Tag Archives: investing

Investment vs Insurance- Which is More Important?

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Whether we like it or not, when we become adults, we have to start thinking about our personal finances and planning our future. For those who have not been taught about finances (I know pretty much none of us learnt this in school), planning finances could be a daunting task. The words ‘investment’ and ‘insurance’ often fill people with dread; is it a scam? Why should I spend my money on that? Do I need it?

The long and short of it is, both are important and you need both. But is one more important than the other? Let’s look at both and see for ourselves.

There are lots of kinds of insurance products but they all cover one thing- loss. The whole point of insurance is that it covers us if something goes wrong. This may be a hospitalisation, a disability, an illness, or some other kind of liability that would set us back financially. It is meant for protection; protecting us from the adverse effects of not being able to work or financial hardships. Many people think that planning for these things, such as death or disability, is a morbid topic and a worst-case scenario. But good health is never guaranteed, and it’s always best to get these things sorted before it’s too late. Insurance products also become more expensive as you get older, so it’s best to start early, so that these payments don’t interfere with any of your future life stages like purchasing a house or sending your kids to school.

Investing is all about growing money for our future- we can either plan for a passive income stream, so that we don’t have to rely on work so much. Or, we can plan for capital gains, so that we have a nice chunk of money when we want it. The idea of making money with not necessarily putting too much effort in (check out my articles about passive investing), is an attractive one. And, if we make all this money, why do we even need insurance?

Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is, it is unwise to have one without the other; investment increases our upsides, but insurance protects our downside. If you invest without being insured, you run the risk of losing it all should you fall sick or become hospitalised (also, can I just say, it’s very naïve to think you will stay healthy forever), especially if your investments are not enough to pay for your bills. If you just insure yourself without investing, you are selling yourself short, only planning for the bad things that can happen, and not planning for the good times ahead. It also means that you may have to constantly work and never be able to retire. Neither insurance nor investments will work on their own; you need to plan and review both in order to be financially successful.

A very important thing to take note of is that investments take a long time to accumulate, especially if you cannot set aside a lot of money to invest. Insurance policies cover you pretty much as soon as you get them. So, it’s always important to sort your insurance out first; once you are protected you can focus on growing your money.

But do remember that investing and insurance is never fixed and one-size-fits all. You need to constantly review your finances in order to keep up with your changing needs!

How To Be A Successful Investor!

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You may think that investing is not for you; maybe you’re not experienced enough, maybe you don’t have enough capital. But, the whole process of investing is not as scary as you think. Follow these simple tips and start investing successfully.

Start Before You’re Ready

This may seem counter-productive, but hear me out. Have you ever refrained from doing something, for fear of the risks? And then the thing you didn’t do, happened, and you regretted it? Hindsight is a fickle friend, so don’t miss an opportunity to start investing. Tackle your fear and start before you’re ready, because, to be honest, you will never be ready; “I’ll wait until next month…Let me do it after I’ve paid my bills…Maybe next year.” Take the plunge! If you don’t, you’ve already missed out on so much time you could have been investing.

Don’t Be Emotional

This point is crucial. You have to take all emotion out of investing, mainly fear and greed. If you see your investment plunging, your first response may be to sell, out of fear of losing even more. If you see stocks going up, you may want to buy before they go up higher, out of greed. Doing this eventually leads to buying high and selling low, losing you money in the long run.

  Instead, take advantage of dollar-cost averaging (the concept of buying the same amount at regular intervals). This method makes your investment almost robotic. Another thing you can do as well, is to make your payments into your investments automatic. Set up GIROs or transfer straight away after you get paid, so that you don’t even think about it.

Plan Situations In Advance

Another great tip is to have a set of ‘rules’ before you invest, so that if X was to happen, you already have a Y. For example, if you have a target buy price of a stock in mind, stick toit and do not deviate. This forward planning also helps you take emotion out of investing and manages your fear and greed.

Use Volatility To Your Advantage

Volatility is inevitable with investments, similar to if you go to a theme park you know there will be rollercoasters. A quality of a true investor is being able to hold onto their investments through times of great volatility. Even though it’s scary when investments go down, it’s not permanent. Stocks do not permanently lose their value. Use times of volatility to define your objectives, focus on what stocks are trending and always remember to be prepared for these situations. It’s all part of the game!

Do Some Homework!

Learn about the world around you; politics, technology, science, all have an effect on the financial world. Read up on current affairs and look out for things that could affect the economy and stock markets. The more you read, the more you will start to see trends in the market. I recommend reading The Economist, Business Insider and Bloomberg.

Know What Kind Of Investor You Want To Be

There are two types of investors; passive or active. Passive investors invest in mutual and index funds. If you’re unsure what these things are, check out my article “Investing Terms You Need To Know”. Passive investors benefit from long-term growing financial markets. Their investments are managed by fund managers, shuffling their money around for them on a regular basis. I would consider myself a passive investor; I leave the experts to do their job and just put my money in these funds over regular intervals. This, along with dollar-cost averaging, helps me remove my emotion from investing.

  An active investor has to be very committed, professional and knowledgeable in what they are doing. If you decide to be an active investor, do your research! Know which stocks you want to invest in and be prepared to keep an eye on them. Try to be robotic about it and apply the previous tips.

Have A Long Time Horizon

I’ve mentioned it before but an investor who holds onto their investments longer, usually benefits the most. While the stock market is often volatile over shorter periods of time, the economy generally grows year by year; the inflation rate in the US in 2010 was 1.64%. In 2021, it is currently 2.21%. While inflation rate is annoying in terms of making things more expensive, it is an indicator that the economy is doing well. A higher inflation rate means more spending, more demand for products and triggers more production to meet the demand.

  This means that if you hold onto your investments for longer, you are avoiding short-term losses and in turn benefitting from the growth of the economy.

To conclude, no one can be the perfect investor (if that was the case we’d all be rich), but if you follow these steps you are more likely to make better choices and become a successful investor!

How I Planned My Finances

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People often ask me how I became so financially literate and what I did to make myself financially stable. So, I thought I would share with you how I planned my finances in Singapore. First of all, I will say, I’m very lucky to have parents who taught me from a young age how to save and be frugal. But, moving to Singapore I realised I needed to do more than just save. So here’s how I did it.

Step One: Have an Emergency Fund

This first step was crucial, as you will see in my story later why. I saved 6 months’ salary in my bank account, as a buffer should anything happen. This meant that rent was never an issue, even with putting a deposit on a new rental and moving apartments. It also meant that I had less buyer’s remorse and I knew how much I could afford to spend on my days off.

Step Two: Spend Wisely

 Pre-covid, I travelled a lot. A lot of people, particularly those back home, would often ask me how I did it. It was really quite simple; I often travelled to countries where the Singapore dollar went far. I booked cheap accommodation and ate local food. This kept my budget quite low.

  Also, in Singapore I don’t tend to buy a lot of things. I mostly spend on going out for meals or activities with friends, which I find easier to manage, especially if the restaurants are cheap!

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Step Three: Get Covered

Remember earlier I mentioned why an emergency fund is so important? Here’s why. In 2019 I found out I had to have an operation- it wasn’t a particularly big surgery, but it was a crucial one. My doctor had found a growth and was unsure if it was cancerous. It was causing me a lot of discomfort and affected my personal life greatly. I was told that the estimated bill would be roughly $19,000. Thankfully, I had health insurance. Even though foreigners have to pay the cost upfront, I managed to get every penny back through my hospital plan, even the doctor’s appointments leading up to the surgery. It was a massive relief. Luckily, I had the money upfront to pay, but can you imagine if I never got that back? Expats often see insurance as unimportant, maybe because healthcare is free back at home, but it’s a fact that Singapore is not a welfare state, so don’t treat it like one.

Step Four: Don’t Leave it Too Late

I went on to purchase critical illness coverage, as I knew deep down in the back of my head that having an operation at 25 (especially one where the C word comes up) is not normal. (I’m fine by the way, it wasn’t cancer.) So, I felt that it was best to be fully covered for critical illnesses. Hospital plans are not sufficient. Imagine if I were diagnosed with Cervical Cancer, and just had a hospital plan? It wouldn’t cover my change in lifestyle; having to take taxis everywhere; maybe hiring at home help; having to maybe order personalised meals. Not to mention the fact that I wouldn’t be able to work if I was going through chemo. A hospital plan definitely wouldn’t cover all of that.

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Step Five: Invest

Ok so I had an emergency fund, I was protected and covered insurance-wise. Now what? How did I make my money grow quicker than leaving it in the bank? My current DBS account has an interest rate of 0.005%…. I’m not being funny but that’s rubbish. So, I took a portion of my savings and invested it in unit trusts. I purchased investment policies that contained a mixture of sub-funds that are managed by portfolio managers. I’m not one to sit and watch stocks and manage that by myself, so I’m very happy to let a professional do that for me. This will help me achieve my long-term goals of purchasing a property and having a very comfortable retirement.

I pride myself on not living paycheque to paycheque; I actually can’t remember the last time I did live like that! I always reflect on these five things and review how on-track I am with my financial goals. I hope this helps those who are confused on where to start. How do you plan your finances? If you feel that you have any questions or need any help, please do get in touch.

3 Steps Before You Invest!

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Everyone wants to make money, and more and more people are starting to realise that working a 9-5 is just not going to cut it anymore. But if you don’t have the luxury of running multiple businesses from home, or being your own boss, the easiest way to grow your money is to invest.

  Investing is the concept of allocating assets, usually money, into different financial vehicles, such as stocks, bonds or mutual funds, to create a profit. The bare minimum investment should be doing is beating inflation. Inflation is a measure of the rate of rising prices of goods and services in an economy. In short, over time our hard-earned money is worth less, due to the rising cost of products. It sounds somewhat bleak, and with average inflation currently working at 2.5%, the chances of saving decent money in a savings account that offers 0.5% seems slim. But a lot of investments are offering high non-guaranteed returns, often from the rate of 8% upwards. But what are the three things to consider before you put your money into investments.

1. Build an Emergency Fund

At a glance investing may seem like an obvious choice when it comes to saving money. Why not just throw all your savings into investment if it means high returns? The answer is that investment returns are NOT guaranteed- even the safest investments come with some risk, and sometimes the lock in periods are high, or the penalty for withdrawing early is expensive. To ensure that you are not over-investing, make sure that you have an emergency savings fund that is easily accessible. That way, should an emergency arise (like a large hospital bill or having to pay for car repairs), you can use your emergency money instead of jeopardising your investments.

  The recommended amount you should have in your emergency fund is 3-6 months of your monthly salary. This should be a healthy buffer should the worst happen. If you already have more than that, then that’s a great time to consider investing.

2. Be Debt-Free

Before you do any investing, you should really consider paying off your debt. Having a credit card bill is fine, but having any large or bad debt will hinder you in your long-term goals. It seems counter-productive attempting to make lots of money with investments, whilst paying off lots of debt. It may be difficult paying off student debt or large loans, but you will reap the benefits in the long run when your debt isn’t eating into your assets.

3. Set Your Investment Goals

This step may seem unnecessary but it is honestly THE most important step- defining your goals. What is the reason for investing? If you are doing it out of pure greed then your judgment will become clouded when it comes to riskier investments and you risk losing it all. So have a long and hard think about why you want to invest. You are putting your money, that you worked hard for, somewhere that could give you high returns, or give you nothing. Therefore, it’s best to have a long think and define some clear goals for your future. Do you want to plan for your retirement? Save for a house? Pass something on to your children? Whatever it is, decide how much you would need and by when. Most investments are a longer-term commitment, so it’s OK to think big. If you have no clue and are just investing for the sake of it, you will quickly lose your drive and passion for making money.

These steps may seem simple, but they really are the key to an effective investment strategy. If you found this article useful, comment below your favourite tip. Don’t forget to share it with your friends who are thinking about investing.