A New Service in Town – Goldback on Hugo

On July 22, 2021September 17, 2022 By RistrettzIn Alternative Income, Deals, Personal Finance SeriesLeave a comment

With the internet, news and services get rolled out pretty at a light speed. Recently, the blog community and several other channels (likely paid/sponsored) has seen a new service in town. It isn’t your usual savings or investment account but instead a Goldback account. At at current, it looks really simple at this point in time. I’m not sure what they have in store for future development. (https://onelink.to/hugosave)

Hugo Save or Wealthcare

Savings are made made simpler through the Hugo Save App. How this works is through Roundups – every transaction on the Hugo Platinum Visa Debit Card is rounded up to the nearest dollar. This weekly Roundup savings are then automatically invested into real physical gold via the Hugo Gold Vault.

There are also other options such as:

1. Micro Investments – Grab Invest (Nothing Fancy but also nothing exciting). These have no lock-ins.

2. Micro Insurance – SNACK by Income. They offer small insurance benefits that build up over time. They can be a good source of insurance coverage for freelancers or folks who just came to employment.

3. With Hugo, they focus on savings and what more can they do to provide it as a platform to save eventually rounded into Gold.

a. You sign up with your details here at Hugo: https://www.hugosave.com/, click on the download button.

b. Fill and submit your details. I believe they have a pretty quick turnaround. Meanwhile, you will need a photo of your NRIC and selfie as a check.

c. Within the next business day, you should have your account setup and proceed into the app to get your physical card. This portion takes about 2 weeks minimally to obtain the physical card and start spending.

Each account is provided with an account number and a DBS Swift Code which is safeguarded within DBS Bank. You can load money via FAST to your account at Hugo

c. You can then explore to create moneypots (Savings) and if you spend on your card, there will be a round up function which will complete your micro savings into what they call Goldback.

Features

There are several features on the app:

You can add money pots to create saving goals. (for example – different kid, PS5, new gadget) Take note though that there will not be any interest earned.
Separately, there is a Gold Vault which you can:
1. regularly invest in by setting a monthly date and amount to put into Gold
2. Ad-hoc invest into the Gold account.

The Gold account in the Gold Vault is physical gold allocated against your investments. They are stored in an accredited London Bullion Market Association vault and insured by Lloyds of London.

Some Partnership links

It seems like HugoSave have a couple of partnership links that users can take advantage of:

a. From Circles (Telco): https://bit.ly/HugoXCirclesLife (minimum S$40 payment for 5 bills, get $S20 in staggered Goldback payment) You will need to be a Circles customers I suppose and looks like they have a promotion code to sign up too.

b. From Ohm Energy (Electricity Retailer): https://bit.ly/HugoXOhm (minimum S$40 payment for 5 bills, get $S30 in staggered Goldback payment) You will need to be an Ohm customer I suppose and looks like they have a promotion code to sign up too.

My Personal Thoughts

Pros

Good things first – When i first checked this out, the first thing that came to mind was a structured way to save money. This works for me in terms of setting saving goals for myself and pocket money for my kids.

The idea of roundups came in as a fresh perspective. Putting it into Gold was a little off-putting initially but i figured out that it is a safe haven so no harm to do so.

Next, I eventually thought about freelancers and people who say that they can’t really save every month. This put in to practice what you can really do now. Putting money pots and fix your savings without spending it.

With the increase and new generation into freelance work, this will help people in terms of educating savings. You have a fixed

Cons

I’m just thinking as a devil’s advocate. Should there be more than Gold as an option in this roundup function?

Next up, the physical card took rather long to arrive before I can use it. Perhaps, there can be consideration for spending on the numberless card before it arrives.

Are there any signup perks for customers? Since the objective is driven by savings instead of an interest bearing account. Considering that I can do the same via a Bank app, what is the edge other than purely savings.

Afterall, I’m pretty seasoned in this new app, new services stuff. They spend money to acquire customers, then roll a tight budget to stay sustainable. Nothing wrong in doing so, that’s just entrepreneurship and staying relevant.

Disclaimer

This is not a sponsored post. This is purely my own opinion after using their service and/or products. If you like what you are seeing, do remember to check they out and do your diligence. There is no one size fits all investment strategy.

Now, if what I am sharing does resonates with you, do use my referral codes here at Referral and Recommendations

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes for other services at https://atomic-temporary-178675883.wpcomstaging.com/contact/

The pictures were taken from Hugo Save’s website for this article.

MoneyOwl Performance to date – June 2021

On July 8, 2021September 17, 2022 By RistrettzIn Alternative Income, New Ideas, Robo AdvisorsLeave a comment

I have been investing regularly into my MoneyOwl portfolio monthly for some time now. While the amount is nothing to be shout about. It is just regularly fixing something so that I can save and invest at the same time.

Who is Money Owl?

MoneyOwl is an initative from NTUC Social Enterprise. They are sort of a Robo-advisor coupled with a suite of wealth planning tools such as will writing and insurance solutions. What really attracted me is their rather simple way of investing and using Dimension Funds as part of their portfolio construction. I believed back then I was comparing them versus StashAway. It was only when I found out about Endowus that I went full on robo-advisors.

As a retail investor, you will most likely not be able to access such funds. When the market tanked sometime in Feb 2020, I picked a few Robo-advisor to invest into and look into performance a few months later. Almost 18 months has passed now and I will most likely show some of the performance in my later posts but I must say, by doing nothing much, all advisors reported positive returns as compared to my own stock picking.

June 2021 performance (Since Day One Deposit)

In portfolio terms, it is up +17.77% on 30June 2021 since inception in June 2020. The portfolio size isn’t something great. Just a net deposit of 2,300. I kept the regular investing of $100 per month and it’s looking rather slow. I shall decide if I would want to up that amount soon given that I have quite a bit of commitment in the coming months. June was a stable month at least.

If we look at Time Weighted Returns, it is the more accurate to account of deposit and withdrawals. Again, this returns is just for reference. At the end of the day, what you originally invest in and the final amount will be the absolute profit.

In terms of the portfolio allocation, it is at 60% equities and 40% fixed income and makes up of 4 different funds. Everything will be on Dimensional Funds. I kind of wished that I had a small cap fund in there. But I guess, as long as my main robo has that exposure that would be good as well on an overall basis.

Personally, I like the allocation % because it is just widely diversified for equities and widely disperse in terms of investment grade.

In the details on the profit and loss sheet:

a. The Global Core Equity Fund will be the largest allocation and makes up most of the returns to date and continues to do well.

b. The Emerging Market Large Cap Fund will be the lowest allocation and makes the least of the returns to date. I don’t mind some EM exposure at this point in time.

c. The Global Core Fixed Income Fund will be my main steady income Fund and finally.

d. The Global Short Term Fixed Income Fund will be the last stabiliser in my portfolio.

MoneyOwl fees

A few months ago, MoneyOwl announced that they have lowered their investment advisory fees as well as absorbing the platform fees due to the pandemic.

a. For asset under management S$10,000 and below, there will not be any fees charged through 31 December 2021. This amount will be rebated back in the portfolio. So take note that only Cash investments are eligible for this rebate. The cash management accounts do not have these in place and your total portfolio value has to be above S$50.

b. There is an introduction fee of S$99 which is worth about S$535 for a comprehensive Financial Planning. Money Owl’s advisors will sit down with you to review your portfolio. The review is expected to contain detailed report and recommendations (It is estimated to be around 2 hours). I do think there are some discounts if you use some linked services of sorts such as Ohm Energy (You get a S$20 off)

c. Additionally, they are introducing free financial resilience workshops to focus on cash flow management and debt management. Likely through Webinars and anyone can join in.

It is nice to see that as a partner to our national social enterprise, they are making moves to help Singaporeans. The reduced fees on investments which is one of the key points in long term investments. The more fees you pay, the more it affects your long term goals.

If you would like to give MoneyOwl a try do remember to use my referral code: 1JIC-91CM

Both of us with get S$20 worth of GrabFood Vouchers for every product or service that you sign up so that means that both of us will get up to S$60 worth of GrabFood Vouchers. (Total of 3 services/products)