Mid-Year Review on my Personal Finance

Well, accountability is important in all aspects of one's life. More so that I'll be becoming a dad in 2 months time. Its a bundle of joy, but its also time to ensure the finances are rock solid. I'll be taking a review of my targets set at the start of the year and see if I'm on track.

1. Achieve a monthly passive income of 1k SGD per month.

Here's the breakdown:

- SGX CDP: 1st Q payout amounted to $2,356.32. 2nd Q payout amounted to $3,008.21. 

- DBS RSP (STI ETF & ABF Bond ETF) Jan payout amounted to $1,301.94.

- Total: $6,666.47. 

- Monthly dividend income: $1,111.07

Verdict: Yes, passed with flying colors. 

In addition, I received 353 USD payout from my Ireland Domiciled Global Equity ETF (VWRD) and S&P500 ETF (VUSD) for 1st half of 2026. However, for simplicity sake, I will just take the amount received from my SG income portfolio. To be honest, I was not surprised, as my previous year annual dividend amounted to $10,420.63 (excluding the US portfolio payout). With the organic growth in dividend distributed due to the underlying equity revenue expansion, alongside my active contribution to accumulate more shares, this was expected.

2. Maintain an 80:20 equity-bond portfolio allocation.

Well, truth be told, this is a less important target. This is because at 35 years old, I can technically afford to go 100% equity given the 2-3 decades of runway. In addition, the REITs and SG blue-chip stocks which gives a reliable, steady stream of income technically does what a bond/bond ETF does. Hence, this has become less crucial in my wealth building phase currently.

But cross my heart. If I wish to retire by 45, which is in 10 years time, then its good to ensure I have some bond allocation. My current bond allocation amounts to about 17.5% of my portfolio. 

Verdict: Fell short a little by 2.5% but that's fine.

3. Aim to shift my portfolio to a 40% growth and 60% income allocation.

Honestly speaking, millennials like myself who started investing in the 2010s, started out our investing journey by buying local dividend paying stocks. That was because it felt safe, as companies like DBS and CapitaLand Mall were what we could see and literally feel. Besides this wokeness on buying global equity ETFs and Ireland domiciled S&P500 only hit me in 2019, slightly before the pandemic hit and when every mother son started becoming an investment guru.

So here's my game plan. Do not liquidate my current investments, but channel fresh funds to VWRD & VUSD, with a biasness to VWRD, as its more diversified. This will also help my portfolio to weather against inflation reliably over the long run. Side note, its quite amazing how my growth portfolio has became an unintended income source. Yes 300ish USD payout for the 1st half of 2026 is nothing to shout at. But at least that's something.

Verdict: Of course I failed at this, my portfolio allocation is still about 75% income, 25% growth.

In conclusion, its heartening to see that I managed to achieve the psychological comforting milestone of slightly above 1.1k SGD monthly income. But I won't sleep on my glass jewels, because with an additional mouth to feed, family expenses will sure to increase. Hence, lets go from strength to strength. 

As usual, stay invested and stay woke good people. May the power of long term compounding be in your favor.

Yours sincerely,

Finance Kaya Toast

Disclosure: This article was written as me talking to myself as an ordinary Singaporean, wishing to achieve financial freedom. It does not represent any financial advise. All opinions are independent and represent just my two-cents on all matters financially-related.   

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