Financial Freedom

Dividends for July 2014

Have been a little busy to update. Finally found some time to sit down and compile the dividends collected for the month of July 2014. Well, better late than never =)

Dividends collected was $331. Pretty normal.

I have been just too busy to find the time to sit down and write over the past few months. Hopefully, I will get more time soon.

Where I am sitting at right now, the skies are blue and a warm breeze is blowing by. There are so many dreams that remain there for the grabs. At the same time, there is a sense of contentment that I have. Not that I have accomplished much. But perhaps another door is opening and my focus on life has changed.

Please see dividends for other months compiled below:

Dividends for June 2014

It is the end of the June school holidays in Singapore and July is almost upon us. Have compiled my dividends for this month. As most readers do know, I receive cash in my mailbox every month.

Almost $100+ in distributions from unit trusts, $100+ in dividends from stocks and $60+ from various deposit accounts [Check out on the details for the various bank deposit accounts I am using right now in the postings found here and here].

The total amount collected for June 2014 is $282.

Not enough to do anything with it really. Will just have to reinvest into other instruments to keep the monthly income flowing in.

I am quite pleased that I actually had the discipline to compile my monthly dividends for the past few months. It has at least made me more aware of where my dividends have been coming from and how much I have been getting. It sure beats having just a blurry guess-estimate of how much I have been getting. It also serves as a good check on whether I am hitting the goals that I have set for myself.

Please see dividends for other months compiled below:

For those who are interested, do check out the following links:

Articles on retirement, savings, financial planning and investing:

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

Commodities/Gold/Silver

Insurance

Popular Reads

How Much to Give for Baby Shower

Often, I get questions on how much one should give for baby shower (e.g. colleague's baby first month celebration, etc). Well, this is both an easy question and hard question to answer.

The reason why it is easy or hard depends really on the type of person who is inviting you for the baby shower. It can be hard to tell what kind of person is it. Some people don't give two hoots about how much you give or what presents you buy for their baby. The only reason they invite you there is because you belong to their closest circle of friends. Your presence is all that matters. In fact, the only reason why they want you there is so that they will actually have somebody to talk to during the baby shower or party itself. In fact, you could turn up empty handed and they will probably not even realise it. After all, they are not bothered about gifts or the amount of ang bao one gives.

On the other hand, there ARE people who actually might take offence if you do not turn up with a respectable present. And it is extremely hard to tell which category your friend/colleague/spouse's friend might fall into. If they fall under this category, you BETTER show up with something in hand or face the consequences for the rest of your life (okay, just kidding......but then again, maybe not). And the situation gets trickier. What if that person is a colleague whom you will see day in day out? Or what happens if it is your boss?

Well, there is really no good guide on how much to give for a baby shower. In terms of red packet (or ang bao), I figure that the following should serve as a guide:

Acquaintance/Colleague - $20 to $30
Friend/Relative - $30 to $80

Well, the above rates are just a guide. And only you will perhaps know what is the correct amount to give. Of course, if your entire family (4 or 5 pax) is invited to a baby shower with buffet served, you might want to give a little more to cover the costs of the food/drinks/venue. But this is not a Chinese Wedding and the amount probably does not matter.

Another way to simplify things is to just simply buy a gift for the baby (using the above rates as a benchmark for the cost of the gift). But this gets tricky as you never know what are the gifts that parents like. The parents might be fussy about the brand of the gift (only ABC brand), country of manufacture (no toys made in XYZ country), colour (e.g. no purple) , etc. So it is extremely difficult to get a gift. Unless you are certain that the gift is of a reasonable quality and will be well-received by the parents. Books are quite safe presents but then again, some judgement needs to be exercised. After all, a 1 month or 1 year old baby can't possibly read that much.

The best way if you are still clueless is to actually suggest gift sharing with a few other people who are attending the baby shower. This sorts of ensures that you are giving the equivalent of what others are giving (especially useful if it is a colleague's baby shower that you are attending). But there is of course the operational hassle of who chooses the gift, what gift to buy and how expensive it should cost.

Nevertheless, all these should not deter one from attending any baby shower. After all, it is the heart that matters. And I am sure your presence at the baby shower will be much more appreciated than any gift or red packets (ang bao).

Favourite Video of the Week - Emma Stone Lip Sync Battle with Jimmy Fallon

Here is my fav video of the week showing Emma Stone in a lip sync battle with Jimmy Fallon. Both of them are great entertainers but I think Emma's final performance of All I Do is Win nails it. Enjoy.

Singapore's Andy Chua Wins Right to Dine with Warren Buffett

A certain Mr Andy Chua from Singapore has won the bid to dine with Mr Warren Buffett. Mr Chua together with seven other guests will get to dine with the world's 3rd richest man in Manhattan for lunch at Smith & Wollensky. At the restaurant, a typical mains costs only around US$70. His single bid of S$2.71 million is not the highest bid in history. The auction proceeds will benefit a San Francisco charity (Glide Foundation) that provides meals, etc to the poor and homeless.

Little is known about Andy Chua who has said that he was not interested in interviews right now.

So who is this mystery man Andy Chua?

I did a quick google and came across a few people named Andy Chua.

Out of all the people, it seems that there is this Director, Head Asia Pacific Financial Advisory Centre at Merrill Lynch that seems like a possible fit (though I can't confirm for sure).

There is also a Mr Andy Chua who was at a Montblanc event:

http://www.iconsingapore.com/jan11/social/index.php?choose=social

Not sure whether these two are the same person or different people altogether. Also not certain whether any of them was the one who won the bid to dine with Mr Buffett.

In any case, congratulations to Mr Andy Chua (whoever he is). Hopefully, he will share details about the lunch with the media soon.

Update 10 Jun 2014:

It has been revealed by CNA that the winner is the owner of YunNam and not the said Andy Chua mentioned above.

Dividends for May 2014

End of May 2014. Once again, I have taken some time to compute all the dividends received over the past one month including all the cheques that I have been receiving in my mailbox. This month's collection was much better than previous months because many of the shares I have gave out dividends.

Collected a total of $842.82 in dividends for May 2014. Majority of the dividends came from holdings in Singapore stocks.

Quite glad that I have been receiving a regular stream of dividends each month. It also helps that I have been compiling my monthly dividends so that I at least know how much I have received each month. I am also glad that I now collect dividends every month instead of quarterly.

Tokio Marine Never Cuts Bonus: Participating Fund Update 2014 - Things We Can Learn From

Just received Tokio Marine's Participating Fund 2014 update from my whole life policy with them. As expected, they are maintaining the bonus rate for their participating policies.

For info, Tokio Marine is one of the few companies that maintains its bonus rate for its whole life policies pretty consistently over the years. In fact, the report states that they are the ONLY life insurer in Singapore to have honoured all their bonus rates for the last 66 years!

This is probably testament to their sound investing policy for their participating fund. Even though they acknowledged the volatile investment climate of 2013, they are still maintaining the par fund bonus even though the returns came in lower than expectations.

Some interesting stats from their par fund:

Market Value (measured by total assets in $million)

2011: $2,142
2012: $2,677
2013: $3,073

Asset Mix of Fund for 2013

Equity : 37%
Fixed Income: 52%
Cash: 7%
Property: 3%
Others: 1%

Breakdown of Fixed Income S$1,589million

Singapore Government Securities = S$288million (18%)
Quasi-Govt/Investment Grade Bonds = S$857 million (54%)
Other Bonds = S$444 million (28%)

Top 10 Equity Holdings (the most interesting part to me...) S$1,126 million

Tokio Marine Fund - Far East Equity Portfolio
TMA Umbrella Fund - TMAI Asian Equity Fund
SingTel
DBS
UOB
OCBC
Keppel Corp Ltd
Singapore Press Holdings (SPH)
StarHub
Singapore Technologies Engineering

Disclaimer: I am not a Tokio Marine insurance agent and am not making any recommendations whatsoever about Tokio Marine and its insurance or investment products.