2022 Financial Review – A Challenging Year

Phew, what a 12 months 2022 has been! Because it involves an finish, that is my annual evaluation of my funds to test the place we are actually and be sure that we’re not falling too far off from our objectives. Throughout this yearly evaluation, I sometimes look at my earnings development, bills, financial savings, insurance coverage protection, and funding efficiency – which helps me to raised strategize for the brand new 12 months.

This marks the ninth 12 months that I’m doing this on the weblog. Earlier than I am going into this 12 months’s evaluation, right here’s a fast recap of earlier years: 

• 2014: Saved $20,000
• 2015: Saved $30,000 and grew income
• 2016: Saved $40,000 and grew income, hit $100k in net worth at age 26 including CPF
• 2017: Saved $45,000 and doubled my net worth in a year
• 2018: Saved $50,000 
• 2019: Saved $35,000 (didn’t realise I fully missed out on a round-up put up, however right here’s our child-related expenses instead)
• 2020: Saved $30,000 and achieved crazy (abnormal) investment returns
• 2021: Saved $40,000, grew income but saw reduced investment returns

Financial savings & Revenue

I went again to company life in Q2 this 12 months, and stopped educating GP tuition. As an alternative, I began a brand new facet hustle (fairly by probability) which helped to deliver up my earnings ranges. This got here after my large achievement in shedding 20kg in 7 months (see how I did it here), which was achieved by a mix of things – weight loss program, train in addition to dietary supplements to make the journey simpler. So a lot of you guys watched my transformation in real-time and saved asking me for steering on how I did it, so I utilized to turn into a distributor and produce within the merchandise into Singapore to promote as properly. That now meant I might now receives a commission for the hours spent consulting and educating every of you on tips on how to shed weight, which made it well worth the time.

And because of this, I used to be capable of train and assist 1,000 of you shed weight efficiently, which was my subsequent largest achievement this 12 months (except for my very own transformation). At this time, though I’m now not utilizing the dietary supplements as a lot as I did anymore – primarily as a result of I’m already lighter than pre-pregnancy and may keep my weight simply with train (it was rather a lot more durable to do intense calorie-burning exercises at 72kg because it harm my knees) – I’m nonetheless teaching people who need my assistance on shedding pounds by way of my little Shopee store here.

My technique isn’t any secret – simply work on the calorie deficit. If you happen to can management your weight loss program and train to the purpose the place you’re already capable of attain a calorie deficit, there’s no want so that you can use any dietary supplements, except you wish to velocity issues up. Nevertheless, from private expertise, I discovered that controlling one’s weight loss program in Singapore (with its abundance of fine meals and a robust foodie tradition) is far simpler mentioned than executed, so utilizing the merchandise undoubtedly assist to make the transition rather a lot simpler – to the purpose the place you now not want the merchandise and may wean off them ?

Bills

Our household bills have risen considerably, and I’ve calculated that we want at the very least $5+okay a month to outlive now. As soon as Finn begins college in January, this may rise to $6.5k a month, which isn’t too far off from the determine quoted in this Straits Times article. The approximate breakdown is as follows:

This excludes our particular person eating bills, the allowances that we give to our mother and father (a 5-figure sum every year) and different miscellaneous bills that aren’t recurring in nature, so you possibly can think about how the precise sum is rather a lot greater.

I’ve to confess, this got here as a shock to me as a result of it doesn’t appear that long ago when I was surviving on only $500 a month. However to be honest, 5 out of the 6 line gadgets above didn’t exist throughout that point both, so it’s only pure that our bills have shot up after getting into the following stage of life.

For holidays, we did a Royal Caribbean cruise earlier this 12 months (read about our horrendous encounter here) and a year-end Genting journey, the place we paid for the mother and father as properly, in order that amounted to a different $5k. We’re painfully aware that we might not have a lot time left with our mother and father because of their age and well being, so we’re hoping to have the ability to do at the very least 1 flight and 1 automotive/ferry journey in a 12 months with the household to construct extra reminiscences abroad whereas we are able to. That is additionally our manner of thanking them, for loving and serving to us with the children which allowed us to nonetheless ship at our workplaces.

Insurance coverage

We didn’t add any new insurance coverage insurance policies this 12 months, or make any vital adjustments, since most of it was already settled final 12 months previous to Finn’s delivery.

Nevertheless, I did notice that I had been unknowingly paying near $100 a 12 months for AIA Vitality, which I’ve not utilized since 2018 (upon getting pregnant with Nate). Proper now, I don’t have any of the smartwatches that hyperlinks to this system both, so I’ll seemingly terminate it from henceforth.

Investments

2022 was a tough 12 months to take a position. It took loads of psychological self-discipline and can to stay invested, and never run for the hills as inventory costs began falling.

The very best undervalued alternatives appeared this 12 months among the many Chinese language shares, so I used to be focusing extra time and a focus on the Hong Kong markets as a substitute of the US facet this 12 months. I wrote on this blog last year that all my HK positions were in the red, and that massacre continued properly into this 12 months, so you possibly can think about my reduction when China lastly introduced their reopening in November, which stopped the inventory market decline and we began seeing some inexperienced once more!

My Singapore portfolio remained flat, as I took some earnings off the desk. My US portfolio took an enormous hit as loads of the positions went into the pink, particularly the newer ones that had been initiated after April 2020. Fortunately, development shares kind not more than 30% of my total portfolio, so I used to be spared from an enormous meltdown not like another friends (it was additionally the rationale why I had a 40% funding efficiency through the COVID bull in a 12 months the place others had been getting 3-digit returns from shares like SEA, Tesla, and so forth).

The most important ache got here from crypto, which kinds 20% of my complete funding portfolio. Within the aftermath of the Luna meltdown and FTX collapse, crypto has taken an enormous hit, and I’m down by about 50% right here. It was largely because of my earlier purchases of BTC and ETH within the 2016 – 2018 interval that cushioned the losses.

In complete, my funding portfolio is presently down by about ~35%. A few of these are everlasting losses (reminiscent of Luna), however others nonetheless stay to be seen within the coming years.

Conclusion

All in all, this 12 months hasn’t been straightforward financially. If I needed to sum it up, it might be:

• greater earnings (coming off from a one-year break from company life)
• greater bills
• decreased funding efficiency

I’m being extra lively with mounted earnings choices for now (mostly T-bills and cash management options, see here) since we’re in a rising rates of interest atmosphere, and that’s undoubtedly one thing new as I hadn’t seen the necessity for it within the earlier decade whereas rates of interest had been so low.

Shifting into 2023, I foresee that it’ll stay difficult to take a position, particularly given the grim market and investor sentiment proper now, however I’ll proceed to stay vested and deploy extra capital each month into undervalued alternatives. As for crypto, I nonetheless don’t consider it’s the finish of the business, however I do assume it should take rather a lot longer this time spherical earlier than it recovers from the massive lack of belief that has collapsed in 2022.

See you guys over within the new 12 months!

With love,
Funds Babe