Author: The Turtle Investor

Kevin’s Air Miles Starter Pack

Kevin’s Air Miles Starter Pack

Posted by | Jul 23, 2017 | |

After all I have written about my personal project on chasing air miles (90,000 miles in 9 months), it makes sense that I should probably write a little bit on my credit cards setup for this purpose. Air miles are earned on the back of expenditure. There are no two ways about it. What we can do it is optimize the number of miles we can earn. Not saying that this is the best way, but it works well for my lifestyle without having to put in too much effort on a daily basis. To begin with, I have...

Read More
Where Can I Go With 100,000 Miles?

Where Can I Go With 100,000 Miles?

Posted by | Jul 17, 2017 | |

This post should have come a little bit sooner, but as usual, I have my excuses. Work has been dominating my life, to say the least. In October last year, I started my Project Singapore Airlines Suites with nothing more than just 11,285 miles to my name. It would not be an easy task – accumulation of miles is ultimately dependent on expenses. Luckily, my goal is reasonable – tickets for two to Beijing, just to have a quick spin at the Great Wall and perhaps the Summer Palace. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that it took me...

Read More
Robo-Advisors : AutoWealth vs StashAway vs Smartly

Robo-Advisors : AutoWealth vs StashAway vs Smartly

Posted by | Jul 15, 2017 | |

The battle of the Singapore digital financial advisory platforms is gathering pace as each day goes by. There are actually various robo-advisors in existence in Singapore, but the majority of them cater to high net worth individuals and aren’t exactly targeted at retail investors. I kept a list of them somewhere but it eludes me somehow. To the best of my knowledge, there are currently three real contenders battling it out for the retail investors market. I collected some information on them for my personal consumption – you might find them useful for a quick comparison. Huge disclaimer to...

Read More
How To Surrender Your AIA Prime Life Special Policy

How To Surrender Your AIA Prime Life Special Policy

Posted by | Jun 24, 2017 | |

Remember that I wrote about surrendering my AIA Prime Life Special policy last year in August? This is a follow up post on that. Quick and easy, I promise! Let’s go back in time for twenty years, and it would be the year 1997. Ignore the glaring red words and focus somewhere near 1997, and it isn’t difficult to note the peak there and then. With 72% allocation in fixed income, it is needless to say that the projections made back then would be pretty tough to achieve. Especially with the prolonged low interest rate environment. Well, it is...

Read More
How To Surrender Your AIA Prime Life Special Policy

How To Surrender Your AIA Prime Life Special Policy

Posted by | Jun 24, 2017 | |

Remember that I wrote about surrendering my AIA Prime Life Special policy last year in August? This is a follow up post on that. Quick and easy, I promise! Let’s go back in time for twenty years, and it would be the year 1997. Ignore the glaring red words and focus somewhere near 1997, and it isn’t difficult to note the peak there and then. With 72% allocation in fixed income, it is needless to say that the projections made back then would be pretty tough to achieve. Especially with the prolonged low interest rate environment. Well, it is...

Read More
Unlike Misa Travel, Some Agents Can Prosper!

Unlike Misa Travel, Some Agents Can Prosper!

Posted by | Jun 12, 2017 | |

The recent collapse of Misa Travel has been a nightmare for those who have made bookings with them. The “lucky” ones would have bought travel insurance, which would have covered the cost incurred. Those who paid for their trips via credit cards could probably invoke the credit card charge-back feature to recover their money. Still, the inconvenience as a result of this would still piss many people off. If I were in their shoes, I would wreck havoc. OTAs Are Cheaper? The sweeping statements people make tend to gravitate towards “why would people use brick-and-mortar travel agents when online...

Read More
StashAway Robo-Advisor : You Want To Know More?

StashAway Robo-Advisor : You Want To Know More?

Posted by | Jun 4, 2017 | |

Writing on this blog has continued to amaze me in terms of giving me the opportunity to interact with people who building products that are giving everyone the access to affordable and good investment services. Just a short while ago, I wrote a series of blog posts that shone the spotlight on StashAway, a soon-to-be-launched robo-advisor that is barely a year old – and it has moved at lightning speed. Both interest and questions on StashAway have been mounting fast and furious. Both myself and the folks at StashAway have noticed that some of these questions can be fairly technical in nature, and obviously...

Read More
TURTLE INVESTOR 2016 GIVEAWAY WINNER

TURTLE INVESTOR 2016 GIVEAWAY WINNER

Posted by | May 30, 2017 | |

A short post to congratulate the winner of the Turtle Investor 2016 Annual Giveaway. I know, it took a while to get this out considering it is already at the end of May. You have noooo idea how hard it was to find someone to respond to my email. As I have always said, all subscribers are forever eligible for the Annual Turtle Investor Giveaway contest. But you would first have to, you know. Reply. My. Email. Anyway. I had used a random number generator and slapped it on the entire email subscriber list which contains ‘live’ subscribers all the...

Read More
Would You Invest $250,000 (Or More) Without Doing Homework?

Would You Invest $250,000 (Or More) Without Doing Homework?

Posted by | May 27, 2017 | |

OK – using the word “investing” might not be the most appropriate. With each successive BTO, the papers would go on and on about how certain popular estates are heavily over-subscribed. Heh. Ever wondered what kind of homework did those couples do before deciding on that $250K (or $500K) HDB apartment? I know of some who don’t even bother to physically check out the neighbourhood. I live in Punggol, which is why I’m particularly interested in what’s in store for my neighbourhood and how it would potentially affect the resale prices of HDB apartments in my area. So, how...

Read More
Robo-Advisor StashAway Gets S$3-Million Funding

Robo-Advisor StashAway Gets S$3-Million Funding

Posted by | May 19, 2017 | |

Things are really heating up in the robo-advisor scene in Singapore lately. Just three weeks ago, I mentioned that StashAway had received in-principle approval for our retail fund management license. Today, the team behind StashAway was excited to inform me that StashAway had confirmed that it had secured S$3-million for its pre-series A round. The proceeds from the round, which will close this week, will fulfil MAS’s regulatory capital requirements of S$1-million for StashAway’s retail fund management license (guess I learnt something new today), as well as go towards launching the investment service in Singapore, continually innovating the platform, and...

Read More
What If You Don’t Wake Up Tomorrow?

What If You Don’t Wake Up Tomorrow?

Posted by | May 14, 2017 | |

This blog has always been in a constant state of change. When I first started it, it was intended for myself to keep track of all the index investing resources I encountered and understood, as well as to make sense of it all. Figured I’ll keep everything on a blog since many people would be looking for the exact information like myself. Index investing was far newer and rarer a few years back. People started coming, reading, asking, and sharing. One thing led to another, and I discovered many other Singapore-based finance blogs. Even better, I learnt a great...

Read More
The Battle Of Robo-Advisors (SG Edition)

The Battle Of Robo-Advisors (SG Edition)

Posted by | May 11, 2017 | |

Shortly after I shared the emergence of StashAway, it does look like the battle of the robo-advisors is starting heat up right here in Singapore. First-mover advantage, you say? It has been exactly one year since I have written my first post on Smartly. Since then, I have written more posts, had a beer with Keir, tried out the Smartly beta, and finally it does seem like the clearest indication of a launch date by Smartly is going to be June 2017 as indicated on their Facebook page. On-boarding of first clients should start by then. Keir Veskiväli (Founder...

Read More
StashAway : Robo-Advisor Competitor To Smartly

StashAway : Robo-Advisor Competitor To Smartly

Posted by | Apr 30, 2017 |

Not much of updates from Smartly lately, and I know many people are still patiently waiting. Myself included. The good news for us consumers is that it now has a really strong contender in the form of StashAway. I’ve been monitoring it for a while, and looks like it has received in-principle approval for its Capital Market Services License. While another wait begins for StashAway, at the very least it is a step in the right direction for SG. Like Smartly, StashAway will be aiming to be the first to offer similar robo-advisor investment services to everyone regardless of...

Read More
Gili Lankanfushi : Choosing Your Maldives Resort. And Jetty. And Villa.

Gili Lankanfushi : Choosing Your Maldives Resort. And Jetty. And Villa.

Posted by | Apr 13, 2017 | |

Many moons ago in November 2008, my wife and I experienced our first ever resort stay at Langkawi Lagoon Resort. We didn’t know what to expect, and what resort living is even supposed to be. We bought 5-dollars Malaysian Airlines tickets (excl. taxes) before we even decided where to stay 😉 Beach resorts. Pool villas. Spa suites. We have come really far since then! What better place than the beautiful country of Maldives to conquer next?! For first timers to Maldives, choosing a resort can be a really tough decision! This is especially true if you are not used to...

Read More
On STI, Air Miles And Giveaway Winner

On STI, Air Miles And Giveaway Winner

Posted by | Apr 9, 2017 | , |

The STI ETF has been doing a sideways dance since the first day I started investing in it on 24th December 2012. According to Stocks Cafe (previously SGXCafe), STI ETF has time-weighted returns (including dividends) of 13.2% during the same period. Meh returns? I suppose. I’ve always called myself an index investor, and not a passive investor. Index investing isn’t necessarily passive by nature. If you have a re-balancing strategy, you might have bought more during the early-2016 dip. Your returns might paint a very different story. My favourite image that I keep reposting. As of right now, the SPDR...

Read More

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter