Rich By Retirement: How Singaporeans Can Invest Smart and Retire Weathly
I recently read the book by Joshua Giersch, a.k.a. Shiny Things from HWZ, Rich By Retirement: How Singaporeans Can Invest Smart and Retire Wealthy.
It’s a great book for anyone in Singapore looking to start investing. Generally short, concise, and to the point. The author even kindly included a TLDR at the end:
- Start an emergency fund. Save enough to cover six months’ expenses. Keep this money in a bank account where you can get to it immediately.
- Insure yourself. Get a hospital plan, and if you have people dependent on you, get term life insurance for 20 years, with enough payout to cover five years of your income.
- Take the money and split it into two piles. Figure “110 minus your age” is the percentage that will go into stocks, for capital growth and dividends; the rest goes into bonds, for income and stability.
- Take the “stocks” pile and split it into half. Invest one half into an exchange-traded fund that tracks Singaporean stocks (i.e. ES3); invest the other half into an exchange-traded fund that tracks global stocks (i.e. IWDA).
- Take the “bonds” pile and invest it into an exchange-traded fund that tracks Singaporean bonds (i.e. MBH).
- Each month, invest a regular amount into those same exchange-traded funds; put it into whichever fund you’re short of.
- Twice a year, in May and November, rebalance your portfolio - sell and buy the exchange-traded funds to bring your portfolio back to the “110 minus your age” proportion..
- Go to the pub.
I’m not strictly following his advice at this point of time but I believe it’s good, solid advice that anyone should consider before dipping their toes into investing.
25 October 2019
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