It's been a tradition for me to journal my birthday every year to see where I am coming up short at so I can plan on something to patch up if necessary.

This year is no different and the first thing when I woke up this morning, I was greeted by a lovely birthday kiss cheek from my wife and 2 kids and I quickly realized how much I've grown up to where I am today.

The past years of the edition can be found here:

I took leave from work today so I really enjoyed the morning when I wake up, strolled to the dining table, ate breakfast with my younger boy and just sniffing around what's the real morning aura smells like.

That's when I also took the time to ponder on where I am in terms of the financial independence journey to see what I can come up with on something that falls short.

It's officially 2 years to the countdown to the Grand 35 years old, a goal right from the start of this blog which I had set for myself some 8 years ago. If we count them by days, that's officially 730 days countdown to the wire. I am really excited to see the days getting closer as we prepared and are ready for this very eventful day to come ahead.

Since this is technically a finance blog, the first proper thing to have a quick check is on the finances part.

Last year was a huge milestone as I hit both the $500k and $600k mark as market goes rampant but that means it's going to be a difficult year to replicate such achievement.

At the very same day today of last year, my portfolio managed to end up at the front range of $600k and today a year later I am looking at the tail range of the $600k, which means not much improvement at all this year. Most of the increases are still due to capital injection as my returns are still struggling this year as the Singapore market goes really weak, hence nothing to contribute about.

Still, I am pretty confident that I'll hit $700k by next few months which means I can start to think about the next milestone ahead. The portfolio needs to churn out returns in order to have it boost up to $1m in 2 years time, which is my long term target.


Based on a quick envelope method, that would mean I need $40k/year of capital injection and 15% of returns each year until 2020.

The capital injection would be a lot easier to achieve (assuming I still have a job until then) since there would be dividends and also savings from the job I'm working at.

The returns are another story though and I'll have to think of something to get those kind of returns. The Singapore market has been in rather poor territory so far and it doesn't make things easier.

Then, we went over to the takashimaya to grab a small cake which we celebrated at home.

It was simple yet blissful feeling to have my family celebrating it with me.

The birthday event is probably a good excuse to do more of things like that, and in time to come will hopefully make this a permanent event every single day.

Thanks for reading.