E.V.ilyn

i see. so am i right to say that there are certain unit trust that deals out dividends in cash to the investor and yet others that gives out bonus units?

what do you mean by returns in unit trust context? does unit trust work by the way of now the price is $1, you buy 1000, assume no charges, you have 1000 units. 10yrs later, the price is $2, you thus sell the 1000 units you own for $2000. thus returns = $1000. or along the way the number of units you own will increase even if you do no invest more? or does unit trust deal out some form of dividend? noob

heard one of my ex-colleague got 40% returns from diying through poems, mostly unit trust. and that is quite a good fraction of his annual salary package. think he can fulfill his million retirement dream. *envious* that said, i've read that due to the power of compounding it is always better to start investing in ut as early as possible but i could not quite catch it. does ut work like shares where you get dividends? if not, no matter how early you start, your returns is still based on the price of that ut at point of selling. and the profit is only the price of buy - price is sale multiplied by the quantity. no compounding element that way i see?

different banks have different rates for different amounts for different lengths during different period. the only way to know is to either call them up or to walk in and ask. they occasionally have "promotional" rates for various amounts, but the "more attractive" rates usually is 2 years or more worth of the middle income individual. the last time i heard uob offers like 2.4% pa for min 30k during one of their promotion. scb at a point of time offered similar rate but for 50k. working is simple. put in say $50k for say 2yrs and they promise you say 1.5% pa. if you withdraw any amount during the tenure period i.e. before the fixed-d matures, you do not get any interest. as mentioned earlier in this thread, unless you have substantial amount of money such that the bank will give you a interest rate over 3% pa, it's still better to invest in tbills imo. tbills over the last year at least have consistently returned ~3.1% +- 0.5% pa (annualised). you can get this rate from as little as 1k, and you only get locked in for 3 months. check out the faqs in sgs, poems, etc. if you're interested.

hahaha... yes definitely rather troublesome but may be suitable for some peeps. the less troublesome way is just to buy tbills straight from the bank and don't bother about creating close intervals cash inflows. time is money but if you've time but no money then you can use time to convert to money. self improve, speculate, invest, maximise, work ot, etc. i believe many of us wish we have enough cash flow to open a fixed-d account that puts us in the same interest bracket as you but alas...

in one of the older threads there was mention about buying tbills directly from bank. well, i finally had the time to do it. it wasn't as bad as made out to be. just fill in 1 or 2 forms, give photocopy of ic, and that's it. there wasn't any queue either. in fact i didn't really have to queue even though i went during lunch hour. you do not have to go to the service counters. just get a number for the invest shop. so how is it like compared to buying from poems? well, first of all the return is higher. based on my calculation, i got 3.1%. according to poems, they are selling at 2.9%. so that's a 0.2% difference. this difference is the commission that poems charges. this translates to $2 per $1k you purchase. you can try this if you have say $50k. dump $30k into buying tbills from the bank. then with the remainder $20k, split into 10 $2k portions. every week buy tbills through poems with each share that you have prepared. so what does this give you? $30k invested via bank, a little more troublesome but this is done once every 3mths, giving you not much, ~$60 more compared to buying all through poems. then buying through poems is easier since it's a 5min online/telephone job, best for high frequency buys. so long as for the first 3mths you can survive, thereafter you'll have a sum of money coming back every week giving you higher returns compared to fixed-d and also better flexibility. timeline is something like: week 1: invest $30k via bank week 2: invest $2k via poems week 3: invest $2k via poems week 4: invest $2k via poems week 5: invest $2k via poems week 6: invest $2k via poems week 7: invest $2k via poems week 8: invest $2k via poems week 9: invest $2k via poems week 10: invest $2k via poems week 11: invest $2k via poems week 12: invest $1k via poems (maybe you need to top up a little to buy $1k, since at this point of time you have probably invested ~$49.6k or so for a $50k value) week 13: $30k matures week 14: $2k matures week 15: $2k matures ... maybe a bit pointless since you can also choose to sell tbills anytime but you may not get back your initial investment. by employing a strategy like this you are more or less assured that you will have ready funds when you need them and less likely to lose money. depending on your needs, lifestyle, funds available, etc., you can play around with the investment amounts and the intervals. you may have $5k in your savings/current account as emergency funds, then maybe you can schedule your tbills purchases every 2-4weeks.

if you can afford to full cash any CL2 bike that means you can full cash most cars that you see on the road. think along the lines of ducati, mv, hd, etc. anyway, well done!

It is never worth getting a vehicle in Singapore less those 2B rides like cubs. It's more of a matter of affordability. If that "premium" amount is like 5% of your take home pay, would you give half a hoot? It's a different story if it is 50%. Get the drift? Some would pay through their nose to own a bike or a car. Some would only own one if it is a "negligible" amount. Statistics have shown many people owning their dream Class 2 bikes taking up huge loan over extended period only to be forced to sell or give their bikes away for free when financing it is choking them... Anyway, "worth" is a relative descriptive. Is it worth it to buy a BMW 7 series when you can get buy 4 Latios with change to spare? BMW7 is not 4 times more comfortable, not 4 times faster, etc. So where is it's worth?

Was at Microsoft today. Toying with Vista. Anyway, my experience of IE7 after today. CRAP. Accessed my company email. It's Microsoft Outlook Webmail. Guess what? Using IE7, it is not working properly. I can read mail BUT when I clicked to reply, you see the crappiness. The message panel becomes an "invalid" component. So much for compatibility even with own products. This only goes to show how they design their applications and sign off the specifications. The own next generation cutting edge state of art browser cannot even intepret codes from their own applications correctly. Luckily I have another virtualised 2003 Server with whatever IE version it is shipped with otherwise I can't even reply my company email... Microsoft, you're now at your 7th generation browser but I still cannot foresee myself using it if I have the the option...

It depends on your requirements for use. I'm illustrating a scenario when you can get into office 1.5hr earlier, and this is when it might be cheaper. SAF regulars, shift personnel, etc. Day coupons can be used sparingly. In many people's cases, it is only a matter of getting into office earlier since either they do not knock off on time or wait around in office till the home going crowded is lessen. Naturally mainteance is not linear, just like the cost of operating like petrol pricing. But do you have hard figures to work with? Without, use an estimation with figures as exact or as pessimistic as you can. Then work with that. Also, public transportation cost is also not linear with the years though tend to be more linear than car maintenance. Notice that I use higher figures and round up to the next thousand? Some corrective maintenace items do not occur yearly and hence years that you don't do them, there's a budget surplus and years you do, use the surplus to cover. It is known that cars with the coming of 5-7yrs on usually involve more frequent and much more expenses. One key thing is this: even though it is possible that owning a car can potentially be cheaper or only slightly more expensive than the public transportation system, you'll end up spending more due to the new lease of life that you have. Freedom to go anywhere at anytime, etc. In order to maximise the car's worth, you'll tend to go to places that you previously have never been to or felt lazy to go due to the inconvenience. Depending on how you use, OPC can be cheaper than a full COE car. You get $17k upfront rebate. Annual $800 road tax rebate. That is $2.5k/yr. You can use this amount to buy 125 day coupons. There're 52wks/yr. Meaning, you can use 2.5 coupons/wk. Of the week, supposed you can don't use the car on Sat before 3pm, there're only 5 days you can use the coupon. Minus the public holidays, you have nearly 3 coupons to use per week. How about if you take annual holidays? Or if outstationed often? All the better. I've not been so resistant to owning a car since understanding from my ex-colleague few years back the costs of car maintenace. Contrary to popular (or my previous) belief, the maintenace cost of my bike is much higher than what my friends spend on their car... e.g. they can buy 3 sets tyres with 2 set of mine, and their each of the 3 sets can last 3x longer than mine!!!

Anyway, I'm toying with the idea of an OPC Picanto modded for CNG. CNG costs ~70c/kg or put into comparable units, 70c/1.1L, which is 50% the cost of petrol thereabouts. 4 CNG tanks + the car's own tank will give maybe 1000km mileage. Without going into any calculation, I am guessing the average cost of "petrol" to be $1/l or even better (if you top up CNG and petrol in MY). I am wondering if it might be cheaper than public transport...

Cars can depreciate less than bikes. I do not have the full details but according to my friend, his OPC Cerato when scrapped, will have a value of $8k+. He bought for ~$22k. Loss? $14k. Bikes have no scrap value. Once the 10yrs is up, not a single cent. Ok, this is talking about scrapping and not selling the car/bike away. This is only an example for similar scenarios. Anyway, if bikes have resale value, so do cars. Since no hard figures to work with, just use this as a illustrative case. A Chery QQ OPC can be gotten for $15k OTR. Scrap value I'm not sure. I believe will have at least $5k? So $10k for 10yrs of usage. $1k/yr. Roadtax is $50. Insurance maybe $1k?. Total fixed cost = $1.15k. Tyres $200 for 4 lasting 2yrs, so $100/yr. All other periodic maintenace let's just put it at $500/yr. HDB parking $90/mth, $1080/yr. Total fixed cost = $2730. Let's just round up to $3k say got additional I left out at this point of time, or the maintenace is higher than that. Based on 60km/day, 21900km/yr, 13kml economy (actual will be higher but for the sake of pessimistic calculation, or for covering occasasional day coupons), $1.40/L, $2350/yr for petrol. Then let's round up again so $6k/yr for total cost of ownership. This I think is rather generous calculation based on my rule of pessimism for mental preparation for purchases. I think you can probably get by with $4-5k/yr if you travel lesser, pump MY petrol, etc. Now public transport. Based on comparable usage with the 60km/day, let's just assume 2 bus rides + 2 MRT rides. Errr... $5/day? So that makes it $1825/yr already. Then let's just round up to $2k/yr for occasional taxi rides. So what is the difference? Anything from $2k more to $4k more. Assuming upper bound, so $4k/yr == $10.90 more per day. So what are you paying for this $10.90/day? I would say >1hr of your time, flexibility, freedom, etc. Is it worth it? Well, it depends on the current state of your career. It could be a lot for some people, but neglible for others. Afterall, the masses are making more than that amount in an hour. For parents who can afford, they might be hoping that their children have more time to study rather than travelling around. But scenarios can be different. How many travel that distance on a daily basis? How many need to travel to unfriendly places each day? Where I live and work, the shortest path home is 28.5km 1 way, ~40mins by bike, ~50min by car. Public transportation to work is 1 LRT + 1 MRT + 1 bus. If to add in the time taken to walk to the bus stop, waiting time, etc. 1.5-2hr. Worth it? I would say it's not too bad. Naturally, this does not account for the interest incurred for taking loans which could tilt the scale more. Ultimately, it's how you live that determine if it might be cheaper or otherwise.

How about CPF investments? What allows you to invest using CPF monies? The 2.5%/4% interest is not really interesting.

Anyone have any views on the SRS (Supplementary Retirement Scheme)? It seems quite useful if you're paying income tax and rather than pay income tax, put money into SRS such that you don't have to pay or pay lesser income tax. Then when you retire, draw money from this account like you paymaster. Depending on how much you draw, you either defer income tax till then or pay no taxes at all. You can also buy SGS bonds and t-bills with this account.

Only for this month and limited stock. Grade 9 Wagyu. $75/200g portion. If you enjoy their beef stuff i.e. ribeye, you should try their burgundy prime roast. 3 days advance order. $59/kg. Their house wines goes for $28/bottle. Self brought wins invites a corkage fee of $10/bottle.