The SG Hustle

I hate my job. The strange thing is, my job is actually quite simple. The workload is manageable and there is quite a lot of free time in between. I am not constantly stressed by deadlines, I don't work crazy hours, and on most days I can leave work on time. If I were to describe the job to someone else, they might even tell me that I have it pretty good. So I asked myself frequently: if the job is really not that bad, why do I hate it so much? Eventually, I came to accept that maybe I don't actually hate the job. What I hate is the routine and lifestyle that come with having a job. Waking up early, getting ready, travelling to the office, spending most of the day there, going home, sleeping, and then doing the same thing again the next day. Five days a week, week after week. Yes, I have free time during work, sometimes quite a lot. But free time in the office is not really free time. I am still at work and still being monitored to some extent. I can't simply decide that th...

A few days ago, someone slid into my DMs and asked a simple question: "Hey, can you share your portfolio?" I stared at that message for a while before replying. And it made me realize something,  I've quietly stopped sharing my portfolio for a long time now. Not because I forgot, and not because I had some grand strategy of privacy. The real reason is a lot more honest, and a lot more uncomfortable to admit: I didn't think it was "nice" enough to show. If you follow other finance bloggers, you've probably seen the screenshots, seven-figure portfolios, dozens of counters, diversified across REITs, growth stocks, bonds, you name it. Mine isn't that. Mine is small. Painfully simple, even. And for a while, I let that make me feel like I had nothing worth sharing. But here's the thing, I think that mindset is wrong, and I want to correct it, starting with this post. Why My Portfolio Is Small Let's get the elephant in the room out of the ...

In my previous post, I wrote about the new SG Child Support Package announced at National Day Rally 2026, and how I have never touched a single dollar of the Baby Bonus Cash Gift my kids received. Every dollar went into ES3, the SPDR Straits Times Index ETF, and was left alone to grow. Today my kids, ages one and three, are sitting on a combined 7,200 shares. That post got me thinking further. The new $2,000 Child Credits, paid annually per child from age one to sixteen, is not a one-time gift like the Baby Bonus. It is fifteen to sixteen separate payments, arriving every single year like clockwork. So I did a calculation and simulation of my children's portfolio, to see what this could actually turn into if I kept doing exactly what I have been doing. Setting the Assumptions I did not want to build a fantasy projection based on the best years of the stock market. I wanted something conservative, a safe margin, so I used these numbers: Starting point: 7,200 shares, current...

Every year, I watch the National Day Rally not because I am particularly patriotic about policy speeches, but because I have kids now, and every announcement about family support means something different to me than it used to. This year, the government unveiled a new SG Child Support Package, and it is, without exaggeration, one of the more generous moves I have seen in a long time. Here is what it looks like, broken down. The New Package Every Singaporean child, from birth to age 17, will now receive close to $70,000 in direct support. It replaces the old Baby Bonus Cash Gift and Large Families Scheme with something flatter and simpler, where the amount your child receives no longer depends on whether they are your first, second, or fourth. The breakdown goes like this: A $10,000 Baby Gift , paid out in two tranches within the child's first year $32,000 in Child Credits , disbursed as $2,000 cash every year from age one to sixteen A $5,000 CDA First Step Grant , with...