Tag: wealth

Being Micro (Understanding your Portfolio)

On By RistrettzIn Deals, Finance, Personal Finance Series, Promotion, Random, Wealth & HealthLeave a comment

When discussing the portfolio of Financial Planning, it is common to waive it off if you have no interest in it or talk about investments only. Like any broken recorder, the basis of Finance Literacy is fundamental however you dislike it.

Let me put it on a storyboard – As a child or if you have a child, you would want them to learn skills from a young age. (NO! I am not talking about enrichment). Here I am talking about pure survival skills like swimming, psychomotor skills, being literate, learning to drive when you are older, learning simple skills like dealing with disappointment, etc.

Similarly, financial planning is no exception to life skills. Imagining a pyramid, the top layer is not investments but insurance. Meaning risk transfer. Now, skip the boring part of insurance planning. There are a few alternatives to cheaper insurance coverage.

One of them is actually SNACK by Income. Yes, Income Insurance.

Don’t miss out now because there’s a good deal going on at the moment.

The Promotion

Here’s $50 for you to start your investment journey!

All you need to do is:
1. Download the SNACK by Income app (https://income.sg/dl-snack)
2. Enter my referral code “PAU4055” and tap on SIGN UP
3. Complete your SNACK account creation with MyInfo
4. Start SNACK Investment and ensure that you have boosted Investment! (Refer to steps 1-4 here: https://income.sg/si-start)

Get your complimentary $50 investment credits in your portfolio the following week!

Technically, it can be termed as an ILP (Investment Linked Plan) and honestly I am not a big fan of it. But you can exclude the investment option if you don’t wish to. However, for a start, you probably should do the investment portion until you get the signup rewards.

The Limit

I use the personal accident, critical illness and life insurance portion to supplement my current insurance. In any case, there is a maximum that one can be insured and it starts from $0

Life – $200,000 coverage

Accident – $ 100,000 coverage

Critical Illness – $200,000

How it Works

How this micro insurance work is that:

  1. You need to set your lifestyle activities for different classes of insurance coverage and investment (if any). For each activity that is fulfilled, a new policy will be created and added to your total coverage. In this step, you can also set a daily cap so that you don’t spend more than $0.30 (for example) per day.
    • Food & Drinks
    • Transport
    • Retail
    • Groceries
    • Entertainment
    • Utilities
    • Petrol
    • Steps
  2. Then you set your activity source. These are the ones that measure your activities such as step or visa credit card if you spend on certain categories.
    • Apple Health
    • Burpple
    • EZ-link
    • Fitbit
    • Garmin
    • Visa
  3. Then set your weekly cap – This is for the investment cap. Up to one to decide
    • You will need to have your investment objective assessed such as CKA – Customer Knowledge Assessment
    • Risk Profile.

There you go and your SNACK account will be set up for you. That said, you can redeem the fund units anytime and can stop using the insurance app anytime you want.

I get that it takes a while to get used to it but you need some time to get used to it as it is pretty automated.

If there are some brands which interest you, you can also spend and get additional coverage from them as well. Once in a while, they will run some promotional campaigns and you can get additional investment credits. So far, luck has been on my side, I have collected more than a couple of hundred in investment funds terms. Like any insurance, this is pretty efficient for an ILP since I investment directly into a fund I am comfortable with.

Disclaimer

If you decide to sign up with SNACK, do remember to use my referral code: https://income.sg/dl-snack and my referral code PAU4055.

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes for other services at Referral and Recommendations

These pictures were taken off the Endowus website for reference.

A New Service in Town – Goldback on Hugo

On 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.