• 1. Have You Wondered Why Things Are Getting More Expensive?
• I believe you have came across the phase where a dollar today is worth less than what it will be in the future? 
• That is the invisible power of inflation my friend! 😕

• We have no control or ways to stop inflation. However, we have the ability and knowledge to overcome this through for instance, investing at a rate higher than the inflation rate to offset this phenomenon. 

• Meaning if the inflation rate is at 1% and if my money is able to generate returns of just 1.1%, my purchasing power (+0.1%) will remain the same as before. Cool right, you get the idea haha 😂 

2. What Is Singapore's Inflation Rate Like?

• Inflation is measured by the annual percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) (Mas.gov.sg)
• Usually I would gather the latest CPI data from the Singstat website under the 'Singapore Consumer Price Index' which is governed under the Department of Singapore Statistics.

Statistics Singapore - Prices and Price Indices - Latest Data (singstat.gov.sg)

• There are a few types of inflation rates. Out of all, the most important one I see as the benchmark will be the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Core Inflation

• Core inflation rate is the measure that excludes the components of "Accommodation" and "Private Transport". These are excludes as they tend to be significantly influenced by supply side administrative policies and are volatile. By doing so, this value shows the generalized price changes that are driven by underlying demand conditions. (Mas.gov.sg).

3 Ways to Calculate Inflation - wikiHow

• This is a basic formula to compute inflation rate. 

The rate of inflation from 2018 to 2019 August would have been (105.757-104.242)/104.242*100 = 1.45%

Meaning to ensure that your money does not lose its purchasing power overtime, you'll have to so-call find creative ways to make your money grow at a minimum rate of 1.45% or more per xxx time period to counter this impact. Make sense right? 😁

This is just an example, go and determine the core inflation rate yourself. 

Once you know what is this value, you will definitely stop looking at investments that give you interest rates per annum that is lower than your calculated core inflation rate. 

4. Situations Where I Tried To Overcome Inflation

• High Savings Account

Placing your money in a high savings bank account such as DBS Multiplier, OCBC 360 account, UOB One savings account etc.

Interest rates here are definitely higher than your normal savings account (only 0.05% per annum). 

However with the economy downturn, banks are also slashing the interest rates. siobs siobs....😞

• Cash Management Account

There are multiple accounts out there but for now I am only using Stashaway Simple. 

The risk will be higher than high savings bank accounts as the your money will be invested into a portfolio of funds.

• Robo-Advisors

This is a good alternative if you are ready to set aside some cash to invest into this.

I have done a blog to explain further on this. Stashaway

• Bonds

I used to do this but I stopped as the interest rate is just too low. Moreover, the pandemic has resulted in the interest rates dropping to a level which I didnt see the point in buying into this.

https://www.mas.gov.sg/bonds-and-bills/Singapore-Savings-Bonds

• CPF (applicable in Singapore only)

A national compulsory savings scheme which consists of three sub accounts mainly the Ordinary (OA), Special (SA) and Medisave (MA) accounts. Each account has its own properties and interest rates per annum. You can find out more directly from the CPF website as their policies will keep changing ever now and then.

• Stocks 

Stocks are a higher risk higher return kind of investment strategy which I am currently pursuing. Always remember to learn and understand what you are doing before investing into the stock market. 😃

• Side Hustle and Others

This can be anything from selling stuffs on Carousell / ebay to generate additional source of income etc.

There are many ways to go about overcoming inflation. No harm trying out the different strategies and see which method works best and its sustainable for you in the long run! 😁

My thoughts on using the Regular Savings Plan (RSP) from DBS bank to dollar cost average (DCA) into the STI index.

1. Introduction to STI ETF:

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/G3B.SI?p=G3B.SI&.tsrc=fin-srch

https://www.sgx.com/indices/products/sti#Constituents

2. Is This A Good Investment? 

• I will be direct and give you a straight 'No', absolutely not to buy the STI ETF. 
• Do not waste your time if you are new to investing and have little to no experience in buying stocks at this moment of time. 
• Speaking of experience, I have been there and done that buying into STI ETF before and it was not the right decision which I will explain more below.
• There are definitely more appropriate stocks to buy in the market if you do your due diligence to research and find out more.

Yes, under the condition where the STI ETF is only beneficial for those longer term and more experienced investors who 

3. Beware Of Marketing That Are Too Good To Be True:

• There are alot of marketing out there telling you the benefits of buying into the STI ETF where it is as easy as ABC to start investing in STI ETF without the need to even set up a CDP account or much hassle.
• I was one of those fools who believed in that at the beginning, signing myself up for the NIKKO AM SINGAPORE STI ETF (G3B) under the DBS Regular Savings Plan. 😅
• If you are an existing DBS account user, you will have access to this investment feature under 'Unit Trust'.

https://www.dbs.com.sg/

• I would put $100 every month into this regular savings plan and DBS would purchase 100 SGD worth of this G3B stocks on my behalf.
• Worst of all, I bought it last year 😓just before the Covid19 pandemic happened and it totally wreaked havoc on the ETF price.

4. My Actual G3B Portfolio Results:

• DCA 100 SGD every month into this regular savings plan.
• First started on November 2019 at the price of 3.36 SGD per unit (this was at the bull run)
• Next covid19 happened and the price dropped to 2.60 SGD per unit by mid March 2020 (almost a 23% drop in price) 😕
• Have been DCA-ing for one full year before I eventually threw in the towel and stopped the savings plan for good. (best decision ever as I use that money to invest in other stocks with higher capital gains)
• My total capital loss was -6.8% with total dividends received to be a mere $34.71 (2.90% dividend yield). 😑

• Some people may argue that spending only one year in this ETF is too short as the pandemic is still on-going and a vaccine might be coming out soon end of this year or next year. 
• But I wasn't willing to wait that long for a vaccine to be launched and it could take another couple of years before the prices eventually rises back to the 3.6 SGD per unit which I bought to breakeven my losses.

5. My Take On STI ETF:

• It will never be a dividend growth stock (prices no change 10 years ago till today)

Let me illustrate with some data:

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/G3B.SI?p=G3B.SI&.tsrc=fin-srch Currently the ETF price is 2.94 SGD per unit as of 19 December 2020. I have drawn a purple horizontal line across to show you the impact across the last 10 years. If you see this historical price chart, 2.94 SGD per unit also happened somewhere close on the:  20th Dec 2009 14th Aug 2011 29th Jan 2012 13th May 2012 24th Jun 2012 20th Sept 2015 3rd Jan 2016 6th Mar 2016 30th Oct 2016 8th March 2020 Where were the growth in price? 😅 The only reason to hold on to this is just to reap the dividends

• As mentioned above, a high proportion of this ETF is concentrated in the finance sector by companies such as UOB, OCBC and DBS. (it might be better and logical to just buy straight into these and avoid those poor performances stocks in the ETF)
• If you are a young investor or investor with little capital for investment, putting in 100 SGD or even 500 SGD per month will not give you significant dividend returns as the amount of stock you hold is just too little.
• It will be more logical to avoid this for now and spend the amount of cash on other types of stocks or ETF out there with a higher stock price appreciation.

1. In summary

• A hands-off approach to invest passively with the someone (advisor) purchasing and auto- balancing your portfolio on your behalf. All you need is to top up money and set your goals & parameters to begin. 

2. Competitive Advantage

• Stashaway highlights the use of ERAA® (Economic Regime-based Asset Allocation) 
• An all weather investment framework to diversify your investments into clusters of stocks, bonds, commodity, real estate mainly in the US, China markets etc. 

3. How was it so far?

• I have been using Stashaway, a robo-advisor for more than a year. 
• The returns are good and I have never lost money using this application.
• I opened 5 different projects / portfolios to try the different risk levels and to figure out what were the best ways to generate the highest returns. Since then I have cashed out on 4 and now I keeping the remaining 1.
• Have tried the Stashaway Simple (cash management) as well but the returns are slightly more towards the conservative side (1.4% P.A.) which was not really I was looking for. 

4. Pros

• Can start investing as low as 50 SGD (*that's how I first started haha. But of course there are cons for doing this too).
• Returns higher than your bank savings account (0.05% P.A.) or Singapore Savings Bonds
• Both desktop and mobile version. Mobile user interface is awesome! 
• Top up via Paynow, so convenient! 
• Hands off passive approach to investing
• For those with limited investing knowledge and just starting out (One of the best place to start learning how investing works)
• Portfolio has auto-rebalancing logic which will be taken care by the advisor
• All you need to do is to top up money inside and let the magic happens hahahah 😀
• Using your Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) to fund for eg. Stashaway Simple (A higher level investing strategy)

5. Cons

• Returns is slower and lower compared to individual growth stock purchase.
• Pay monthly management fee (nothing is free and they help to balance your portfolio😁)
• Funds invested are park in a custodian account which is not under your ownership. So regardless of what the company says, exercise due diligence in the total amount to top up here.

• I have tried monthly DCA, weekly DCA and even every alternate day DCA just to see how the returns will be impacted. 
• At the beginning I was unsure of how to invest so I tried both ways of putting 10% (bond like) and 36% (stock like) for risk allocation. 
• In the end, the 36% risk allocation returns were far more superior such that I decided to cash out on my 10% risk allocation project and just focus on this.

36% Risk

5th Project

8. User Experience: