The SG Hustle

A few weeks ago, my company went through a small round of restructuring. Retrenchment, if we're using the honest word instead of the corporate one. I was safe. My name wasn't on the list. I want to be careful here, because "I survived" is not a success story. It's just where the dice landed this time. But watching it happen up close taught me more about financial planning than any amount of portfolio modelling I've done for myself or my kids. So here's what I actually saw. The workload didn't disappear with the people. The first thing that happened had nothing to do with money. There's no backfill. The work those colleagues used to do didn't get retrenched along with them, it got redistributed to whoever was left. Same output expected, fewer hands to do it. Nobody warns you about this part. You assume surviving a round of cuts means things go back to normal. They don't. Normal was the headcount before. What's left is the new nor...

A few weeks ago I wrote about the AI simulation I built for my sons' investment portfolios, ang bao money, baby bonus, STI ETF, dividend reinvestment, projected out year by year all the way to 2046, when they'll be 21 and 23. I could tell you, with real historical data behind it, roughly what their portfolios might be worth in twenty years. I had a spreadsheet. I had assumptions. I had a plan. I could not tell you, six months ago, whether I'd be alive and well enough to see any of it. That's not a dramatic exaggeration. It's just what happens when you spend your evenings projecting compound interest for your children and zero minutes projecting anything for yourself. The gap I didn't notice I sit with numbers for a living, in some sense. I like modelling things out, contribution schedules, expected returns, what a portfolio looks like at year 8 versus year 20. It's satisfying to turn a vague hope, "I want my kids to be okay financially" int...

I'm 35 now, writing this in 2026. Back when I was 21, I was still in National Service, drawing $960 a month as a 3rd Sergeant. I kept saving what I could, and by the time I ORD'd, my bank account held about S$10,000. That was 2013. I was 22. Then I went straight into university, and that S$10,000 became precious. It bought my laptop. It covered the gaps when my part-time work couldn't. It wasn't luxury money — it was runway. But here's the part I don't talk about as much: that S$10,000 wasn't enough runway. So I worked. And work took time. And time is the one thing university only gives you once. The University Life I Didn't Have My juniors talk about "Uni Life" like it's a rite of passage, the nightlife, the club mates, the CCAs, the late-night suppers after a night out. I didn't have any of that. I didn't even have an interest club. For me, university was: study, research, work, and date my wife, back then, still my gi...

Just about three weeks ago, I shared that I took a position in SpaceX. Fast forward to today, and I am sitting on a 20% paper loss. Am I panicking? Not even a little. Here is the truth: when you trade high-growth, high-volatility assets, the price action is only half the story. The implied volatility (IV) on SpaceX right now is massive, and that is where the magic happens. Because the IV is so high, the premiums collected from selling covered calls have been incredibly lucrative. While the underlying stock price has taken a temporary hit, the options premium is doing its job, mitigating the downside, lowering my cost basis, and generating consistent cash flow in the process. Market downturns are stressful if you are just holding shares and hoping for the best. But when you have a mechanical options strategy in play, volatility becomes a tool rather than a threat. I am comfortable playing the long game here. Are you holding through the current volatility, or using options to cushion th...

Every few months, it happens like clockwork. The government or employment agencies drops its latest reports. Suddenly, your social media feed is flooded with infographics breaking down Singapore’s latest median household income, or average earnings segmented by age, gender, education level, and sector. At first glance, this feels like helpful, transparent data. But if we are being completely honest with ourselves, clicking into those charts rarely makes anyone feel better. Instead, it triggers an immediate, involuntary defensive response. You instantly zone in on your age bracket or your industry. You look at the number, look at your own bank account, and the internal monologue begins: “Am I falling behind? Why is the median for my age group so high? What are these people doing that I’m not?” Suddenly, a routine government data release transforms into an existential crisis. But here is the truth we need to remind ourselves of: looking at macro data to measure your personal success is n...

Every week, someone tells me they're done with their 9-to-5 and ready to "start a business for the freedom." I understand the impulse. I've felt it myself. But there's a costly misunderstanding hiding inside that sentence, and it's worth naming before anyone quits their job over it. The story people tell themselves The logic usually goes like this: my job controls my time, so removing the job will give my time back. It's a clean story. It puts the blame on the employer, not on the nature of work itself, and it makes the solution feel obvious, become your own boss, and freedom follows automatically. It's also, for almost everyone, wrong. What a paycheck actually buys you When you're employed, you trade a fixed number of hours for a fixed paycheck. It's not a great deal in a lot of ways, but it has one underrated feature: a boundary. Outside your working hours, the job , mostly, leaves you alone. Start a business and that boundary is...