to use (and also had generous free license), so feel free to use any templates that you see fit. How it works is that I'll be doing a self-rating from 1 to 5 in each category, with ONE (1) being really unsatisfied and FIVE (5) indicating that I'm over the moon.

Through this exercise I was able to recalibrate my thoughts into respective areas and take a more holistic view when assessing my 2024. In no particular order,

• Career & Financials: These two areas continues to be my area of strength, consistently over the last 5 year (or decade I should say?) that unlocked many possibilities previously unattainable for our household. Despite the career burn-out two/three years ago, I've found ways to navigate past those and happy that things at work no longer affect me as much as before. Shits are still happening, but I've found ways to acquire my own peace.
• Personal Growth: This is definitely one of the coping mechanism to acquire my peace amidst chaotic environment. For me, learning Korean throughout 2024 was the solution. It gave me something to look forward to, beyond just working for $ in life. Still no where close from having conversations in Korean, but happy that I'm able to watch Korean shows without subtitles and understand at least half the context. It'll get bettern, someday... that's how I learnt Cantonese back as a kid 😛
• Recreation: A bit too high over the moon I must say 😛 But can't complain as it is my only way to "let out", especially with my extremely strong introversion. It's fine as long as it works, I guess?
• Love (Family) & Friends: Not my strong suit for sure as I shy away from reaching out to people. Even until today, my "social connection" relies mainly on others reaching out to me first, which I know is not good. Definitely something that I need to consciously work on. Love wise - it's mainly family for now, to push myself to spend more (quality) time with my mom whilst she's still healthy.
• Health: Definitely not in the best shape with my current lifestyle. Was contemplating between "2" and "3" but decided that "2" would be too harsh, considering that I did put in conscious effort in avoiding sugar and unhealthy food. Though I still can't completely eliminate junk food. God damned cravings...
• Spirituality: An area that I've slightly improved the last two years, but still need a lot to work on. Especially with regards to my purpose of living and identifying my "Ikigai".

Now with the broad overview assessment out of the way, let's take a deeper dive on our finances before regrouping on the broad topic of goals setting & achievements!

My Financials

Expenses

From a quick glance, my overall expenses in 2024 actually reduced slightly by -5% in comparison to last year's spending, totalling at 188k MYR throughout 2024. Just as last year, the bulk of the spending went into paying down my mortgage as part of my decision since 2023 to accelerate my debt settlements.

To enable comparison between years, I've created a normalized chart where one-off capital "expenditures" such as Additional Mortgage Payment or Migration Fees were removed. From there, the same trend of -5% reduction in spending were observed, which is a good sign.

Ideally the expenses can go down even further, if the time calls for it. But at this stage, as with my motto - I want to maintain a healthy balance between maximising savings vs. enjoying life.

If I double-click deeper into the ~188K MYR expenditures last year, we can spot a very similar trend vs. 2023 where some of top spenders were:

Home: Mortgage Payments ~RM17.8k + Additional Principal Repayments ~RM73.2k

Definitely makes up the largest of my expenditures so far. On the plus side, the additional ~73K I've put in this year helped to accelerate my equity building plan to safeguard my potential futures in case if my migration plan puts a huge dent on my finances.

If I keep at this pace, I'll probably be able to be debt-free in another 3-4 years time, that's assuming I haven't migrated yet to Australia by then. Speaking of migration, this was also another reason why I was able to put in much more (% wise) into my Mortgage than last year - since I did not incur any migration-related expenses in 2024.

For clarity, only the default mortgage payments of (~RM17.8k) are included in the normalized version of the yearly expenses.

Family: Family Allowances, Emergencies, and Insurances ~RM27.0k

Nothing much to delve deeper here - mainly to cover the cost of living, including insurances, for my family members. Not to mention also the occasional mini-emergencies here and there such as dental visits and hospital visits for my mom. Being the eldest in our family, my money was never truly mine, but family's. I wish my sister understood my burden sooner, but all good now that she has finally realized it after a decade later.

Luxury: Holiday Travels with Family ~RM11.8k

Since 2023, I've made a promise to at least travel once per year, capping the spends around RM10-12k per annum for travelling. Last year, I've brought my family to Taiwan. Frankly, the hardest part was actually convincing my mom to give Taiwan a try - she is so stubborn, just like me (or should I say I am stubborn headed just like her...).

I brought her to Hong Kong a couple years back and since then, she have been reminiscing the moments there and wanted to go back. But as we spent quite a couple of weeks there in Hong Kong already - there isn't much left to see. Plus hearing experiences from my ex-colleagues or friends whom are still there in Hong Kong - it's different now. Which was why I wanted to show her other parts of the world whilst she can still travel - and Taiwan was selected (for cultural similarities and budget reasons).

The best part? I'm having a bit of dejavu moment now since returning from our trip. Now she's always reminiscing moments in Taiwan and wants to go back there again - and meanwhile, I'm trying to convince her to explore a different country with me, be it Japan or Korea... saga to be continued. 😂

Giving: Family Gifts/Treats ~RM7.8k

The amount I spent last year on gifts/treats mainly for my family (and occasionally friends) have almost doubled in comparison to year 2023, resulting in this new category taking over the top 5 expenditures spot. Good thing is, hopefully it's just one-off as half of this amount were spent on the iPhone 15 that I bought for my mom paid in full.

Luxury: Gadgets, iPad and Computer Parts ~RM6.1k

Significant improvement vs. year of 2023 - whilst still (very) impulsive, I managed to exercise a little bit more self-control here and spent only half the amount I've spent in 2023. Plenty of rooms for improvement for sure - but the experiment of setting a sinking category to "fund" my impulsive gadget purchase definitely helped to mitigate some impacts (though amount is still insufficient).

0% Debts

Paid of all my outstanding 0% Credit Card Instalments plan for my mom's hairdryer bought last year. And thankfully since then I managed to NOT utilise this facility for my purchases. Hopefully the trend continues in 2025 💪🏻

Savings Rate

Just like last year, I had to prepare two different savings rate chart to help with my own analysis and exclude the additional principal repayments on my mortgage as those are building up my long term equity - exactly the same concept where I excludes all activities related to investment from my expenses tracking.

The first set of chart focuses on general savings rate (which includes additional principal repayment as expenditures) whereas the second set of chart focuses on normalized savings rate (excluding additional principal repayments).

From a quick glance, 2024's savings rate are definitely much more consistent even from the first chart alone. But if we dive deeper into the second chart, the savings rate has definitely improved tremendously due to the "forced savings" that I have mandated throughout the year - in the forms of additional principal repayment.

As with the last few years - September is usually where things get a little bit out of control where I would spend more than usual - typically for my holidays / travels / shopping spree during my birthday month. Nevertheless, the normalized savings rate in 2024 definitely have exceeded even my own expectations all thanks to my aggressive mortgage repayment strategy - something I can continue to ride on during 2025.

Emergency Jar

Pretty much the status quo here since my Ringgit Freedom’s June 2021 Updates: Mid-Year Checkpoint when I decided to expand my emergency jar from 6 months' expenses worth to 12 months' expenses worth. Nothing much to write here - spent a few bits here and there (mom's dental) but very quickly replenished it soon after (usually within the next month).

My "Freedom" Investments

Let's first start with reviewing the performances of our Freedom Portfolio.

Funding

Thankfully, I broke the downward funding trend that started since 2021. Whilst still being very careful / conserved throughout 2024, I managed to invest / inject more funds than the year before and one of the main reason has got to do with the automated Recurring Investment facility offered by Interactive Broker. Note that the amount here fluctuates according to currency value hence the actual fund injected may vary.

Performance

It's starting to feel dejavu by now. Not surprisingly, 2024 was a very good year, with strong performance on most of my holdings raising my unrealized IRR to above 10%. When market performs this well, it really makes me wonder... "is this really sustainable? when's the next crash?" which was also the primary factor that I refused to invest any more than my regular DCA, pumping the rest into my real estate holdings (a.k.a my home!). From numbers perspective, that may not be the best way to deploy cash considering the historical returns of S&P500 being much greater than any mortgage interest savings could potentially yield me.

A new chart added just recently! I've always wanted to track my overall year-to-year snapshot so that it helps me to assess my portfolio performance vs. market funds out there. Not gonna lie - mine looks terrible, until 2024 where suddenly there's a huge spike of unrealized gain. Just America doing it's thing I guess...

As for the realized losses, since mid-2024 I have started trimming my portfolio holdings and as a result, some of those old funds/ETFs/stocks have been "sold" at a loss but most are consolidated into equivalent siblings (e.g. BABA/9988 Stocks, 3067 China Tech ETF consolidated into 3040 China ETF).

In 2024, I have closed 13 positions bringing down the active list from 30 line items to 17 line items. It's still a work-in-progress but I plan to eventually consolidate them into just a couple holdings, primarily in ETF's with a few stronghold dividend stocks. Last I counted there's still at least 3-5 funds/ETFs/stocks to be deleted or consolidated... an exercise to be continued in 2025 & 2026.

Allocation

With the heated situation in the market, my cash pile continued to grow. I definitely hated holding cash (equivalents) but going all-in on anything at this juncture just simply does not make any sense. For now, these cash (equivalents) are just sitting in my fully-flexi mortgage account, reducing the amount of interest payable to bank. I think bank really hates me - last year alone, I've paid 50% less interest fees than the two years prior.

The good news though - I've finally crossed the 500K Asset Under Management mark for my very own self-managed Freedom Porfolio 🥳

There's no other better way than this to celebrate my portfolio's 10 year anniversary. Though, majority of these gain are all from 2024 itself (unrealized) due to the strong market momentum.

The regional allocation chart above probably speaks better in one slide than my long paragraphs can. The strong growth in US market have significantly threw my proportions out of whack, at least for my freedom portfolio 😅. Good thing is that I still have the "total" portfolio (including EPF/i-Invest) to play around with balancing.

My "Total" Investments

I have decided to continue my last year's trend and include EPF in my yearly review - something that I only do once a year.

Though, it won't be as granular since many of the things are happening behind the scene, directly with EPF where there's zero influence from me (except for i-Invest which I only utilize to rebalance my overall portfolio when it goes out of whack).

Funding

What I'm most happy about, looking at this chart, is the sizable growth of the pink bar. Never once I would have thought that I will be managing a sizable portion of investments, almost on par with what I have in EPF today. Maybe one day, if I don't mess up too badly, that the pink bar will outgrow the blue. Maybe, just maybe.

Performance

Another milestone worth celebrating - my total portfolio size now exceeds 1mio, with EPF still holding the "majority stake" at 55% 😛. Note that for below chart, it has not included the latest dividend which was recently announced a couple days back as the snapshot was taken during 31 December 2024 itself.

If you're curious, with the 2024 dividend factored in, it'll probably boost the value by another RM25-35K and EPF's Portfolio IRR should go from approx. 4% to 5% IRR.

Allocation

Unlike the Freedom Portfolio's Allocation that you have seen earlier, when considering EPF (and my own i-Invest) allocations, it kinda brought back the balances I've been maintaining so far between US-China-Malaysia & Others at 30:30:30:10 respectively (for equities). Though my main goal have always been keeping the balance between US and China.

Net Worth Updates

2024 definitely is the year with significant milestones achieved. Those following my journey may recall that I've posted an update in Jun/Jul announcing that for the first time ever - I have finally achieved the "Millionaire" net worth status. In real life, it didn't change anything for me with life going on as usual - just like any other day.

Based on the extracts on last day of 2024, my net worth currently sits at ~RM1,138K (excluding the 2024 EPF dividend) which is way above my original target of achieving 1M by 2024 (before revising it to an additional year cause kiasu) .

Reflecting back, I've doubted myself when I decided to start this challenge sometime in 2019 or 2020, when I first started ringgitfreedom.com. Thinking to myself back then - 1 million in 3-4 years? Siao ah? But somehow with a bit of luck and persistence, miracle happened. For myself, it was the career growth in last 2-3 years that skyrocketed my income.

There are definitely many ways to achieve this. Some co-founded their start-up businesses into successful ventures. Some started their own content production studio. As for me, knowing myself and my level of motivation - climbing the career ladder seems to work best for me despite the stress and all kind of shit that I receive at work. I really am thankful to my company, without which I doubt I will enjoy the financial security that I have today. Though unlike the past, whilst not at the stage of throwing my performance away, I am definitely less aggressive than before in terms of the pursuit of career growth. I guess I had found the right balance that works for me.

The journey's definitely not done yet - for now, I'm not going to revise the target or set another big ambitious target numbers to chase for considering my own uncertainties in the next 1-3 years (migration). We'll cross that bridge when it comes, but for now the focus remains the same - building my equity and pay down my debts ASAP whilst I still have financial security / financial certainty in my hands to take the pressure away when I migrate overseas.

Just in case for those who are reading my year review for the first time - for my net worth calculation, I exclude the primary residence that I’m currently staying in, in the essence that it generates all the expenses/liabilities associated with home-ownership with no ability to generate income. Even if I choose to sell it, there'll be heavy costs associated with it when time is not on my side so I took an aggressive $0 value assumption for such primary residence.

This concept was popularised by Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. However, I know that some of you, especially finance enthusiasts and/or accountants would prefer to stick with the standard accounting principles so there's also an additional dotted line for that which accounts for my home value based on past transaction values with a haircut of ~10% for miscellaneous fees associated with sales of a home.

2024 Goals Revisited

Now, with all hat said, how do I fare in terms of Goals vs. Achievements? In 2024, I've inherited two goals from 2023, and created a new Goal #3 to keep myself in check. As a quick recap:

Goal #1: Achieve at least 55% Annualised Savings Rate (Normalised)

I need to continue something been continuously doing the last couple of years - to achieve at least 55% Annualised Savings Rate (Normalised). The normalised savings rate is calculated by excluding additional principal contributed to mortgage loan and also one-off migration related fees and allows for consistency in comparison vs. past 5 years.

This allows me to ride on the savings momentum whilst not over-depriving myself to focus only on saving but forget to enjoy life.

Goal #2: Plan Another True Holiday

I'm looking forward to plan for another true holiday, perhaps bringing my mom to Hong Kong (still trying to persuade her otherwise, there really isn't much to see in Hong Kong and she's been there twice already…) or somewhere else?

Goal #3: Carefully Craft a Move-Out Plan with Backups

I need to craft a move-out (from MY to AU) plan with more granularities by further refining my current high-level timelines. I'll need to start researching on nitty gritty so that I won't have to scramble at the last minute to decide where to stay, where to work, submit resumes everywhere hoping to nail a new job in a foreign land, etc.

Read more: 2023 in Review: Slowing Down Actually Took Me Further

Now, the question is - did I achieve all 3 goals? In short, not really.

Continuing the celebration trends last couple of years, I want to celebrate what we have achieved throughout 2024 in no particular order 🥳

1. Hitting a record-high 64% normalized savings rate, exceeding even my own expectations (Goal #1 Achieved)
2. Successfully convinced my mom to visit Taiwan and brought our family for a 2 weeks trip (Goal #2 Achieved)
3. Continued negotiation with my Employer on my intended plan to move to Australia - whilst waiting for prolonged Australian Immigration's verdict on my Visa. Let's see if I can score a WIN-WIN - migrate whilst retaining my strong career growth trajectory. (Goal #3 still W.I.P)
4. Actually snagged tickets for IU's concert in Malaysia. Not one, but four tickets so my friends could go with me.
5. Signing up for Korean class on a whim - 2 months before attending IU's concert. Wanted to learn Korean so I can sing-along and also understand when IU is talking on stage. Obviously it didn't work on concert day, but since then it's been almost a year of Korean classes... I'm surprised even at myself. But the amount of homeworks, ugh!!!
6. Attending IU's concert in Malaysia, and seeing her live performance! It's like reactivating my decade old fans-in-me. I've stopped following her after graduating from university but I guess all it took was a single Spark to reignite my love for her XD
7. During my holidays trip in Taiwan, flew back to Malaysia JUST IN TIME - exactly 12 hours before Typhoon hits (last flight out). And the best part, it was booked MONTHS in advance. I definitely don't have crystal ball but imagine the goosebumps I've got on that day...
8. Survived driving in Taiwan with Right-Handed Traffic roaad systems (on a left-handed driver seat). Took me a couple of days to re-sync back to Malaysia's driving pattern upon my return...
9. Taking off my Braces. LIKE FINALLY! But only to be met with Retainers... UGH!!!
10. Witnessing the growth of my batchmates at (ex-)work growing - one setting up business and another migrated out of Malaysia. So proud and happy for them, and I SWEAR I'M NEXT!!!
11. ringgitfreedom.com entering is coming closer to its 5 year soon (in couple of months). Though a little less active than I'd like due to hectic schedules at work 🙁

And maybe just to pen down some of my regrets - if any - to serve as my own reminder for the future me:

1. Not going YOLO and just buy IU's Korea ENCORE: THE WINNING concert when I was given the opportunity to. Like GOD literally gave it to me, with ONE seat released a couple of days before the concert (after F5/refreshing the site for so many days), and I had to hesitate & pause.. WHYYYYYYYYY
2. Tried to time the market with my BTC holdings trimming half of the holdings sometime last year, as well as closing my XRP position to "consolidate" / "reduce" number of holdings. I guess time and time again, time in market > timing the market. But it's really hard to go against emotions, despite the best intention/efforts that I may have.

Overall, 2024 wasn't that shabby. I achieved most goals that I've set (easy goals heh) and missed the mark on some - partially due to underestimation of the time taken for visa approvals (it's been 15 months and sill counting...).

Could I do more? Definitely. But I'm happy enough where I am at. I got to see my long-time idol for the first time, after a long hiatus from stanning after university graduation. I also somehow started my journey in learning Korean, something that I've tried multiple times in the past and failed. Third time's always the charm, huh? Fun fact, I created two websites prior to ringgitfreedom.com and both of them died within 1-3 months, just like my previous two initiatives to learn Korean.

Plans for 2025

With all those said, what is the 2025 outlook for me, and whare are my plans? Like last year, if it's ain't broken don't fix it - so I'm going to shamelessly inherit, but improvise, on my last year's goals:

Goal #1: Achieve at least 65% Annualised Savings Rate (Normalized)

Considering the continuous growth of income and somewhat successful in keeping my lifestyle inflation in check - I've decided to set a target that better aligns with what I can realistically achieve based on last year's achievement. We was merely one percent short (at 64%) during 2024, so I think setting a target of 65% is realistic enough and provides a little stretch - as long as I can contain my lifestyle inflation.

Goal #2: Pass my Korean Language TOPIK 1 Exam and earn my holiday trip to Korea

Lo and behold, after several rounds of convincing by my teacher, I've decided to just sign up for the TOPIK I exam anyway. He said it won't be too hard and I hope he's right about it. The real challenge is squeezing my motivation and a bit of time to do all these past year exam papers so I've decided to put a carrot in front of me: earning my holiday trip to Korea.

It's been at least 8 years, I think, since my last visit to Korea. Definitely wants to go back there and mainly to visit cities outside of Seoul (still thinking of Busan, Jeju, or somewhere else less "touristy").

So yeah, let's get this exam sorted first then I'll start planning the holidays!

Goal #3: Carefully Craft a Move-Out Plan with Backups

This is a direct copy-paste from last year. Basically, I sill need to craft a move-out (from MY to AU) plan with more granularities by further refining my current high-level timelines. It gets tricky with the continuous delays from Australian Immigration in terms of visa grants timeline. From 12 months to 13 to 14 to 15 and now, based on latest estimates, it'll take at least 20 months for approvals.

Regardless, it's still good if I can start researching on some of those nitty-gritty so that I won't have to scramble at the last minute to decide where to stay, where to work, submit resumes everywhere hoping to nail a new job in a foreign land, etc.

2025's Wheel of Life

So, with all that basic goals set, what does my 2025's focus look like in terms of the Circle of Life? Just two focus areas: Health and Spirituality.

And with this, introducing a new Goal #4 for myself in 2025:

Goal #4: Building a Stronger Resilient "Me"

Perhaps this should have been the #1 goal - but anyways. I have a long journey ahead of me, especially considering the tough route that I decided to pick for myself. In all truthfulness, I could have chosen to just settle down in Malaysia - perhaps by working for another 2-5 years max, I can retire super comfortably here, no longer needing to WORK FOR MONEY but do whatever I deem passionate about.

Choosing to immigrate at this age poses a challenge, as I have give up some of the head-start that I had built so hard for in the last decade - in all aspects of life, financial, social connections, etc. in a completely foreign country that may not fully recognize my talents.

To drive changes with this level of insanity - I need a STRONG ME. Both mentally and physically. I won't set big goals here like walking 10-20K steps per day because I know big numbers will just scare me away (like many times before). But I pledge to eat healthier, walk more whenever possible, and give myself some time to do soul-searching meditations rather than burying myself fully at work, lessons, homework's, gaming, and all other stuff that numbs my brain.

Final Thoughts

Remember back in those college / university years, when we have finally done with the exams and are given a long semester break whilst waiting for the next semester to start? 2024 definitely feels that way for me. It felt that I have accomplished nothing, but also accomplished plenty at the same time given how fast the time feels.

Ever since I made up my mind to pursue my Australia migration journey in 2023/24, countless number of scenarios have played in my mind - some good ones, but more often than not the bad ones are replayed countless times. Deep inside, I know that some of these are irrational fears especially at time of change (I guess my career did help me even on my personal growth after all - as all these feels so dejavu when it comes to change management of human behaviour with new things)

But still - the biggest question I still have from last year was that how will my future look like? Will everything that I've spent decade working on go down the drain (given high living cost etc.) or will my portfolio & financial numbers continue to thrive? Only time will tell.

One thing's for sure though - with the delay in visa processing by Australian Immigration Department, it also opened up potential opportunities in my negotiation with my existing employer (since they also have presence there in Australia). At this stage, I'm just keeping an open mind, whatever the outcome would be. Even in the worst case scenario, all I have to do is to stick to my original plan and start applying for jobs in Australia once I've received (fingers crossed) the visa grant - since all companies, at this stage, are screening out all applicants without valid working rights in Australia.

The Wheel of Life is also an interesting concept that I've started to like, now that I've tested it myself. 2 (or 3?) years ago when I first decided that my life pursuit should be beyond just a singular pillar (Financial), I've expanded to "Personal Growth" and "Family/Friends" but with this Wheel of Life - it also forces me to think from additional angles previously not considered for. Let's see how it goes in 2025, and if all well, it should become a baseline that I will utilize going forward in assessing priorities for my life.

As always, thanks for reading and I will see you again in my next post! If you haven't already, be sure to follow me on my Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for the latest updates!

If you're interested in my past updates - do check out my previous Monthly Review or Year In Review!

Cheers,
Gracie

The post 2024 in Review: The Gap Year appeared first on Ringgit Freedom.

It may sound cringe at first (trust me, I felt the same way too at first) - but slowing down DID take me further. How so, you may ask?

• Firstly, slowing down has given me enough "me time" to introspect and ask myself what I want to prioritize in life.
• Secondly, slowing down has allowed me to "say no" to things that do not align with my priorities - rather than jumping from one thing to another based on what others want of me.

Being the career-focused woman that I am, can you imagine that I rejected a lateral promotion/movement, for the first time in my life?

This career opportunity would've allowed me to expand my career horizontally with bigger responsibilities had I accepted it in the first place, allowing me to further expand my growth, at the price of my mental energy. The usual me would've jumped at any growth opportunities with zero hesitation - after all, career growth equals potential better pay/experience, which would've benefitted me in the long run for sure.

However, taking the first few months of the year to introspect, I've known what I wanted in life, at least directionally. Whilst potential career growth is nice, it doesn't fit into the bigger picture of what I want to piece out of my life. The puzzle simply doesn't fit and goals do not align.

Don't get me wrong though, amidst the economic instabilities in recent years, I'm very thankful that my company still plays a huge part in building up my career, investing significantly in my personal growth, as well as rewarding me financially. It's just that rather than walking a path decided by others, I've decided to create my own path.

Am I still in the same company that I was working with over the last decade? Yes. But I've come to accept the fact that I may have to eventually give up all the glories and titles, as well as financial incentives, to create my pathways going forward. I'll probably delve deeper into this topic in the future when things are more or less cast in stone. Still too early to say anything for now as I didn't want to count the chickens before they hatch 🙂

Mental health-wise, in case it's not obvious enough already - I am feeling better, so much better compared to 2022 and 2021 with better clarity of mind. All I want is just to slow down my pace in life, be there in the present and do whatever I feel like doing (or not doing) without being guilt-tripped. And take small steps, day by day, towards the end-game that I want to achieve beyond just the numbers.

After all, Slow and Steady wins the race, eh? I guess life is truly a marathon and not a sprint...

My Financials

Expenses

I was actually in shock when I did my financial closing this year.

I know I wanted to cut myself some slack and give myself some window to breathe and live life as it is, instead of living life in numbers. But I wasn't ready to see an increase of WHOPPING 110% IN TOTAL ANNUAL EXPENSES!!! With more than double my total spending last year.

I mean, take a look at this. Who wouldn't be shocked simply by glancing at the summary below? Pretty sure I nearly had a heart attack...

Being the Detective Pikachu that I am - I decided to delve deeper into the numbers.

To my relief, I found out that whilst there has been an increase in my overall expenditures, it is still within a much more reasonable and expected range, considering my relaxed spending requirements (following Ramit Sethi's "Living a Rich Life" bible) plus a few vacation trips that I took throughout 2023.

Much of the increase in my overall expenditures is caused by either (1) paying down my mortgage quicker, or; (2) one-off expenditures related to migration overseas (and still barely scratching the surface so far). Both of these are utilizing the buffers in my budget which I've built over the last 2 years in their respective categories.

It's a long topic by itself - but long story short, the surge of expenditures in these two categories is related to the decision I've made personally to migrate overseas in the near/mid-term. I'll have a post dedicated to the whole story of migrating overseas when the time is right.

But as far as analyzing my expenditures this year, when I normalize my spending and exclude these two expenditures, the figures are much more reasonable and less scary in my opinion.

Anyway, after normalizing the expenditures, it's rather easy (and obvious) to tell where the huge spike came from. I mean, I can better stomach an increase of 26% in overall expenditures as compared to 110%, especially knowing for a fact that 11% out of the 26% increase comes from travelling alone with the rest scattered throughout other categories.

If I double-click my overall expenditures (of ~200K MYR) in 2023, just to give a full picture:

0% Debts

As mentioned earlier - I paid off my iPhone's 0% plan in full but towards year-end, added another small 0% purchase of a Dyson Hairdryer (~RM1.2k) as my mom's hairdryer needed a replacement.

Again - same as last year, I took the shortcut way out to make my impulsive purchase (at least I tell myself it's for my mom, so it's worth it, to feel less guilty about it) via 0% plans rather than making a plan for it. Pun intended.

Savings Rate

This year was a bit tricky to analyze due to the surge in expenditures due to the additional principal repayments for my mortgage and also one-off costs related to migration. As covered in the Expenses section above, I'll have to share two versions of the savings rate.

If we look at the first set of charts, it is pretty scary as I've only managed to save approximately ~27% of my annual net income, with an out-of-bound dip in December where I spent double my net income that month.

However, if we delve deeper and exclude the additional mortgage repayments / migration-related expenses; the savings rate is rather healthy - right on track against the target of a 55% Savings Rate which I've set out for 2023 previously.

One thing's for sure though, my actual monies are "kinda gone" since I've already allocated it to pay down my mortgage (but I can withdraw anytime if needed leveraging the zero-penalty fully flexi facility) and actual expenditures on visa-related matters, so I'll be using the actualized 27% savings rate as my baseline for 2023.

I won't punish myself for "not hitting the target", though. Since the monies are spent on things that I want, aligning with "My Rich Life" goals, and are planned for. These monies were saved from 2021-2022 exactly for these purposes, anyway.

I'll let you be the judge here - should my savings rate be 27% or 56% for 2023? Let me know in the comments below!

Emergency Jar

Pretty much the status quo here since my Ringgit Freedom’s June 2021 Updates: Mid-Year Checkpoint when I decided to expand my emergency jar from 6 months' expenses worth to 12 months' expenses worth.

My "Freedom" Investments

Unlike the past year's review, I'll be reviewing both my "Freedom" portfolio followed by my "Total" portfolio which is inclusive of EPF-managed funds.

Funding

This year continued the downward trend since 2021, with slightly under ~RM50K contribution as of the end of 2023. The main factors are related to migration as well - with most of my free cash flow aggressively channelled to the additional principal repayments on my mortgage, there simply isn't enough excess cash flow to invest aggressively.

The lack of discipline and being forgetful doesn't help either (since I no longer have an auto debit facility) - without an automated mechanism put back in place I ended up noticing that I'll attempt to "time the market", going against my advice to others to focus on time in the market rather than trying to time the market.

Well, I've with the introduction of Recurring Investments by Interactive Broker, hopefully, I can at least regain my consistency when it comes to investing throughout 2024.

Performance

Truth be told, I'm not that happy with my portfolio performance this year. I can feel some of the burnt based off decisions I've committed to, approximately two years ago. Maybe I would've done better off just having a single-stock portfolio (VWRA) and left it stacked since then.

My portfolio barely maintained a breakeven with the gains on the US sides counterbalanced by losses stacked up on my China holdings and some of the questionable individual stock picks I've done in the past.

Lessons learnt tho - I'm NOT the type for picking individual stocks, except for some of those blue-chip dividend stocks. Am I doubtful of my decisions made? Yes. But I also know that it's all only a paper loss and the tide may (or may never) turn so I'll choose to stick my gun for now. Let's see how long my resolve can last me.

Allocation

If you haven't noticed already, yes, my cash pile actually grew and almost doubled its size compared to 2022 December.

Reason for cash accumulation? I'm still waiting for an opportunity to jump back into (yes I know I shouldn't time the market) and on the other hand, I was trimming the number of holdings I had in my portfolio (one at a time) but hasn't really bought-back into the market yet. On the plus side, these cash are held in currencies other than MYR, so there's a bit of the hedging effect there too, so not all is lost.

My individual stock holdings are shrinking in size - sadly, not due to consolidation of portfolio but rather wiped-out values of some of my stock - such as the ongoing BABA (9988.HK) saga, the wipeout of value stocks (on paper previously), etc. The losses are painful, and I've yet to cut them off yet. But I've learnt very well that I'm NOT SUITABLE for stock-picking, except for dividend stocks which I'm pretty proud of my selections so far.

My freedom portfolio is almost 9 years old 🥳 and can you imagine that I'm only getting 1.5% return (IRR) out of it!?!? On a more serious note, if factoring only my realized portion of my portfolio, it'd sit at ~5.5% IRR which is not too bad, comparable to EPF but with much more effort required. It's the unrealized portion of my active portfolio (heavily influenced by the China downturn) that drags down my performance.

On the longer-term view, I still hope that I won't be too far off in terms of correctness. Like why would I wish myself to be wrong and lose money!? In any case, I still refuse to go all-in US-only so VWRA and ONLY VWRA with ~60% US and 40% Rest of World is my answer going forward.

My "Total" Investments

This is probably my first time having a dedicated section by itself, to allow for a holistic view of my true total portfolio after factoring in the monstrous EPF holdings. In the initial years I didn't want to include these in my review as the numbers are heavily mismatched between my Freedom Portfolio vs. EPF Portfolio but now that the numbers are much closer, I think it's the best time to introduce it.

Of course, EPF being EPF, there isn't much to talk about really - especially since we have not even received our 2023 dividends yet.

Funding

Rather than the controllable "funding" amount, I guess showing the overall growth would make more sense here. After all, EPF contributions are mandatory for all salary makers anyway. Here you can still see that funds in my EPF still outweigh whatever I hold & invest personally outside of the EPF ecosystems.

Performance

Similar to the Freedom Portfolio performance history earlier, except with EPF bits overlayed on top of it. Still not accurate tho, as we're still missing the dividend rate announcement from EPF Malaysia. Chart will be re-adjusted later in March/April once the final rates are announced - as I usually backdate the recognition in my portfolio resulting in a "Heartbeat" spike every year for EPF's performance.

Allocation

In the holistic view of my portfolio allocation, the rather-low allocation in the US definitely caught my attention. Will definitely need to get the ratios back up to maintain balance between the two (China:US).

Net Worth Updates

Amidst a chaotic year of 2023 with some precursors to life-changing decisions in the coming short to mid-term, I'm still very proud of what I have achieved - of course eternally grateful to my Company for building me up and investing in myself - both learning and financially. My current net worth sits at approximately ~RM720K.

Just in case for those who are reading my year review for the first time - for my net worth calculation, I typically exclude the primary residence that I’m currently staying in, in the essence that it generates all the expenses/liabilities associated with home-ownership with no ability to generate income. Even if I choose to sell it, there'll be heavy costs associated with it when time is not on my side so I took an aggressive $0 value assumption for such primary residence.

This concept was popularised by Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. However, I know that some of you, especially finance enthusiasts and/or accountants would prefer to stick with the standard accounting principles so there's also an additional dotted line for that which accounts for my home value based on past transaction values with a haircut of ~10% for miscellaneous fees associated with sales of a home.

As you can see, my "1M2024" (achieving 1mil net worth using my formula by end of 2024) goalpost has been shifted to 1 year later a.k.a "1M2025" to create some space for myself.

For eagled-eyed ones, you would also notice that I no longer generate my 15-year net worth forecast as there are simply too many variables given my decision to migrate. I could end up 10 years poorer rolling back my progress so far once I take the migration decision and execute it, who knows?

2023 Goals Revisited

In 2023, I've set rather simple goals to counter the burnt-out experience I've faced in 2022:

Goal #1: Achieve at least 55% Annualised Savings Rate

Similar to last year - this is hopefully an easy one to achieve by riding on the savings momentum whilst not over-depriving myself to focus only on saving but forget to enjoy life.

Goal #2: Arrange 1x Overseas Trip for Holidays

Perhaps something that I've missed the most is to travel overseas and just go adventure around. I don't know where to go yet, perhaps Korea or Australia? The purpose is really only to divert my spending on experience rather than more and more things.

Goal #3: Finding/Regaining My "Ikigai"

Perhaps the most important goal of them all. I've been losing my motivation and staying depressed for a little far too long, and I needed a new "goal" to look forward in life - something beyond grinding on the hamsters wheel.

For too long, I have focused on and only on tangible goals such as career progression, making and preserving monies, buying tangible stuff, progressing further in career to make more monies, etc.

Read more: 2022 in Review: An Autopilot Year

That's it. Those were indeed the only goals I had set for myself last year, clearing my headspace to ensure that I can capitalize on moments as I unlock "new" opportunities, goals or objectives utilizing those free headspace.

Similar to 2022, I wanted to celebrate what we have achieved this year, in no particular order 🥳

1. ringgitfreedom.com website is still technically alive (albeit still on life support) and is almost 4 years old!
2. Kinda-achieved my 56% Annualised Savings Rate target if I park aside planned huge expenditures for good reasons.
3. Arranged 2x Overseas Trip for Holidays - with one of them in my dream destination (Australia) for a prolonged period (close to 3 weeks)!
4. Managed to do a bit of soul-searching through introspection and found a few key puzzle pieces that I desperately needed to navigate the next few decades of my life. Not the full puzzle yet, but good enough directionally.
5. Passed my English IELTS Test and scored an Overall Band 7.5
6. Passed my Project Management PMP Certification with Triple Above Target.
7. Completed yet another 8 weeks' worth of strategy course with assignments.
8. Having completed several key milestones for the Australian Immigration journey. Still a long way to go, but much closer than when I started the year!
9. Experiencing COVID-19 on the last day of the year. No really, I am truly grateful to have not caught it since 2019 (this is my first ☠️). Really gotta be careful what you wish for.

Plans for 2024

In the spirit of simplicity and don't fix what ain't broken, I hereby copy-pasta my goals from last year with a low-effort plan! Jokes aside, with potential migration that needs to be accounted for, it is better for me to keep things simple

Goal #1: Achieve at least 55% Annualised Savings Rate (Normalized)

Similar to the last few years - this is hopefully an easy one to achieve by riding on the savings momentum whilst not over-depriving myself to focus only on saving but forgetting to enjoy life. I oughta to be more specific here as well since I foresee the ongoing momentum to beat down my mortgage extremely aggressively in 2024, coupled with potential one-offs due to migration expenditures.

The 55% Annualised Savings Rate here will be benched against the normalized savings rate to ensure consistency over the last 5 years

Goal #2: Plan Another True Holiday

I truly enjoyed the 3-weeks break I had this year for a proper holiday. I never thought I would enjoy them. Whilst I'm not sure if I can afford another 3-weeks holidays this year, I'm looking forward to plan for another true holiday, perhaps bringing my mom to Hong Kong (still trying to persuade her otherwise, there really isn't much to see in Hong Kong and she's been there twice already...) or somewhere else?

Goal #3: Carefully Craft a Move-Out Plan with Backups

Beating down my mortgage with additional principal repayments is one of those backup plans - if all else fails, at least that'll be the source of my cushion to allow me enough time to recuperate without being forced to liquidate my investment portfolios. That will be something that I'll continuously work on over the next year.

What's more important tho, perhaps closer to the end of 2024, is to craft a move-out plan with more granularities by further refining my current high-level timelines. I'll need to start researching on nitty gritty so that I won't have to scramble at the last minute to decide where to stay, where to work, submit resumes everywhere hoping to nail a new job in a foreign land, etc.

Final Thoughts

The next few years would possibly be yet another pivotal moment in my life, if not the biggest one.

Whilst I'm looking forward to changes that I've been eagerly waiting for, I'm equally worried for my future as well.

Truth be told, I've been living in a very comfortable position for far too long. With good pay and a solid career in my hand, at least for the foreseeable decade, I can easily just cruise through another 10 years and based on the forecast I've done previously, I think I would've easily crossed the RM4mil - RM6mil net worth mark, simply just by cruising through life/work.

But I know by now that this is not the life I want to have in the next decade. Maybe it's just the whole "grass is greener on the other side" that I'm feeling right now, that drives me to move out of Malaysia. But maybe it's also true - that the other side can offer me things/status/sense of security that Malaysia never can. One day, I promise to share everything - including the personal motivational factors driving this change for myself and when the time comes, maybe you can be the judge too, and tell me about my decision. Only when the time, after the "D-Day", so that I will not waver.

Throughout the article, you may notice that I've used Ramit Sethi's "Living a Rich Life" reference. Just to call out early on, I am in no way affiliated with him and I don't think Ramit even knows my existence :D. It just happened by chance when I stumbled upon his (video) podcasts on my YouTube Recommendation feed and I loved his method of "budgeting" as part of it resonated well with me, on how to design my "rich life" (the exact life that I want) and budget/spend on it without feeling guilty - something that I've been experimenting with but struggled to find the perfect way around it.

At least, this is one of the puzzle pieces I've found that may or may not solve what I want to achieve in the long run - to design and own "My Rich Life". I know what I'm going for, and I'm also aware of the risks ahead of me. At the end of the journey, I may potentially take some hit in my financials, or even lose all of my decades' worth of hard work resetting back to zero (or at worse, negatives). But I still want to try - at least that way, I won't be stuck in a position of guilt & regrets for not trying in the future.

As always, thanks for reading and I will see you again in my next post! If you haven't already, be sure to follow me on my Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for the latest updates!

If you're interested in my past updates - do check out my previous Monthly Review or Year In Review!

Cheers,
Gracie

The post 2023 in Review: Slowing Down Actually Took Me Further appeared first on Ringgit Freedom.

As a result, most part of this year's journey has been on autopilot mode, with near zero interventions from me unlike back in 2020/21 where I was heavily invested (time wise) in the personal finance space.

Closer to the end of the year, thanks to my Psychologist, I finally managed to partially get hold of myself by focusing only on things that I can control, one at a time. This managed to significantly lower the stress, the overwhelming feeling and also the frustration with myself / workplace that have been haunting me throughout the months.

Whilst I'm definitely not out of the woods yet, but things have became so much better and less cloudy compared to months ago - so much that I can at least have some level of energy and a clear-thinking head to write this post.

Without further ado, let's jump straight into our 2022's Year in Review!

My Personal Financials

Savings Rate

Surprisingly, despite my mental state taking a downward spiral since May '22, my personal finances philosophy somewhat managed to hold itself out throughout the 7 months without much intervention on its own autopilot mode.

I guess the constant staying-at-home (gaming / Netflix-ing) with only occasional shopping, plus the slightly increased income vs. 2022 January baseline levels helping me to sail through without much financial damanges done.

Overall, I managed to achieve the targeted Annual Savings Rate of 60% (originally targetted for 58%) for year ending 2022, which I'm very proud of.

Maybe except the sudden splurge on gadgets & accessories in November more on that later.

Emergency Jar

To share another bright news - a goal that I have started since mid-2021 to expand my Emergency Jar from the typical 6-months (expenses) buffer to a 12-months buffer (as explained in my June 2021's Update post) have finally been completed since middle of the 2022.

Whilst I certainly hope that I will never need to dip into the chunks of the Emergency Jar any time in the foreseeable future, it is still a great peace of mind especially knowing that recession is coming and I am ready for it.

Expenses

Taking an overall glance at my expenses this year, there isn't too much of a drastic change compared to last year where majority of my expenditure comes in the form of housing ownership as well as sustaining the family.

I guess it's a blessing in disguise that I'm still single and only have my mom to care of - so at the very least I'm not trapped like the sandwich generation does, for now.

Surprisingly, amongst all the mess I landed myself in - I managed to somehow spend less than last year. What sorcery is this!?!? 🤔

As for a quick comparison between 2022's spending vs. 2021's spending,

• Home (~): Nothing much have changed here - as I'm just serving my mortgage loan & building maintenance fees as usual. There were more home repairs this year, especially from servicing my Daikin Inverter Aircond unitS where several of them starts giving me issue requiring circuit board replacements. Guess I better start preparing for additional Home Sinking Fund of some sort since my "new" house is 5 years old now and more appliances may start acting up.
• Family & Giving: (+1%): No flood donation this year (thankfully), but still some increased expenditures here mainly for giving additional family allowances. Also with no quarantine and MCO requirement, there were more dinner / lunch gathering resulting in 3x amount of treats for friends or families compared to last year.
• Luxury (+2%): Problematic category as usual where I seem to always struggle especially from the month of November onwards with the sudden splurge. This have been the 3rd consecutive year that my impulsive splurge comes into the picture during year end sales 🙁
• Essential, Vehicle, Care & Others (+1%): Increase in living expenses attributable to the end of work-from-home era resulting in increase of meal & transportation costs. Thankfully these were offset somehow, by the lack of major vehicle services this year since I just did it last year.
• Business (-3%): Well, not surprisingly considering this was my "shutdown" year.

If I just double click further into the top-5 single item expenditures (excluding the mortgage, family, or giving categories) that can affect more than ~10% of my total annual expenses fully within my control, these are made up of:

0% Debts

It's all the iPhone's fault (no Gracie it's not, it's really just you.)

I managed to settle my 0% installments by September 2022 as initially anticipated during last year's review, but sadly, rather than funding my iPhone purchase through the Gadget Sinking Fund, I ended up going back to the 0% installment just because of how convenient & simple it is.

All the talks about resisting the urges to spend going down the drain, just like that T.T

To make it worse, I got the 36 months 0% installment rather than my usual 12 months or 24 months installment. Guess it'll be a long while again before I can fully clear my 0% debts incurred by the impulsive purchases 🙁

My Investments

Funding

This year's funding contributed towards my personal freedom portfolio falls shy compared to the amount contributed last year by 25%, mainly due to the autopilot mode with no Auto Debit facility in place (I stopped my StashAway Monthly Auto Debit in March 2022) resulting in only manual quarterly injections this year whenever I remembers.

Another reason, is that I'm still holding a rather bear-ish view of the market and wanted to have some reserves for deployment when the time comes. Probably not a good idea trying to time the market and I might be better off in the long run to just stay in the market, but I just don't feel like going all-in yet so there's that.

Portfolio

I have approximately injected ~RM50k worth of fresh fund into the portfolio this year, bringing the overall value of the Freedom Portfolio to ~RM280k by the end of 2022.

Unfortunately, due to the inactivity and lack of update throughout the 2nd half of the year, I do not have much data point resulting in a rather... stagnant chart for the year of 2022.

Allocation

Similar to the end of 2021, a huge majority (>80%) of my contributions this year goes straight into my ETF funds - mainly VWRA (for US + international exposures) and 3040.HK (for China exposures). All I basically do when quarter ends (and if I remember) is to convert my Ringgit into respective currencies, login into IBKR, and purchase on the spot irrespective of the trend-at-that-time.

I guess these passive-funds work best for me as they're the most boring and braindead method, fitting to my lazy investor style.

In 2021 my overall portfolio split ratio (including EPF) between Malaysia/China/US/Others was somewhere between 40-15-15-30, and there was not too big of a differences for year 2022 as well. I'm still slowly working towards reducing the Malaysia exposure (at least equity wise) but still haven't found a good way from cash-equivalents since most of them are still sitting in EPF's fixed income or my fully-flexi home loan for the interest gains/savings, bringing Malaysia's total exposure from ~40% to ~35%.

Whilst a "Venezuela" is not likely to happen in Malaysia in near-term, the deteriorating currency of Ringgit still worries me and I've been trying to find ways to hedge my cash-equivalent in other currency but are always turned off by the lack-of-interests (not even inflation-matching). Maybe I should start reading up my Singaporean's Blogger counterparts to get some insights on where to keep my cash, if I choose Singaporean Dollar as my hedging currency 😁

Net Worth Updates

Whilst I am very grateful and have my career to thanks for the smooth sailing financial journey I have today, the career was also the very reason that broke me (mentally) since the last 7 months. Unlike what happened in the 2016-2019 periods though, I managed to dumb-down my financial tracking throughout the past 7 months, keeping it simple to only a basic financial tracking (a.k.a. data entry into my YNAB). Thanks to that, I managed to still track my financial health for the year and do some budgeting retrospectively. Not the best way without a proper forward-planning in place, but it got the job done for this year.

Just in case for those who are reading my year review the first time - I typically exclude my primary residence that I’m staying in for my personal net worth, in the essence that it generates all the expenses/liabilities associated with home-ownership with no ability to generate income. This concept was popularised from Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. However I know that some of you finance enthusiastic would prefer to stick with the standard accounting principles so there's also an additional dotted line for that.

With all that said, I am glad that the actuals for 2022 did not deviate too far from the initial estimations, putting my net worth slightly above the RM400K mark. Whilst it will still be below my "1M2024" target, at this juncture I will just maintain the current pace rather than trying further ways to accelerate it, knowing clearly the risk of crossing the burnt-out line. Let's see if the forecast for the future comes anywhere close, when we revisit this in 10 years time!

2022 Goals Revisited

Early 2022, I have set a quite a number of stretching goals for myself, which probably contributed to my eventual burn-out on top of the career stress. As a quick recap, these were the goals set for myself early last year.

#1: I want to maintain at least 58% Average Annualised Savings Rate by end of 2022 to fuel either my Emergency Jar or Freedom Portfolio.

#2: I want to study and take up the PMP Certification Exam by end of 2022 to boost my potential career aspects (since that's mostly what I do day in day out, and are sponsored by Company anyways)

#3: Let's try this again - I want to read at least 8 non-fictional books by end of 2022 - leadership, business, finance, self-development; you name it!

#4: I want to write at least 12 additional articles in 2022 aside from my monthly / yearly updates; as a means to continue sharing my thoughts and things I've learnt throughout my financial journey, hopefully in return motivating more people to onboard the financial freedom journey.

#5: This one's a stretch goal - but I really want to pick up the Korean language by end of 2023. For 2022, let's try to learn at least 10 new vocab per week!

#6: Also a stretch goal - I want to attempt to apply for Singapore jobs - and sit in for at least 5 interviews by end 2022. Definitely not in rush to leave my job; but just wanted to tap into whatever opportunities arising and who knows what I'll land myself onto (and leave Malaysia) 

Read more: 2021 in Review: A Little Too Soon?

Unlike the review done in 2021 where I gave a pass or fail rating for each of the respective goals creating a rather negative overall vibes considering that I "failed", by definition, quite a number of unachieved goals.

Let's take a different approach this year to instead celebrate what we have achieved this year, shall we? 🥳

1. Kept my sanity.
2. Achieved a 60% Annualised Savings Rate this year, +2% above the original target!
3. Fully-funded my 12-Months Emergency Jar initiative.
4. Keeping my ringgitfreedom.com website alive (even if it's still on life support). The old me would've probably pressed the kill-switch and scrapped it entirely.
5. Getting promoted at work with bigger responsibility and team.
6. Continued prioritizing paying-myself-first and invests into my Freedom Fund periodically (although it's quarterly++ than monthly now, but still counts, right?)
7. Completed a 6-weeks worth of strategy/leadership course.
8. Managed to host/moderate a Financial Wellness talk!
9. Won 3 lucky-draws this year!

Plans for 2023

Obviously, I only hit 1 out of 6 goals originally listed which was the target set for annual savings rate. This year, I will be trying out something new - perhaps to officially slow down my year rather than the never-ending forward chase so there will only be 3 concise goals by end of 2023.

Goal #1: Achieve at least 55% Annualised Savings Rate

Similar to last year - this is hopefully an easy one to achieve by riding on the savings momentum whilst not over-depriving myself to focus only on saving but forget to enjoy life.

Goal #2: Arrange 1x Overseas Trip for Holidays

Perhaps something that I've missed the most is to travel overseas and just go adventure around. I don't know where to go yet, perhaps Korea or Australia? The purpose is really only to divert my spending on experience rather than more and more things.

Goal #3: Finding/Regaining My "Ikigai"

Perhaps the most important goal of them all. I've been losing my motivation and staying depressed for a little far too long, and I needed a new "goal" to look forward in life - something beyond grinding on the hamsters wheel.

For too long, I have focused on and only on tangible goals such as career progression, making and preserving monies, buying tangible stuff, progressing further in career to make more monies, etc.

Final Thoughts

In a way, I'm very grateful and proud of myself that this did not end up just like the 2016-2019 storm where I completely lost control of my personal finances, completely. I've slowed down a lot in 2022, but not without a sense of guilt which requires me to constantly remind myself that it is okay to slow down.

I'll probably still be slowing down my 2023, but this time, to try achieving it without a sense of guilt. This way, hopefully it can create the mental capacity that I needs to figure out how I'd like to navigate through the second half (or 2nd quarter?) of my lifelong journey.

There are so many questions that linger in my mind that I do not have an answer to - but one thing's for sure is that I will need to prioritise self-love and self-care which are much more important than just the financial journey alone.

Let's hope that all the clouds and storms will be gone before 2023 comes to an end!

As always, thanks for reading and I will see you again in my next post! If you haven't already, be sure to follow me on my Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for latest updates!

If you're interested in my past updates - do check out my previous Monthly Review or Year In Review!

Cheers,
Gracie

The post 2022 in Review: An Autopilot Year appeared first on Ringgit Freedom.

I personally still feel that I haven't really achieved anything big this year, and the year's ended a little too soon. However, writing this post really helps to force me to take a more neutral stance and see things from a more holistic/optimistic perspective (I guess I have too much pessimism in me recently).

When I decided to take a step back and zoomed out a little, 2021 didn't seem to be that bad of a year for me. While I did not manage to hit all of the goals that I've set for myself, I managed to at least clear half of them.

Not too bad for a start eh?

2021 Goals Revisited

About the same time last year, I've decided to set some of the goals for myself to achieve throughout 2021. I'm typically not the type that sets any New Year's Resolution as it's hard for me to keep up with the motivations (I'm very impromptu and acts based on my "mood-of-the-month").

Since I've set one last year despite all the odds, I figured that it'll be a good idea to at least revisit them and see if we're actually on track on meeting goals... or not.

#1 I want to be even more conscious and intentional with my spending, curbing my impulse purchase behaviour through proactive budgeting into my guilt-free jar - so that I will feel less guilty when I spend without relying on 0% instalments!

#2 Read at least 8 books in 2021. I don't think I've been consistent in this habit - always a hit-or-miss kind of thing 🙁 This is crucial for me to expand my knowledge and be more comfortable in selecting stocks. Aside from personal finance books, I'm also starting to gain interest in topics related to business / leaders so I should start diversifying my readings.

#3 Continue to maintain at least ~45% annual savings rate, and work upwards from there at least by +3% - by increasing my self-taxation rate and then figure out how to work/spend with the remaining balances 😛

#4 Continue sharing more of my thoughts and things I've learnt during my financial journey, hopefully in return motivating more people to onboard the financial freedom journey.

#5 Write faster 😛 - juggling between my full time job, my own me-time, reading or blogging; I tend to lean towards the me-time for recharge and ended up wasting my weekends.

#6 To get my dental braces that I have been putting off due to fears.. And my dental health. 

2020 in Review: A Year After Restarting My Financial Journey

• #1: The first one's definitely a fail - more on that in the next section.
• #2: Not so good with this either - in 2021 I have completed reading 3 books, and with 2 more still in-progress (I might end up having to re-read them anyways, I left it halfway for way too long and kinda forgot all the parts that I've read). Heck if I really want, I'll just add 1 more "textbook" to the count when I was studying for my SAFe 5.1 Agilist Certification 😛
• #3: At least some good news here, I've managed to hit 54% Savings Rate throughout 2021 - not too bad of an improvement vs. 41% for 2020.
• #4 & #5: Well, I'd say it's a 50/50 here. I was pretty active in early Q1 and also mid Q3 2021 - but are pretty much MIA for the rest of the year (especially recently). Don't know what's happening to the "motivated me" that does things.
• #6: This is an easy one - went for deep dental cleaning twice in 2021, and also started my Braces Journey back in July 2021 after putting it off for decades! The pain's much more managable than I initially thought. Hating myself for not starting earlier, like during early 2020's MCO - this way I have less overlaps to deal with the hassle of braces when eating outside of home/in office...

Now with all that said, let's first have a deeper look at how we performed in 2021, before delving into the plans moving forward for 2022!

My Personal Financials

Savings Rate & Emergency Jar

I spent most of the 2021's working from home - with exception of the first few weeks in early Q1 and also the last quarter of the year. That definitely helped to contribute to maintaining my semi-aggressive savings rate of 54% throughout 2021.

I'm definitely happy with the annual average savings rate so far, and probably will only aim to maintain this ratio with slight increments somewhere around 55% ~ 58% in 2022 rather than trying to push myself over the top which may just be counter-intuitive.

If I exclude the months where I have more than 20% extra incomes above the baseline income of the year from the count, just to have a better sense on my savings rate during the "stable months" not affected by income fluctuations from windfall/bonuses/etc. (as I tend to be able to save more in "bonus months"); the average savings rate is approximately ~43% in 2021 which is an improvement of 7% compared to the ~36% in 2020.

In May 2021, I made the decision to continue saving more - not just into my investment portfolio but rather, further building up my Emergency Jar from the typical 6-months (expenses) buffer to a 12-months target with rationales explained in my June's Update post.

Back in early 2020 when COVID-19 started to spread globally like a wildfire, and with my Emergency Funds being close to near-zero, I was constantly worried about potential layoffs as it usually happens when most of us are not expecting it.

Having witnessed some of my ex-colleagues losing their jobs (both contracted or permanent staff) due to budget concerns and their constant struggles to seek replacement jobs with similar pay (to sustain their lifestyle) - it creeps me out every time if I just think about it.

Whilst I am still pretty far away from hitting the goal post, that decision has really helped me to be in a very comfortable position in the event of real disastrous emergencies. So far I've drawn from my Emergency Fund a few times, mostly small amounts when unexpected events took place - like my mom's dental treatment or flood relief for charity/some close friends. Without this Jar in place, I'd probably have to compensate for it elsewhere from my other budgets (or even investments).

Expenses

Looking at my total yearly expenses (excluding savings and investments) - it's both a good and bad thing that I managed to keep the expenses flat vs. last year. Why do I say so?

Well, at a glance, I initially thought it was at least a good thing that I did not spend more than 2020 (underspending by RM1,163.32 to be exact :P) - meaning that I did not inflate my lifestyle further. But after taking a deeper look I realised that the opposite is true.

In 2020, home-related expenditures (incl. Mortgage, Legal Fees for Title Transfer, Maintenance or Home-Servicing Fees) alone made up 48% of my total annual expenses. But in 2021, even when home-related expenditures were reduced down to 30% (since the bulk of the payment for Title Transfer were done last year), the total annual expenses stayed flat indicating that some level of lifestyle creeps did take place last year.

Thankfully though, it isn't as bad as it sounds since the huge chunks of the increase were equally distributed between the master categories of Family & Giving and Luxury. At a glance, the personal expenditure changes were attributable to:

• Home (-18%): One-off legal fees for Strata Title Ownership were pretty much settled in 2020, with only minor amounts charged in 2021.
• Family & Giving: (+6%): Driven by flood relief & occassional gifts to family members.
• Luxury (+6%): Gadgets, gadgets, and more gadgets. Especially in November & December 2021 when I started to lose control AGAIN. More than half of the boost came from the last two months alone!
• Essential, Vehicle, Care & Others (+2%): I don't know - I guess it's the Covid Test Kits and maybe some stock-ups for my personal care products? 😛 Probably the full medical check-up too.
• Business (+3%): Gotta start paying for my website since AWS Free Tier benefits have ended 🙁 Just kidding - it's my investment to further pimp my own "home-office" setup - yeah, with quotes 😛

If I just double click further into the top-5 single item expenditures (excluding the mortgage, family, or giving categories) that can affect more than ~10% of my total annual expenses fully within my control, they are made up of:

• Personal Care: Braces ~RM4k
• Luxury: Macbook M1 ~RM4k (through 0% credit card installments)
• Luxury: Various Workstation Upgrades ~RM2.6k (well, not exactly "single" item since they're made up of bits and pieces, but yeah these were the Nov & Dec culprits...)
• Business: Ergonomic Chair ~RM1.6k
• Luxury: IPL Home-Care Kit ~RM1.2k

If there's one thing that I may regret, it's probably the Macbook as I severely under-utilized it (my Mac shows that I'm only on the 15th battery cycle count so far). Probably also because of the whole work-from-home and COVID-19 situation making mobility a joke... for now. The only time I use my Macbook is when I write my blogs, and are lazy to sit on my desk (I prefer to write from bed).

As for the IPL Home-Care Kit, with my Musee Platinum packages coming to an end soon and they're pretty expensive to top up - I guess I need to be less lazy about it and actually use the home-care kit rather than just leaving it lying in my wardrobe underutilized (just like the Macbook). So far I've only used it like 2 or 3 times because I was so lazy to do it myself and have always preferred to have a beautician to do it for me...

0% Debts

Back in 2020, I racked up further 0% debts right before the year ended (thanks Macbook!) and had to spend the entire 2021 clearing it off (plus some carried-forward 0% debts in earlier 2020 itself). Very happy to see how the charts have turned by the end of 2021!

This definitely is one of my small wins for the year - as I managed to hold my temptation (for now) on incurring further debts through 0% installment purchases. If all goes well, I should be able to fully clear it off by September 2022, allowing me to start redirecting the monies into a sinking fund for my love of gadgets rather than serving existing 0% debts.

This was something that I have been intending to start since January 2021, but it was close to impossible as I barely had any room to play around in my monthly budgets after deducting the mandatory savings or expenditures.

My Investments

Funding

As with past years, most of the funding towards my personal freedom portfolio comes from my active income sources. There were also additional contributions of funds through the additional dividends/capital gain; or transferred in from my EPF account through the i-Citra and i-Sinar withdrawal - but these were not the main driver of funds injection.

Portfolio

Unlike back in 2020, I did not double my portfolio this time around.

But still, I am very happy with the outcome as I managed to grow it by at least RM90K from the original ~RM135K in 2020 and now to ~RM225K by end of 2021.

Also, not to forget that the portfolio has also been tanking a series of beating from Big Brother China in the last two quarters, and the withdrawal of ~RM16K worth of Emergency Funds from my investment portfolio to maintain the portfolio segregation.

Allocation

Throughout 2021, whilst I have been trying to grow my overall freedom portfolio, I tried various different things in terms of the combination of ETF's, trying to pick individual stocks, or experimenting with some speculative plays attempting to amplify the potential returns at a manageable risk level.

In the end, I find passive-funds to be the most suitable style for me as an investor since the involvement and commitment required from my end (aside from paid-up capitals) are minimal.

From the various rebalancing and targeted focus on China / US market throughout 2021, I have finally managed to get closer to my ideal 30:30:30 ratio between Malaysia, China and US for the equities - if we look at the portfolio holistically including both my personal freedom portfolio and EPF portfolios.

Whilst the equities side of the equation is pretty balanced now, the fixed-income portion worries me, to say the least. On the personal front, I'm using my fully-flexi mortgage account to hold all my emergency funds with reasonable interest rate. On the other hand, EPF is also placing a significant amount of their funds in Fixed Income/Fixed Deposit funds from the Local Banks.

In the event of a "Venezuela" happening in Malaysia, I'm pretty much doomed given the high exposure of my cash holdings within the country (whether directly or indirectly). I haven't figured out the best way to handle or approach this yet - but definitely something that I want to look further into in 2022.

Net Worth Updates

One of the biggest wins in 2021 was when I finally hit the "zero" net worth back in February 2021; after an extremely long journey of being in debt. I'm still in debt today serving my mortgage, but at least treading above the negative lines. Two years ago, I wouldn't imagine this to be something feasible or possible - and I have my career to thank for that.

As for my personal net worth, I typically exclude my primary residence that I’m staying in, in the essence that it generates all the expenses/liabilities associated with home-ownership with no ability to generate income – a concept popularised from Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I've included a dotted line this time around, for those who prefer to track it using standard accounting principles.

Progress wise - I'm slightly under the original forecast for year ending 2021; and since not much have changed in terms of my overall income or expenditures, I'm definitely behind the "1M2024" vision which was a stretch goal I've set for myself to hit RM1mil in Net Worth by end of 2024.

Will have to see how it goes in the coming years and where needed, I'll be adjusting the goal to be something more realistic and attainable - whilst still retaining the objective of ramping up my early-retirement plans.

Plans for 2022

Well, it only worked for half of the goals I set last year, so no harm trying it again - achieving something planned is better than not planning to achieve anything I guess!?

#1: I want to maintain at least 58% Average Annualised Savings Rate by end of 2022 to fuel either my Emergency Jar or Freedom Portfolio.

#2: I want to study and take up the PMP Certification Exam by end of 2022 to boost my potential career aspects (since that's mostly what I do day in day out, and are sponsored by Company anyways)

#3: Let's try this again - I want to read at least 8 non-fictional books by end of 2022 - leadership, business, finance, self-development; you name it!

#4: I want to write at least 12 additional articles in 2022 aside from my monthly / yearly updates; as a means to continue sharing my thoughts and things I've learnt throughout my financial journey, hopefully in return motivating more people to onboard the financial freedom journey.

#5: This one's a stretch goal - but I really want to pick up the Korean language by end of 2023. For 2022, let's try to learn at least 10 new vocab per week!

#6: Also a stretch goal - I want to attempt to apply for Singapore jobs - and sit in for at least 5 interviews by end 2022. Definitely not in rush to leave my job; but just wanted to tap into whatever opportunities arising and who knows what I'll land myself onto (and leave Malaysia)

Final Thoughts

2021 hasn't been easy at all. Even as an extreme introvert myself, the constant lock-down and fear of catching COVID-19 virus really puts a toll on my mental health, and I'm back to the zone of "zero motivation" after leaving it back in 2016. The only differences this time around is that I'm sailing through the depression, with strong support pillars put in place - from my own financial planning, pay-myself-first strategy, my family members, friends, colleagues, and all of you beloved readers!

I'm definitely proud of myself - on where I've come so far in terms of my journey towards financial freedom. Whilst it's still a long way forward to go, it is definitely on the right track (I hope) towards my early-retirement plan and be freed from my corporate life. If you had asked me 2 or 3 years ago whether if I will achieve where I am so far, I'd probably just laugh it off and tell you "Retirement? That's like decades away. YOLO bruh!"

On the other hand, I'm extremely grateful to my Company as I've been really lucky to be able to progress my career amidst these tough times. Still, I am constantly remind myself not to be overly content with what I have so not to fall onto the trap of staying in comfort zone. After all, my goal have always been getting out of Malaysia the soonest the possible - but the planning part of it really sucks as it've been disrupted twice and the never-ending procastination from myself.

Hopefully in 2022, all that will change and I will actually take the baby steps forward, outside of my comfort zone to achieve the long dreams of mine!

If you're interested in my past updates - do check out my previous Monthly Review or Year In Review!

As always, thanks for reading and I will see you again in my next post! If you haven't already, be sure to follow me on my Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for latest updates!

Cheers,
Gracie

The post 2021 in Review: A Little Too Soon? appeared first on Ringgit Freedom.

At that point in time, I knew I had to do something before things got worse with me spiraling into further debts. Looking back now, I am so thankful that I forced myself to restart my budgeting habits because if I haven't, I'm pretty darn sure that I'll be in worse shape today, perhaps spiralling into even more debts!

Am I already perfect, and having mastered the Art of Delayed Gratification and Personal Finance in life? Nope, definitely not yet - with a long distance away from that! I still splurge occasionally, and immediately feel guilty about it. One thing's for sure though - my spending will still be below my means thanks to the taxation inflicted on myself 😛

Frankly speaking, I feel that I have been mostly playing the whack-a-mole game throughout 2020. At least the machine didn't break down this time...

Table of Contents

1. How do I Budget?
2. My Savings & Expenses
   • Savings Rate
   • Expenses
3. 0% Instalment a.k.a Debts
   • Debt Breakdown
   • Delayed Gratification
4. Investments Funding
5. My 2021 Plans
6. Final Thoughts

How do I Budget?

I briefly wrote about it in my getting started guide towards financial freedom and will write a more detailed post in the future. But in a nutshell, I believe strongly in zero-based budgeting as it forces you, by discipline, to spend within your means. You simply cannot (or rather, shouldn't) go over budget because it will make the entire budget untrustworthy and defeat its purpose.

Upon receiving my net salary, I will always deduct at least 20% for savings/investments as a form of self-taxation by "paying-myself-first". I would then budget the remaining balance in three buckets:

• Immediate Obligation (bills, foods, insurances, family allowances)
• True Expenses (predictable big-ticket items like home/car maintenance, birthdays and gifts, medical, personal care, salon, etc.)
• Eliminating Debts (mortgage loan, 0% instalments, etc.)

The total amounts budgeted for all 3 buckets above shall not exceed the balance provided earlier, and I make it a habit to break down infrequent expenses into monthly budgets to help make things more predictable. This way, even if the expense finally hits me out of the blue - there'd be some spare floats which was funded from previous months' budget to help pay the bill, at least partially (e.g. car broke down; or angpao for friend's wedding dinner).

After reviewing my finances in late 2019 and throughout 2020, I noticed a bad habit of mine which happened again at the time when I'm writing this post - I tend to spend future money by leveraging 0% instalments.

My Savings & Expenses

With COVID-19, I had the luxury to work from home most of the time since March's lockdown (or MCO - Movement Control Order). This definitely have helped to provide me with a significant boost on my savings rate as I didn't need to spend much on meal or transportation.

When it comes to cooking - my mom does it best in her easy-and-lazy bland style and over the past few months, I think my taste buds have already adapted the bland taste. Nowadays even mild spicy or greasy food is enough to upset my stomach/digestion....

So far it seems like I'm able to maintain above 24% savings rate on a month-to-month basis except for December, due to the larger-than-expected "one-offs" - you can read more about it here.

I managed to hit 42% savings rate on an annual average wise for 2020, which was mostly contributed by windfalls / bonuses. The strict policy which I implemented last year where “every bit of extra income is strictly for savings/investments purposes”  have definitely helped me.

The next biggest hurdle for me is whether if I can continue to “squeeze” out more savings by reducing my expenses. Frankly speaking, I find that to be really hard unless I take on a drastic approach to aggressively cut back on my lifestyle, which might even make my life not enjoyable at all. MCO obviously helped me to save on some essentials this but I ended up “redirecting” the funds and spent it on something else instead.

My expenses so far seemed managable...

Taking a look at my top 5 largest spending categories in % vs. total expenses excluding Investments, most of it goes into home-related expenses followed by family, which would be difficult to adjust unless I decides to move out of my own place.

• #1: Home - Mortgage Payment, Strata Title, Maintenance Fees & Home Servicing @ 48%
• #2: Mom's Monthly Allowance @ 14%
• #3: Luxury - Salon/Clothing/Gadgets (typically via 0% instalments)/Fun/Entertainment @ 11%
• #4: Insurances @ 9%
• #5: Essentials - Meals/Utilities @ 8%

Whilst I definitely can better manage my 0% debts to minimise my spending of future money; I believe that the upside would be rather limited as compared to focusing on growing and diversify my active income sources. 

No doubt the conscious and deliberate financial planning have helped me to amass my first 10K and recently having crossed my first 100K mark. Still the biggest contributor was the growth of my active income sources. Obviously I also learnt the hard way that higher income doesn't necessarily equate greater wealth - if no conscious efforts are put in place to curb lifestyle inflation from eating away the growth at a way faster pace. 

Reflecting on my year so far, I am grateful to still have a strong career amidst the whole COVID-19 situation but I also have witnessed quite a number of layoffs within or outside my company. It's a scary survival game where the fittest may survive. And the easiest way to do so is to never stop learning and challenging my own growth. 

Whilst upskilling myself have been proven fruitful and also rewarding so far, I believe it is also time to expand myself beyond "just my day job" and learn skills beyond my career paths. Maybe, just maybe, but this is to better prepare myself just in case if one day I decided to hop into the hot water and start my own company; or when opportunity comes for me to pick up bigger portfolio where wider perspective helps.

My 0% Instalments... a.k.a. Debts

Back then, I didn't really kept track of my debts "burn-down chart" as I have been mostly focused on getting my finances back up on feet - by trying my best to respect THE BUDGET and keep my spending within its limit after the self-taxation, necessary expenses, and fun monies for my own pleasure

One thing I noticed over time was that quite a significant chunk of my monthly fixed expenses went towards paying down my 0% card instalments.

Whilst preparing for this post, I decided to retrospectively add some data points in my budget file to take a glimpse on my card leverage behaviours for the past years. Keeping things simple - I only went back to the first month I restarted my financial journey in Oct 2019.

Honestly, I am surprised at the effect that budgeting has on me. I started with more than RM12K debts and that aspiration and desperation to chase after "zero"-based budgeting have managed to put a pause into never-ending new instalments.... or at least until recently 🙁

Prior to budgeting, if my memory serves me right - I was signing up at least one new instalment of at least RM2k - RM3k every 2-3 months, which was deteriorating my financial health (and then I wondered where all my money went).

The budgeting habit helped me to realise that I was at my commitment limit and managed to breakaway from new instalment for at least 10 months

But it's still far from perfect

Frankly speaking - I still haven't found a method to completely break free from the temptations of 0% instalment. Like who doesn't like enjoying instant gratification with delayed payments!?

There were some significant dips again in late 2020, where I made additional purchases on 0% instalments in combinations of family, work, and mostly for leisure purposes.

Family: The first ~RM2K was Glasses for my Mom

Her eyesight was deteriorating and after spending YEARS convincing her (talking about stubborn... I got it from her too!), she's finally willing to go for eye checkup.

I didn't want to give her any chance to go back on her words, so I bought a branded quality frame with multi-focal lenses on the spot. Knowing her style (remember, she was the one that taught me basic finances/budgeting), she definitely won't let it go to waste and will continue wearing it 😀

Work: The next ~RM600 was a Printer for my "home office"

Thanks to COVID-19 (and my kind company) I have been working from home almost full time since MCO started, except ~6 weeks where I had to work from the office when situations got better.

I used to have access to printers in office for works (and personal *cough*) usage whenever I needed to print something. But with the prolonged work-from-home situation it's just simply not possible for me to go to the office whenever I need something to be printed, and may not be appropriate especially if it is for personal usage.

So I finally decided to invest in one home-office printer and from my past experience and usage patterns, I decided to go for laser monotone with 3-in-1 functionality rather than inkjet as it tends to dry up overtime.

Leisure: Another ~RM2K was Smart TV for myself

I consider it as my own guilty-pleasure. I've been wanting a TV in my bedroom for my occasional drama binge since I moved into my new home back in February last year.

But I managed to put off the thoughts and delayed my gratification for as long as I could, until I came across a deal that I couldn't resist as part of my partner-employee purchase program and I kinda went-ahead with the purchase, with long 0% payment terms.

Leisure: The final ~RM4K was M1 Macbook Air for myself.

I have no excuses for this. I failed badly in my delayed gratification and are still ashamed of myself. What happened to me walking the talk?!?
Unlike the TV which I managed to delay my gratification for more than 1.5 year; I barely lasted 7 days for this one.

And the funny part? I was researching on the eleventh hour to look for something I can buy (mobile phone, tablet or laptops) and claim the RM2.5K special tax relief for a quick profit, by reselling the device to others with a slight discount.

For some reason, it ended up with me falling victim to myself and bought a M1 Macbook Air after seeing its impressive fanless CPU performance. Mind you - this is coming from a life-long Apple hater. Yes, I hated Apple's product with a passion and swore to never buy any Apple products, except AAPL (stock). And look what happened... 

WHAT HAVE I DONE!?!?

I guess I can't fully blame myself - I've always been a geek and always had a soft spot for high mobility-productivity workhorse - the same reason I bought my Surface Pro 3 back in mid 2014. Maybe I can use this as an excuse to introduce my mom to the world of computer (she's a technology laggard :P)

How can I move on from debt-full to debt-free?

Whilst these debts technically have 0% interest, I still want to aim to keep these debts as low as possible as it eats into invest-able portions and costs me more in the long run (spending vs. investing). Basically for every 0% instalment purchase made, I am spending monies from my future - money that I do not currently have yet.

Frankly speaking, I don't know if I will ever at all succeed to maintain ZERO outstanding 0% instalments, as economically it make senses at time for necessary purchases of big-ticket-items. Though by looking back at my past years spending behaviours, I realise that I really love gadgets. Whilst not as extreme as some of them whom changes new phone/laptop every year; but still hardcore enough compared to most others.

One way that I'll try moving forward is to allocate and budget these amounts upfront by breaking down my gratification monies into affordable monthly budgets where I can accumulate and spend without guilt once the jar is full, which may help reducing my reliance on spending future money.

But it's still a good leverage...

Even if I have budgeted enough of my gratification monies into a pool, I don't see myself completely stopping zero 0% instalments as I believe this is one of a creative way to manage cash-flow when applied correctly. Think of it as such:

1. Saving up a piggy-bank (budget) to fund my future leisure purchases
2. Pay using 0% instalment, and span across X months to pay off.
3. While serving the 0% instalments, put the piggy-bank in my fully-flexi home loan account saving at least ~3% interest. 
4. On a monthly basis (when 0% credit card bill comes), serve the instalment using my piggy-bank.
5. Double win!

Only problem is that I must really have a self-discipline to avoid what happened in Q4 2020. Like it or not, I have to force changes on myself to become a better version than yesterday. Let's see in 2021's year end review...

My Investments

There's always these "if I had known..." feeling and I just have to consciously remind myself to focus on moving forward onto the future. While still far from being perfect, this has to be one of my proudest and productive year when it comes to investing.

Unlike the past few years where I will only invest when I have spare changes, which only happens by chance. Throughout 2020, investing is part of my budgeting where I have to invest the moment I receive my paycheck (taxing myself first) and hence it happening by design. I do this mostly through my scheduled direct debits of StashAway, alongside with periodical stock purchases in both local market and international market.

I managed to double my personal portfolio size from approximately RM69.3K in 2019 to RM134.5K in 2020, thanks to the aggressive savings and consistent investing throughout the year. Combined with my EPF and Cash, I'm finally sitting at -RM26K Net Worth and are one step closer to my goal of "Zero" Net Worth!

One biggest regret I have was not to get my shit together earlier. If I've done that perhaps I would already have a bigger pile of cash to be deployed during March's crash but instead most of my savings went into building my emergency fund (I had zero emergency fund until March 2020 and that's when reality sinks in :D). I guess the most important thing is that I have started holding myself accountable to my own financial journey.

Despite the drawbacks, 2020 is still one of the very few years that I took a more serious / proactive approach in managing my portfolio and assessing them holistically from all angles. I basically have exited several of my unit trust portfolios and mirroring the diversification into a more cost-efficient approach via direct holdings of ETF and Stocks through my international brokerage. I have also decided to start divesting part of my EPF funds via i-Invest to mainly diversify further beyond Malaysia due to my significant over exposures of Malaysia market.

Plans for 2021

I hated writing new year resolutions as it feels bad when I failed in achieving them - but I'd like to try it for a change.

• I want to be even more conscious and intentional with my spending, curbing my impulse purchase behaviour through proactive budgeting into my guilt-free jar - so that I will feel less guilty when I spend without relying on 0% instalments!
• Read at least 8 books in 2021. I don't think I've been consistent in this habit - always a hit-or-miss kind of thing 🙁
  • This is crucial for me to expand my knowledge and be more comfortable in selecting stocks.
  • Aside from personal finance books, I'm also starting to gain interest in topics related to business / leaders so I should start diversifying my readings.
• Continue to maintain at least ~45% annual savings rate, and work upwards from there at least by +3% - by increasing my self-taxation rate and then figure out how to work/spend with the remaining balances 😛
• Continue sharing more of my thoughts and things I've learnt during my financial journey, hopefully in return motivating more people to onboard the financial freedom journey.
• Write faster 😛 - juggling between my full time job, my own me-time, reading or blogging; I tend to lean towards the me-time for recharge and ended up wasting my weekends.
• To get my dental braces that I have been putting off due to fears.. And my dental health. 

Final Thoughts

2020 have really been a unique year for me. As an introvert myself, I always enjoyed the presence at home but never imagined that I'll also be affected by cabin fever being locked in my room for too long :P.

Whilst it is definitely not a best year with the pandemic and all, still from financial perspectives, I am mostly happy that my commitment helped me to put me back on track where I left of previously. Whilst not perfect, it is still on the right track and every successes, no matter big or small, shall be celebrated! ^^

After all, I am still learning and also have my own flaws and downsides. Temptations are hard to control - and as much as I consciously reminds myself to delay my gratifications, sometimes I just end up losing it. I guess I just need to do my best on the saving up a "guilt-free piggy-bank" part for some of these impromptu expenses and have a better self-control on my "wants".

Nothing alarming yet honestly as long as stick with my mandatory-self-tax principle, they'll all be under control. I hope that 2021 will be a better year with my plan to increase my forced self-taxation rate contributing into my savings or investments.

As always, see you in my next post! If you haven't already, be sure to follow me on my Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for latest updates!

Cheers,
Gracie

The post 2020 in Review: A Year After Restarting My Financial Journey appeared first on Ringgit Freedom.