*Official* Shiny Things club - Part 2

[swan02]

You can only choose doctors as a private patient.

https://www.sgh.com.sg/patient-care/visiting-specialist/Pages/planning-for-your-visit.aspx

On paper, it appears you can’t. but if ya well connected such as being an ex staff of a medical clinic, nurse or a doctor. These folks have unwritten access to selected Specialists including their family in the public system paying subsidised rates.

I’m speaking from experience.

Overseas as well being of the above professions, you and your family also have unspoken privileges.

 

[limster]

You can only choose doctors as a private patient.

At B1 ward or higher, you are a private patient.

https://www.sgh.com.sg/patient-care/visiting-specialist/Pages/planning-for-your-visit.aspx

I was replying to the person who eventually went to a private hospital after finding the randomly assigned SGH doctor to be lousy. He can obviously afford to pay the $100+ for consultation with a chosen doctor at SGH.

 

[BBCWatcher]

At B1 ward or higher, you are a private patient.

You right; I’m making a hash of this. I was thinking of day surgery which ends up getting classified as akin to B2 if you’re subsidized, which is important for your Integrated Shield claim at least with certain plans that prorate unsubsidized day surgeries.

On paper, it appears you can’t. but if ya well connected such as being an ex staff of a medical clinic, nurse or a doctor. These folks have unwritten access to selected Specialists including their family in the public system paying subsidised rates.

I’m speaking from experience.

I agree with this; in practice it seems a little more relaxed than advertised. You can always ask, but you have back down if the public hospital asks to push you up to class B1 or higher (if you don’t want that). For example, it’s pretty common to schedule follow-up appointments when the same specialists happen to be on duty, assuming you like them.

 

[BBCWatcher]

He can obviously afford to pay the $100+ for consultation with a chosen doctor at SGH.

Also obviously able to go to another public hospital, such as NUH, since he ended up in another hospital.

 

[Shiny Things]

An index fund manager.

riotous applause

Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) claim a reputation (DFA showed some statistics on their website to justify the claim) for being able to outperform a benchmark index (some of the time) compared to other fund managers. Not sure if the claimed outperformance can compensate for the cost difference of 0.97% (= 1.17% - 0.20%) imposed by MoneyOwl.

DFA’s pitch is not completely crazy, but MoneyOwl’s is.

DFA is an interesting mix of index and factor investing. Their argument is that an index portfolio plus a value-factor and size-factor tilt can actually outperform the index. The marketing buzzword would be an “index-plus” approach, which usually just means “it’s an index fund PLUS a giant truckload of fees”.

This certainly worked in the past, back when the value and size factors actually did what they’re supposed to; I’m not convinced that they outperform after costs any more, though.

MoneyOwl, though, is just charging an absolutely extortionate wrap fee. Avoid them.

So its okay for us to purchase just iwda?

Yep!

I'm 30 this year and am looking to buy a resale flat once I hit 35. This means I have a 5 year investment horizon for my down payment money. I don't have a downpayment saved up yet but will do so within this 5 years.

Should I:

• Keep it in cash in a DBS Multipler account for about 1.9% (assuming I can hit this interest rate);
• Buy SSB regularly every month with the money I'm saving for the downpayment (taking whatever interest rate I can);

• 
  
  SSBs, or the MBH ETF, are the right answer. Money that you’re going to need in less than five years should really sit in bonds.
  
  

  [*]Save SOME savings for the flat down payment and invest SOME into IWDA/ES3; or

  
  I think this is the right approach. You don’t want to end up with all of your money invested in a flat, or all of your money invested in IWDA - both of those are unbalanced portfolios. Diversifying across asset classes is always a good idea.
  
  

  What's the verdict in vwra? To my untrained eyes, it seems vwra spread is 10-20 cents. IWDA bid/ask spread is like 3 cents or so.
  
  Is this an factor to consider?

  
  It would be a factor, yeah. I don’t have my Interactive Brokers screen at my fingertips, if I did I’d take a look at those spreads. Give me a day or two.
  
  

  Can i ask how much you pay premium you pay per month / annual? For giro

  
  Don’t forget, different premium amounts will mean different amounts of coverage, so it’s not really meaningful to ask someone else what they’re paying.
  
  

  I started this thing called a 52 week challenge this year and separately to my bank account, i have a Milo tin of $750 currently. As well as a very small USD investment that gains USD 2.40-2.85 per day per day and this investment holds USD 111 +/- at the moment.

  
  One thing I’d add is that this right here sounds a little bit fishy. An investment that returns 2% per DAY is unlikely to be anything but a scam.
  
  

  Is standard chartered still the best for buying IWDA if I’m doing DCA quarterly?

  
  Yep, if you’re doing less than about $3000 per quarter. Above that line, you’ll probably want to use Interactive Brokers.
  
  

  If I were to do the above, would I input the amount I've put in or the amount that its currently worth? For example I DCA 300 monthly into the STI, do I count it as 1500 after 5 months or the amount its currently worth based on the market?

  
  You always care about the amount it’s currently worth, because that’s what affects your rebalancing. I get you that you don’t want to think too much about the current value (for very good reasons! You’re thinking about this the right way), but you should only really be looking at this once a month or so, so it’s fine to look at the current value.

 

[flowerpalms]

Question:

If i already have 6 months of emergency funds in my savings account, should i take the lump sum and put it in the emergency funds account instead of monthly deposits?

My savings account is with posb. Does that mean i can only use a posb/dbs fixed deposit account and not transfer to other banks unless i withdraw the lump sum out first?

How should i approach this emergency funds? Still do a monthly deposit (to tap on the bonus) or do 1 lump sum and leave it there for interest?

 

[swan02]

Question:

If i already have 6 months of emergency funds in my savings account, should i take the lump sum and put it in the fixed deposit account instead of monthly deposits?

My savings account is with posb. Does that mean i can only use a posb/dbs fixed deposit account and not transfer to other banks unless i withdraw the lump sum out first?

How should i approach this emergency funds? Still do a monthly deposit (to tap on the bonus) or do 1 lump sum and leave it there for interest?

How can an emergency fund be in a fixed deposit ? it’s for emergency !

the closest or recommended are high interest on call accounts followed by SSB.

I personally would have 1 months worth in on call deposits such as the multipliers accounts or short term treasury bills such as the one u have in POEMS. Then 2 months in SSB and the rest in MBH.

 

[flowerpalms]

Sorry i mean emergency funds account.

Like what shiny suggested, example the citibank maxigain

Since i already have 6 months of emergency funds, how should i approach keeping it in the savings account eg. Citibank maxigain for interest?

Also as my current bank account is with posb, do i have to use the same savings account with posb eg. Saye, dbs multiplier or can change to other bank? Lump sum or monthly saving when i alrdy have the 6 months emergency funds??

How can an emergency fund be in a fixed deposit ? it’s for emergency !

the closest or recommended are high interest on call accounts followed by SSB.

I personally would have 1 months worth in on call deposits such as the multipliers accounts or short term treasury bills such as the one u have in POEMS. Then 2 months in SSB and the rest in MBH.

 

[flowerpalms]

I am confused because my emergency funds (6 months of expense now is less than 10k) which i already have

So how do i keep this separate bank account? Because most bank savings account for interest like citibank maxigain recommended by shiny is based on monthly deposit and 1.5% pa you need to hit 15k deposit.

How best to keep a separate bank account if i already have 6 months worth of expenses as emergency funds but is less than 10k?

 

[Maeda_Toshiie]

I am confused because my emergency funds (6 months of expense now is less than 10k) which i already have

So how do i keep this separate bank account? Because most bank savings account for interest like citibank maxigain recommended by shiny is based on monthly deposit and 1.5% pa you need to hit 15k deposit.

How best to keep a separate bank account if i already have 6 months worth of expenses as emergency funds but is less than 10k?

I dump some of my money into CIMB FastSaver. It's 1% p.a. but you get that 1% as long as you have at least 1k in it and you don't need to do anything else to qualify for that 1%. Yeah, I know it looks low compared to other accounts, but it takes practically no effort to hit 1%.

Some use the SCB ESaver (I have it too, min balance is $1000), but it is more efficient if you have two of ESaver to alternate in between every 2 months.

 

[tangent314]

If your DBS multiplier is earning good ~2% interest then you can simply use that as your emergency fund account. Otherwise, you can keep maybe 2 months in that or your savings account and put the rest into SSBs. You can withdraw from SSB with up to 1 month lag time.

 

[flowerpalms]

I already have the 6months emergency funds and no credit card. I am not sure i can still use the citibank maxigain .

And which bank savings work best for me for lump sum

I dump some of my money into CIMB FastSaver. It's 1% p.a. but you get that 1% as long as you have at least 1k in it and you don't need to do anything else to qualify for that 1%. Yeah, I know it looks low compared to other accounts, but it takes practically no effort to hit 1%.

Some use the SCB ESaver (I have it too), but it is more efficient if you have two of ESaver to alternate in between every 2 months.

 

[Maeda_Toshiie]

https://dollarsandsense.sg/investing-moneyowl-heres-need-know-invest/

What MoneyOwl charges (as shown in the table above), is a low advisory or wrap fee of 0.65% per annum of assets under management. A custodian or platform fee of 0.18% is also charged but this is paid to their custodian, iFAST. In total, fees are kept at about 1.20% per annum on average, if you include the underlying fund charges.

Kevin Spacey voice: "Is that figure right?"

Some of the other local robos don't even charge that much .

 

[BBCWatcher]

Or split between a savings account and SSBs. Put two months of emergency reserve in the savings account, the rest into SSBs. This recipe will do better than 1%/year.

You're not required to segregate emergency reserve funds in a separate account from your day-to-day spending account. If you never let your day-to-day spending account dip below $X except in a genuine emergency (job loss, for example), then you have an emergency reserve of $X there. However, some people like having the separation for psychological reasons if nothing else.

A fixed deposit could be an emergency reserve if the bank allows a premature withdrawal with reasonable terms. You can also ladder fixed deposits to create a reasonable emergency reserve pool. For example, ICBC Singapore is currently offering a 1.8% interest 12 month fixed deposit, minimum $500. You have to open this fixed deposit online, but you can open a savings account with ICBC with $500 with no minimum balance requirement. If you then create a "ladder" with, say, $1000 fixed deposits maturing every month for 12 months, then you have a sequence of 12 fixed deposits that generate $1,018 of monthly income to support an emergency of up to 12 months....

....But this arrangement is only for certain kinds of emergencies, such as unemployment for up to 12 months. It's not too great for emergencies that require a large dollop of cash, unless the fixed deposits can be redeemed prematurely without too much difficulty or cost. Of course you can combine approaches: a dollop of reserve cash plus laddered fixed deposits.

 

[Maeda_Toshiie]

I already have the 6months emergency funds and no credit card. I am not sure i can still use the citibank maxigain .

And which bank savings work best for me for lump sum

Neither CIMB Fastsaver nor SCB Esaver have spending (I hardly spend on CC myself) or monthly salary requirements. CIMB's only requirement is a min of $1000. SCB Esaver also require a min of $1000, but the promotion lasts 2 months, so you need 2 accounts to shuttle b/w them every 2 months in order to take full advantage.

BTW, if you spend very little on CCs, you may want to consider getting the CIMB cards with no membership fees (life, as of right now). The cashback is trash but you don't need to care about membership fees or min spending etc.

 

[engineergirl]

IBKR

IBKR is in the midst of opening a Singapore office .
Woohoo

 

[swan02]

I dump some of my money into CIMB FastSaver. It's 1% p.a. but you get that 1% as long as you have at least 1k in it and you don't need to do anything else to qualify for that 1%. Yeah, I know it looks low compared to other accounts, but it takes practically no effort to hit 1%.

Some use the SCB ESaver (I have it too, min balance is $1000), but it is more efficient if you have two of ESaver to alternate in between every 2 months.

CIMB sounds like an account for retirees after exhausting Esaver and uob one account. Is there anything better for retirees ?

 

[Maeda_Toshiie]

IBKR is in the midst of opening a Singapore office .
Woohoo

Don't get too excited. They may not be allowed to offer rock bottom fees to locals buying local stocks. Can't destroy the local price cartel.

 

[Maeda_Toshiie]

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Ma...Z0Pmg-SWXeFK49Vw_d3x9QDeb_kqaUSuESVapsGx4ZMyU

Buffett's Berkshire to issue first-ever yen bonds

Possible $940m offering targets Japan's yield-hungry investors

Why?

 

[swan02]

IBKR is in the midst of opening a Singapore office .
Woohoo

Not to mention also a possibility it comes with a no licence for fx exchange as in Australia. This is risky.