2026 Aviva/Singlife Annuity payment

 Yay I just received my Aviva/singlife annuity payment for 2026!

2026 Dividend Payouts

JAN

SSB - $70

Total: $70

FEB

Keppel infra - $866

Total: $866

MARCH

SSB div - $176

OUE Reit - $16

Asian Pay - $10

Total: $202

APRIL

DBS div - $324

Total: $324

MAY

Ocbc div - $58

Propnex div - $180

Sheng Shiong - $76

Dbs div - $324

FCT - $122

Total: $760

JULY

SSB div - $70

Chocolate Finance Update

I received a whooping total of $633 interest from my Choc Finance account in April 2026!

This was pretty surprising giving I only received $289 in March last month and $426 in Feb!

Interest rates have been dropping to really low levels these past few months (including my OCBC 360 and Uob One accounts) so its good to see the interest so far I collected from Choc Finance is still decent 😆

2026 Amex Platinum new dining benefit

Omg Amex Plat just launched a new dining benefit program to replace previous dining credits ($100 local dining credits every 6 months) and the new program is soo much better!!

Table For 2 - Platinum Edition

The list of restaurants to choose from is pretty extensive and even includes Colony at Ritz Carlton which is pretty awesome as this is our fav dining buffet place cuz of the extensive seafood spread (oysters, sashimi, snow crab etc)! The buffet price is around $98++ per pax so this is a pretty darn good deal!

Here's what you see when you click into the options and you can pick from lunch or dinner. 

When we first booked, we were able to pick Fri dinner but after that we received the below message:

Dear XX,

Thank you for making your reservation with Colony. 

We are writing to inform you that the time you've selected is not eligible for the Table for Two by Platinum benefit. Eligible dining times are as follows for Colony: 

- Mon-Fri Lunch

- Sat Lunch

- Sun-Thu Dinner

To ensure you enjoy the benefit, we will assist by cancelling your current booking. We kindly request that you make a new reservation for an eligible time directly via the Amex Experiences App.

Thank you for your understanding and look forward to welcoming you soon.

So it looks like we can only chose Sun to Thur for dinner slots.

Will update more details once we go for our first reservation at Colony using the Table for 2 benefit!

CPF interest for 2025

 Once again it's a brand new year and time to do a recap of my CPF savings interest.

For the year of 2025, the total CPF interest deposited in my account on 1 Jan 2026 is $15,094.27!

Similar to previous year, there is also a transfer of funds ($2.9k) from my Medisave account to my SA cuz I reached the Basic Healthcare sum amount. 

My 2026 New Year Resolutions

 1. Cut down on my white coffee ! I hope to be able to switch to drinking it on alternate mornings (though its gonna be tough for me cuz I love my Chek Hup White Coffee soo much 😭😭)

2. Exercise more - go to gym and continue my Chloe Ting & Move with Nicole workouts at home 

3. Read more books

4. Invest more in dividend stocks, continue to build my stock portfolio by adding on more bank stocks (DBS specifically)

2025 Dividends Summary

Now that 2025 is drawing to a close, once again I have done a summary of the dividends received for the last year. I've realised I haven't been very consistent in blogging about this and I need to remember to do so more often moving forward!

I'm pretty happy to say that i have received a grand total of $3,229 of dividends for 2025! That comes up an average monthly div amount of $269.

I'm also very close to my original target to get dividends almost every month! I'm getting dividends about 11 months out of the year, so that's pretty awesome

I was looking back at my old post from 2014 (11 years ago!!) when I mentioned I had received around $1k back then. It was funny how I also had mentioned i wanted to retire by 40 haha! 

I guess now my goalpost has shifted to retire by 50 yrs (i.e not to stop work totally but to achieve FIRE or financial independence) but regardless I'm still determined to stay on track on my target to retire early!

SUMMARY Of 2025 DIVIDEND PAYOUTS

JAN

SSB - $70

FEB

Keppel Infra  - $550

MARCH

Asian Pay Trust - $10

Oue Reit - $15

SSB - $176

Total - $201

APRIL

DBS - $60

MAY

Ocbc - $57

Sheng Shiong - $64

Dbs - $75

Fraser CPT - $122

Total - $318

JUNE

n.a

JULY

SSB - $70

AUG

Keppel Infra - $866

Singtel - $100 

Ocbc - $41

DBS - $75

Sheng Shiong - $64

Total - $1,146

SEP

SSB - $176

Oue Reit - $13

Propnex - $200

Total - $389

NOV

DBS - $180+ $45 = $225

Fraser Centerpoint Trust $118

Total - $343

DEC

Singtel = $82

Total for 2025: $3,229

3rd OCBC fixed coupon note payment

 

2nd OCBC fixed coupon note payment

 

Received my 2nd coupon payment this month on 19th Nov. One step closer to achieving my target passive income of 5k a month so I can retire!!

OCBC FCN investment update

I got my first Fixed Coupon Note payout from my OCBC investment today! 

USS 1.3k - 20 Oct 2025

I put in SGD 200K and I chose 4 stocks - Meta, AMD,Nvdia and Alphabet. The interest payout is around 10% annualised and paid out monthly for a year. Fingers crossed everything will go smoothly for the next 11 months!

The Lash Icon - Combo brows x 2D eyelash extension

Its been a while since I last did my eyebrows (Ombre Misty Brow) at The Lash Icon in 2023 with Syn Min. Since Kelvin wanted to redo his brows (from a bad experience he had with another eyebrow place), I asked him to try out the Lash Icon this time round!

There was a promo for eyelash extensions (top up $50 for classic or $88 for other styles) so I decided to do my lashes as well together.

As you can see from my brows in the left pic, the color has faded quite abit lol. 

I decided to go for the Combo brows this time round  (it was $350 compared to Ombre misty which was $280) and Halona did a great job with drawing the strokes to show me how it would look like. 

I didnt really like the 2D souffle lashes though (still prefer the lash extensions which I did at Nail Hauz previously at Mandarin Gallery which looked more natural and had long and short extensions) but oh well!

Taken right after I was done at Lash Icon

.

My brows were a little red right after but after a short while it faded away and didnt look so bad haha

Kelvin did the Men's HD brows ($480)

Work in progress

 Here's the before and after pic 😆

 

ICL surgery

Did my ICL procedure today!

A month plus ago, I went to Eagle Eye Centre at Royal Square to test whether I was suitable to do ICL. 

My colleague did ICL for both her eyes with Dr Lynn Teo and she had no issues so I was tempted to do it after hearing that haha. I first did my Lasik procedure in my early 20s and i had relatively good vision for about close to 20 years though there was still some residual myopia and astig left.

Howver my vision worsened in the last few years after covid and it got to a point where i couldnt see bus numbers and people faces 😕 I measured my degree at a specs shop at AML and found out it went up to 200 plus for my right eye and 175 for my left eye. I also found out from another friend who also did ICL with her hubby and both had perfect vision so finally I decided to make the plunge to do it too!

I had to do a series of eye tests which took half a day (more than 10 I think!) After that i spoke with Dr Lynn who assured me she had many patients who did ICL post lasik and they had no complications/issues which gave me the added assurance. The only downside was the high price (my friend paid close to 10k for both eyes!). Luckily for my case Dr Lynn said I only needed to do my right eye as the left eye can be left uncorrected so I wouldn't have to wear lao hua glasses. I paid about 4k in the end including the eye tests and surgery.

The day before the ICL, i had to use antibiotics eyedrops 4x a day and on the day itself, I had to arrive the clinic at 8.15am. On the way to the clinic, I had to keep putting the eye drops they instructed me to put every 2 mins intervals so I was very busy with that lol.

Birthday freebies

Hot Tomato 

$10 voucher given during birthday month, I ended up paying only $2.64 for this yummy grilled chicken thigh which came with house salad and pasta!

COMOCLUB 

$100 club21 shopping voucher

Como shambhala birthday gift 

$20 dining treat (can be used to buy pastries from cedric grolet!)

Dior 

Birthday gift from Dior

Chanel

Birthday Gift

Koi

Free medium bubble tea🧋 

Also received other vouchers for free medium drink upgrade and free topping  

Citi Prestige

Free box of macarons

Mr Coconut

Free medium size any drink

Venchi Dark Chocolate Tasting Event

Attended a Venchi Chocolate event organised by Raffles Prestige together with Chloe and we enjoyed the session! 

Tried different levels of Chocolate from 70% to 100% and well my favourite was 70% haha.

Complimentary box of Venchi chocolates ❤️

Como bday vouchers

Ever since the Amex Plat benefits were getting nerfed, i was like oh no cuz one of the perks was the comoclub birthday vouchers which are issued for your birthday (2 weeks before actual date). Last year Kelvin and I got the $200 bday vouchers (which can be used at Club21 or Kids21) each and $40 dining treat at como restaurants (Candlenut, Culina Bistro etc).

Then the news came that comoclub members would no longer get the bday vouchers. Luckily it turned out that those who were members before Jan 25 were still entitled to the vouchers. True enough, i just received my bday vouchers in the como app yesterday! This time i got $100 vouchers cuz you get downgraded to c4 if you don't hit the min spend but hey, I'll take it!

Happy 2025!

Once again it's a brand new year and time to do a recap of my CPF savings interest.

For 2024, the total CPF interest deposited in my account on 1 Jan 2025 is $15,134.26!

There is also a transfer of funds ($3.2k) from my Medisave account to my SA cuz I reached the Basic Healthcare sum amount ($71,500). 

In 2025, the min BRS is $106,500 and the FRS is $213,000. The ERS is $426,000. I have hit the FRS for now but still some gap to hit the ERS + inflation over the years so need to work harder!

Venchi Dark Chocolate Tasting Event

Attended a Venchi Chocolate event organised by Raffles Prestige together with Chloe and we enjoyed the session! 

Tried different levels of Chocolate from 70% to 100% and well my favourite was 70% haha.

Complimentary box of Venchi chocolates ❤️

More freebies!

Marc Jacobs

Lancome

YSL

Guerlain

2024 Dividend Payment Schedule

May 2024:

- Sheng Shiong ($64) - 17 May

July 2024:

- SSB dividends ($66) - 1 July 

Aug 2024:

- Singtel ($79) - 20 Aug

- Keppel Infra Trust ($858) - 13 Aug

- Sheng Shiong ($64) - 30 Aug

My first annuity payout!

Just received a notification from Aviva/SingLife that my first annuity benefit payout will be coming my way soon yay!

I bought this MyLife income plan a few years ago and paid 60K over 3 years. 

From this year onwards - Every year in Aug I will receive around 2.6K+ for the rest of my life and if I decide to surrender my plan, the value of the plan will be worth more than the 60K i put inside previously so sounds like a good deal to me! The amount is not big but hey - baby steps go a long way. I will get there slowly but surely.

This is part of my long term plan to build up my passive income so i can "semi retire" soon by early 50s haha. From the CPF life calculator, I  will receive around 3.5k a month from age 65. For me that it is a modest amount of money which should be sufficient to cover my daily expenses. I'm looking forward to building up my investment portfolio to further help me attain my goal.