I know I should have posted this earlier, but today’s still January, the first month of the year

My investment Returns.

So, I started investing about 14 months ago. How’s my performance for 2009?
Stocks: Including capital gains and dividends, my stock has produced a great 17% return.
Futures: I’ve net about 10% gain from my trading with futures contract.
Unit Trust: I took out money from my EPF to buy Unit Trust. So far, my UT has produced a 7% returns for me.

Goals for 2009.

1. Save RM65k in CD by Feb 2009. This amount is allocated the down payment for buying property. (Achieved: Feb 2009)

2. Buy insurance by Mar 2009 in anticipation of buying a property in May 2009. (Not achieved. There was a couple of times I participated in auction properties but I was outbid. It is not easy to find a good property with discount even in the midst of an economic recession. I have therefore changed my strategy. Instead of looking for properties with at least 20% discount from their fair value, I am not looking at the cashflow instead. As long as the rental income is able to pay for all the expenses associated with the property, then it’s a buy.)

3. Earn a side income of RM6,000/mth by Apr 2009. (Not achieved.)

4. Buy a property in May 2009. (Not achieved.)

5. Earn a side income of RM8,000/mth by Jul 2009. Quit my job once this threshold is achieved. (Not achieved. Glad I’m still keeping my job)

6. Side income of RM10,000/mth by Oct 2009. (Not achieved.)

7. Trade up the value of my stock portfolio from RM8k to RM16k. (This is debatable. I have unrealised gain of more than 8k. But if strictly referring to “trading”, then I made a trading loss instead of a trading gain.)

Highlights of 2009.

1. Achieved my RmM100,000 networth.

2. Invest in unit trusts using money from EPF.

3. Started trading with futures.

New Goals for 2010.

1. Accumulate my second RM100,000 net worth.

2. Buy a commercial property, ASAP.

3. Side income, target RM1,000 a month, from various sources but excluding the rental income from (2).

I have always thought that savings accounts give higher interest rates to current accounts. A check with my Maybank Kawanku savings account, HSBC basic savings account and JustOne current account revealed a couple of surprises.

Firstly, effective 14th May 2009, Maybank Kawanku has stopped paying interest for deposits below RM10,000. And the highest interest rates start from 0.15% up to 1.00%. See table below.

Secondly, my current account pays higher interest compared to both my savings accounts!

Maybank Kawanku interest rates

My HSBC basic savings account pays a flat interest rate of 0.25% for all amounts.

HSBC basic savings interest rate

My SCB JustOne current account interest rate starts from 0.88% !! And not only that, my deposits also earn Choice Points which can be used to exchange for gifts.

SCB current account interest rates

My current account also earn Choice Points

From now on, I’m going to use my current account as my savings account.

Today, I have reached my first hundred thousand networth. This is of course excluding my retirement fund EPF which I have no control over.

My stock portfolio grew to RM90,890 and I have another RM10,900 in my futures trading account. I’ve invested a total of RM97,000. I have reinvested all my dividends. My investment portfolio value of RM101,790 represents a gain of 4.9% since November 2008 when I first started investing in stocks.

It took me about 3 years for me to reach where I am today. I can still remember the times when I had to tighten my belt to pay off my credit card debt. Then I had set my goals to achieve a networth of RM100,000 by 2010. I have achieved this goal in August 2009, four months before 2010. I have achieved a significant milestone in my life.

Words cannot describe how I feel. It’s a mix of feelings, happiness, relief, some sadness, and lots of hope. I feel happy because I’m on track towards my goal. I feel relief that some expectations I have put on myself have been lifted. I feel some sadness, when I reminisce about my past 3 years and the sacrifices I had to make. But it’s all worth it.  My hope is overflowing because I have proven to myself that my goals are achievable. And my dreams are one step closer to becoming reality.

People say the first hundred thousand is the hardest. The next hundred thousand is much easier. And so will the many hundreds of thousands to come. And I can feel it in my bones that I can achieve the next hundred thousand before end of 2010, even if my take-home-pay plus bonuses for the next 17 months is only RM90,000. Still, I have no doubt that I can achieve my goal. My burning desire and the conviction to achieve my goal will guide and show me new opportunities to financial freedom.

I look forward to my next one hundred thousand.

I was reading a book on personal finance when one line suddenly caught my eye. “Rich people always insist on getting a receipt and checking them.” I couldn’t agree more. Let me share a personal experience.

There was this healthy snack that was on sale. It was cheap and I decided to buy 13 packs of the snack. There were many flavors and so I selected a few flavors. The cashier scanned all the 13 packs. I paid the price as displayed by the cash register.

I was on my way walking out of the store when I scanned the receipt. There were about 7 or 8 packs sold at normal price. I quickly went back to the cashier to highlight the error. The cashier checked with the supervisor and they confirmed that I should have been billed the sale price.

It wasn’t the mistake of the cashier because she scanned all the 13 packs and the price was taken from the IT database. It was the backend support’s oversight for not updating the sale price for all the flavors. Apparently they missed out this flavor when updating the sale price in their database.

Mistakes like this do happen. And this is why it is always a good habit to check your receipts.