DBS Be Your Own Boss - A Very Attractive Offer!

I am one of those who have been waiting for the next big crash to come, opting to construct my portfolio with more than 50% cash. Well, sitting on a pile (small one for me) of cash is not the gloomiest situation, but watching them eroding away by inflation day after day is not exactly enjoyable either. For anyone who wish to grow their wealth, keeping cash that generates close to nothing is hardly a palatable proposition.

Thankfully, the banks are competing hard to get our cash parked with them. I've been parking my warchest in UOB ONE and BOC SmartSaver accounts, with the former yielding an average of 2.43% p.a. and the latter, between 1.55% to 3.55%. I was actually quite happy to continue with this arrangement until I chanced upon SGBudgetBabe's post on Be Your On Boss (BYOB) offer by DBS. More details on the product website here.

On first look, BYOB offers interest rates of up to 4% for the next two years if you do the following:

That's simple enough, but do scroll to the bottom of the product page and read through the terms and conditions. Of note, to qualify for this offer, you must be between 18 to 30 years old, and with no salary credit arrangement with POSB/DBS between 1 Sep 2016 and 28 Feb 2017.

Interest Calculation

Being slightly more mathematically-inclined, I was wondering how the interests are calculated. Below is an illustration provided by POSB/DBS on interests calculation:

On first look, it does seem like the interest are not credited and compounded monthly. Upon further investigation, I found out that the "Additional 2% interest" only applies to the original amount credited + interest earned in the preceding month. The "Bonus 2% interest" only applies to the original amount credited into SAYE. This all sounds very confusing, so I tried to reverse engineer the whole calculation process:

I tried various methods of calculating, but I simply couldn't get the exact figures provided by the bank. The above table shows the closest attempt I managed.

If I changed the monthly saving amount to $3000, this is what I get:

A total interest of just over $3000 over 2 years. Neat.

Just to satisfy my curiousity, I wanted to find out what's the equivalent rates if interests are credited and compounded monthly, instead of the convoluted way of calculation that POSB/DBS has decided to use. I've learnt not to trust headline numbers so readily. This is what I found:

An equivalent interest rate of approximately 3.9%. Not too different from the headline numbers, fortunately.

To Sign Up or Not to Sign Up?

Numbers don't lie, and I think this is one of the best places to park your excess cash at the moment. You might lose some liquidity though, since to qualify for 4% (or 3.9%) promotional rate, you are not allowed to make any withdrawals.

On the flipside, at least you know for certain the amount of interest you will get at the end of the 24 months. Neither UOB ONE nor BOC SmartSaver can give you this certainty, since the terms for those accounts can be changed overnight.

Oh oh oh....and if you sign up before 31st Oct, you get an additional $88 as a welcome gift =)

P.S. This is not a sponsored post. My blog is not popular enough for that, so you can be assured that all opinions contained herein are those of mine and mine alone.

On Child-Raising

I just had a minor exchange with my spouse. Though unrelated to personal finance, I felt that the episode and the resulting realizations are worth sharing.

Background

With the arrival of my second child, we moved in to my parents' place as we felt that the maid alone cannot handle both children. We were staying with my in-laws previously, but my mum-in-law didn't want to be at home to help out with the children - she has her own retirement activities. Hence, other than having my wife becoming a stay-home-mum, our only other option is to move in to my parents' place for my mum to help out with the children.

Not-So-Good Relationship Between the Two Dowagers

As with almost all other cases I've heard, my spouse's relationship with my mum leaves much to be desired. The cohabitation started off rather badly, but over time, they learnt to stay out of each other's way and the situation improved - but not quite enough.

The unpleasant exchanges between the two ladies stoked my wife's desire to move back to our own place. We are fortunate to have a trustworthy and capable helper, hence my wife felt that we could leave the kiddos with her at our own home. I don't agree.

Potential Risks of Leaving Our Children with Only the Helper

While I don't proclaim to fully empathize with the unhappiness my wife has to put up with, I feel that the potential downside for moving out is far too great to be worth risking.

First, young children's capacity to learn is beyond the realm of our imagination. By putting them in an environment where there is only one adult (the helper) for most parts of the day, we might be, albeit unintentionally, artificially limiting their learning and growth. There is so much that a growing toddler needs and is able to learn, and nature has helped facilitated this by making them extremely curious and observant. Toddlers are further endowed with the ability to take in information from multiple sources - so many that they themselves might not even be conscious of. Even in the absence of planned, deliberate "teaching", young children are constantly learning, picking up new knowledge and making sense of the world around them. When my wife said she doesn't feel like my mum is teaching the children anything, hence justifying why there is no added value in staying with my parents, I knew she has massively and mistakenly underestimated the amount of learning done by the children through casual interactions with, and observations of the people and happenings around them. The immersive experience of listening in to conversations between adults, observing how adults behave and interact with each other, and sensing emotions under different situations is hard to replicate in a household consisting of only the helper and the two children. a tiny household is more "sterile" and provides less stimulus and learning opportunities for toddlers.

Second, our children will start going to pre-school very soon, and that is when they will start getting exposure to many other things - both good and bad. As toddlers, they will no doubt be excited to talk about their experiences and learning in schools. Staying with my parents means that they will be able to talk to them while my spouse and I are at work. This interaction provides my parents with "teaching moments" to impart correct life values, demystify/clarify misconceptions/misinformation, nudge them in the correct direction if they are going off-course, and finally, discipline them when required. The helper cannot be expected to do the same, and we risk our children becoming self-entitled if their needs and wants are always pandered to by the helper.

Permanent, Irreparable Consequences VS Fleeting, Temporary Unhappiness

The two potential consequences of leaving the children with only the helper are irreversible and permanent. Contrast this with the fleeting and temporary unhappiness that my wife has to put up with for perhaps 2 more years, and the sensible choice to make becomes obvious. Now, I am not saying that our moving out will definitely turn our children into delinquent, self-entitled teenagers - child-raising is never this straightforward - but as parents, we should strive to provide the best environment (not materially) that gives the best chance of nurturing our children into independent, confident, and healthy adults.

Passive Income Update

It has been a while since I last consolidated my passive income. Instead of waiting for the new year, I shall attempt to do a mid- (or more like three-quarter) year review.

The journey towards financial freedom is a long and arduous one, which makes it really easy for me to lose steam and lose sight. I hope that this stock-take of my achievement thus far will put me back on track and provide me with the motivation to push on.

Let's cut to the chase:

9M interest income = $3135.17

9M dividend income = $2839.24

Total passive income for first 9 months of 2017 = $5974.41

This works out to be $663.82 per month.

I need to caveat that the interest income is expense-driven, i.e. by fulfilling credit card spend requirement to qualify for higher interest rates on saving accounts like UOB ONE and BOC SmartSaver. This source of income is not foolhardy. In the event that I lose my job, I will have problem hitting these minimum credit card spend requirements, thus drying up this income stream. 

For dividend income, I must say I haven't been exactly building up my portfolio with high-quality, high-yielding counters. Often, I am tempted to trade, taking profits and trying to buy back lower. Not being able to do this well means that my overall portfolio yield hasn't been fantastic, as oftentimes I will miss the chance to buy-back lower as the counter continues to scale higher prices. Though I am trading much, much lesser now, my self-discipline still has rooms for improvements.

More than 50% of my holdings are in cash now. I will lose sleep and make more emotionally-driven buy/sell decisions if I allocate more to stocks. Holding more cash while markets continue to break new highs gives me peace of mind.