I have decided to write down on a monthly basis all my thoughts, feelings, progressions, decisions made throughout my financial journey and anything about life really. Hopefully this will shed some insights for all readers, and even myself when I look back onto the past. If you're interested in my past month updates, take a look at Monthly Updates and I hope you enjoy reading!
Although I wish things would slow down a little to give myself a breather in my work life, reality will often go against what we want. Work has been pretty chaotic the last whole quarter and I've been living it on a day-by-day basis, firefighting as I crawl through the day. This is taking a huge toll on my mental well-being again.
To make things worse, most of the friends that we've grown to become, as we joined the company together a decade ago, have left/resigned one by one to pursue alternative pathways. Can't wait to get out of it myself, too. Unfortunately, my way out of it is still far away as I await the Australian Government to (hopefully and eventually) grant me my permanent residency visa. Maybe I should really consider taking a sabbatical leave. In the end, what's the use of money if the price for it is healthy? Did anyone go through similar pathways?
On the personal front, I have IU to thank as she was one of the few reasons that held me together in one piece over the last few crazy months. Her concert shows were amazing and she is one of the few strong vocalists in today's generation. Had a great time at her concert, and will go again in the future should the opportunity arise. The best outcome isn't only the concert itself, though. She's so impactful, that seeing her trying to learn a few sentences of different languages in her World Tour Concerts to be able to make her fans happy across the world finally motivated me to push forward with my plans to improve my literacy in Korean, hoping that one day I'll be able to sing her songs in Hangul.
I've indicated a few times my interest in the Korean Language and tried at least 2 times on two separate occasions (the most recent being July 2021 as seen in my Instagram Story previously) but on all occasions, the motivation failed to last. This time around, I took classes and without realizing it, it's already been almost 3-4 months since I first started. Progression is shocking indeed when we give ourselves some space to look back.
Now, going back to our usual monthly update for my finances and portfolios.
Compared with the same period last year, my overall spending had increased by 1.14x. But when looking closer, most of the increase was due to the aggressive mortgage repayment strategy that I have started doing since last December. My leisure spending (non-essentials) was reduced by almost half vs. the same period last year. So far it's still pretty manageable and no alarms have been set off, yet.
Also for those of you who are sharp-eyed, yes, the expenses chart looked slightly different this time around as I've moved to a new budgeting app. Will write more about it in a separate post considering the dramatic shift that I've done, after being a loyal user of the previous app for more than a decade.
Based on the current spending patterns, should be still on track to achieve the savings rate of 55% by year-end. Though the aggressive mortgage repayment plan has dragged down my savings rate, on the plus side I'll eventually accelerate my mortgage settlement and incur a lower interest rate in the long run.
No updates for the Jar - I've spent close to RM2.2k for various expenses incurred due to family emergencies - from medical to dental to car repairs. The jar gave me ample buffer to handle these surprises as they come, and it's worth every penny.
Following my last quarter's update, I've finally pushed the buttons to start consolidating my portfolio to a few-fund portfolio, mainly driven by VWRA (World Stock Index Fund), 3040.HK (China Stock Index Fund), and IGLN (Gold Index Fund). The consolidation will be staggered throughout the next few years but over time, the goal is to reduce individual stock holdings except for some of those dividend stocks considering that there are no harm in having some (albeit minimal) cashflows from dividend receipt.
The US market is still soaring to new highs on a month-to-month basis, so that has helped to make my portfolio look green. Definitely thankful for that, considering that some of the consolidation mentioned above means that I'm locking in some of my losses (or transferring from single-stock to equivalent region index fund).
My pile of cash-equivalents grew pretty big in recent months and I do not intend for it to go anywhere above 35% in my portfolio strategy. The struggle for me is mainly that in a high-interest rate environment and with global markets at an all-time high, it's mentally harder than I've imagined to practice what I always preach - time in the market rather than timing the market.
I'm still in the market though, with my quarterly transfers from MYR to USD for my scheduled recurring investment in VWRA. But no plans to dump all my cash / cash-equivalents into stock, yet.
Note: For the definition of snapshots, please check My Portfolio where I elaborated it in detail.
Sold (Retired) Portfolio (accumulative)
IRR: 0.12%
ROI: 0.17%
Profit/Loss: RM552.01
Active (Invested) Portfolio
IRR: 8.92%
ROI: 11.87%
Profit/Loss: RM52,385.13
True Cost: RM391,172.55
Total Value: RM492,385.81
Entrance Value: RM423,756.44
Portfolio Value: RM473,230.34
Nett Dividend (2024): RM1,700.09
This quarter marks the official celebration of my finally-acquired "millionaire" status. It was amazing how the whole US market and Cryptocurrency craze had managed to shoot up my net-worth value faster than my initial forecast. Ironically, in my updates last year I decided to shift the goalpost by 1 year, to achieving 1 million net worth by 2025 due to concerns of not achieving it this year, due to the lagging progress.
I'm going to celebrate this milestone, considering how far I've come since overcoming my life-changing depression in 2016/7 to who & what I am today. 🥳
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 the latest updates!
Cheers,
Gracie