Looking back, moving forward

A year has passed and I realised that I haven't come to this blog throughout the year! So, for 2017 I will try to write more.

It feels good to come to the end of 2016. There are a few positive things decision that I made that turn out well.

(1) Deciding on getting a new car
My car has reached its final 10 year usage on the beginning of March 2016. As the certificate of entitlement (COE) is very high at about $54,000, I was wondering whether it was worth to get a new car which cost about $113,000. Even after deduction of PARF and discount, it will still be more than my affordability. I remember the night before the COE bidding, I was making a very bold prayer. I told God that if He made the COE to drop by $10K, I will consider getting a new car, if the price is less than $90K+.

The next day, I saw in the internet news that the COE has dropped from $55K+ to $46,300, a drop of almost $10K. OK, so the first prayer was answered. I then prayed that if the car salesman made an offer to me via SMS in the afternoon with a much lowered price, I would contact him. This salesman had sold me 2 previous car and always sent me a birthday card, My contact is still with him. At about 2pm, indeed he sent me a SMS giving me a good price. And so, with 2 timely answered prayers, I was curious to find out exactly how much will be my new Corolla Altis 1.6 be. By the grace of God, I finally got the car at $88K.

Then, I started to reason, the price of the car may continue to drop,  not the work of God. So, I prayed again, telling Him to show me that it was HE who made the price of the car lower just for me. Now that I have gotten the car, I told Him to make the COE and the price of the car to go up, back to the original price of >$100K. Amazingly, God heard me and then the COE move back to $50K+ !!. To confirm that, I told Him to maintain the COE at >$50K+. Looking back through the year, it was only in December that the COE now is moving down to $48K.

Lesson: when praying, believe that GOD is showing you favour and you will get it. Prayer is exciting if you dare to ask and believe.

(2) Writing my devotion
I attended the 4 session on Living the Gospel conducted at RiverLife Church. One of the assignment is that we have to write our reflections on our devotion daily. And so, for the months of August to September, I started to journal my thoughts and reflection, spending my time reading and meditating on the book of Ecclesiastes. Writing my thoughts on Ecclesiastes - The meaning of Life, helps me to see the many facets of life  - time is life; life has its struggles, unfairness, life is relational ... and most of all our duty to God and how to pleases HIM - has helped me to see things in life from a higher, spiritual perspective. Things are much clearer if we can see how the spiritual and the physical are interlink. How the interlink is strengthen and bonded by prayers, by our walk with God, by our dealings with people. Once we understand all these, then living the Christian life takes a new meaning and dimension in life.

(3) Study the Holy Bible
This year Riverlife Church conducted 3 book studies - Luke, Hosea and Malachi. It is good to spend time on personal studies. Everyday, we need to do our assignment and meet to discuss on Tuesday night. And so, time priority must be given to doing assignment as that daily assignment are long and take about an hour a day. The prophetic books like Hosea are more difficult to study, as we need to do a lot of background work.

(4) Exercise & Jogging
I struggled to complete the Standard Chartered Marathon 2016, and the timing was bad. I had to walk that last 12 km and completed in 6 hour 12 min. So, for 2017, I need to develop strength and power. As such during this December 2016, I have started to train with weights and do more faster 10 km run. So far, the progress is good. With weight training, I know feel more power during the 10 km run.
I plan to continue increasing the distance each month. With discipline, I should be able to do the marathon in December 2017 without walking and jog all the way for the 42.195 km.

(5) Learning the stock market
I started to invest in the Singapore Stock market last year, 2015, buying some blue chips in the hope of building up passive income through dividends. However, I realised that by investing through collecting dividends, the stock prices invariably drop drastically. Dividend investing is not the smart way to invest. Dividend investing is only good when there is a market crash and the STI index is at the lowest, and all the stock prices are at multi-year low. In 2015, the stock market is at its highest and so all the stock prices that I bought are also at the near peak.

And so in 2016, I have awaken to see that dividend value is actually dividend trap. I then started to learn about technical analysis and how the market price movement react. Thankfully, I managed to sell off some bad stocks that I bought in 2015 with losses compensated by gain from other stocks. So, overall I manage to survive 2016 with a small profit. But there are still some "bad" stocks that I need to get rid off without making big losses. I hope I can do this in 2017.

Overall, I have learnt a lot about trading the stock market. But I am still a novice and beginner. In trading, one must have courage and a steady mind. Often times, it is the emotion that react first and that is where the losses occur. Trading the stock market is not for the fainthearted. This is the place to truly understand your own character; to see your fear or your greed; to understand how courageous and chicken-heart I am. It also taught me humility. After a few win, I thought I am progressing and felt "pride", only to get shot down when emotion get in the way of reading the chart wrongly.

The stock market is merciless. Only the sharp and alert minds survive. I was slaughtered a few times., to remind me to stay humble. Overall, it was a good year in the stock market. I am still learning and not taking high risk.

And so for 2017 ... I shall be:
(1) Fit,
(2) Financially educated,
(3) Faith growing in the WORD and devotion;
(4) Family focus and
(5) Friendship building.

Blessed New Year 2017 to all

Agape