Early Retirement SG

Investing is Easy

23/11/2022

There's really only 1 thing to know about investing right?
Buy low, Sell high.

That's it. Simple right?
Now, everyone can do it.

The thing is... the concept is easy. Doing it, isn't.

I have a friend who wanted to get into investing around a year back in 2021.
Everyone was making money. Crypto, S&P, ARKK, etc...

So my friend asked for advice, etc etc.
Now, in 2021, markets were getting toppish. I didn't really want to tell my friend to start in 2021.
But I also know my friend's character. If don't start now, then probably won't ever start.
So I said to pretty much buy some index tracker, and a REIT ETF, and do a monthly DCA and forget about it, and maybe 10-20 years later, the investment would probably grow.
(I am not making any recommendations to any readers on what to buy. Each one has their own objectives. This is just a specific example based on a situation which I have encountered.)

Fast forward 1 year later, 2022. The markets are down, and my friend is thinking of stopping the monthly contributions.

This story isn't new.
For a lot of new "investors", young "investors", etc...
They get interested in "investing" when the times are good. When everyone is making money. Markets are hot.
I wrote about the shoeshine boy here.
Most new "investors" are probably buying high and hoping to sell higher.
Well the perception of "high" is relative to the time frame anyway...

And when things turn south, a lot of these new "investors" get turned off by the losses and walk away.
A lot of them get burned by Clob shares, dot com, the DBS mini bonds, crypto, etc...
And my friend, who didn't get involved in any crypto, also suffered losses enough to reconsider the whole idea of DCA.

It really isn't easy to keep DCA, when you're losing money every month. Even some of the more experienced investors lose faith/hope at times. Don't say a newbie.
The thing is, assuming the asset is a good and stable asset in the long run, DCA works. The investor would get a somewhat average entry price over the long run, and if the investor sells maybe within 10% of the peak of the next cycle, the investor would do pretty well. OR just DCA into retirement, depending on objectives.
DCA works only when the investor actually does the DCA.
I'm not saying DCA is great. DCA is a tool. It depends on objectives and how it's used.

Today's main point is Buy Low Sell High.

The idea is very simple.
When do you think is a good time to buy investments?
When times are good? Or when times are bad?

You're welcome.

The usual disclaimers.
ERSG is not making any recommendations for investing or financial planning for readers.
Don't just take recommendations from jobless bloggers online.
Do your own research.
Everyone has their own objectives, go find a certified financial planner or something.

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64 Comments

Important Traits To Get Thru Life

19/8/2022

1 Comment

Wisdom & Intelligence
A lot of times we talk about how smart people are. IQ... stuff like that.
It's not only intelligence that gets us thru life.
It's a mix of both intelligence and wisdom.
It's like... people can get thru Uni. That's intelligence.
Knowing the answers to questions. That's intelligence.

But wisdom, is knowing to ask the right questions.
The intelligent person may fix an issue.
The wise person would ask, why do you need to fix that issue. Where is the real problem?
No point fixing an issue to the wrong solution.
This is highly related to critical thinking. The ability to look a bit further and dig a bit deeper into any topic.

How many people we know who get thru tertiary education, to end up lost in life?
There are folks who don't study well, but still able to get far in life.
It's not about one or the other.
It's having a good mix of both.

Common Sense
Highly related to IQ and wisdom but yet I feel requires a header for itself.
You want to get to Tampines, you must take EW line on the MRT.
If you take NS line, you'll never get there.
But yet so often we see people who keep doing the wrong thing hoping to get results that don't correlate.
Then they complain and blame everything else, except themselves for being on the wrong path.

To get to your goal/destination/whatever... you need to know where you are, and where you want to go. Then chart your path there.
It's important knowing where you are as well. Cos without knowing what's lacking, what the gap is, then it's not possible to chart the path.

And sometimes, there's folks who have illogical thinking... Absolutely no common sense.
They just have no idea that taking the NS line will not bring them to Tampines.
They do things which they believe will get them to their goal. Except it is the wrong thing, but they don't know that it's wrong.
As unbelievable as it sounds, these people exist. They want something. They try to get it. They do all kinds of weird things to try to get it. As an outsider, one may wonder, what they are trying to do, cos it doesn't make sense cos you know the stuff this person does won't lead to their goal. But yet this person doesn't know, doesn't recognize that they are doing things which doesn't get them closer to their goal.

Hard Work & Perseverance
Once again. It's not one or the other.
It's having a good mix of both.
Life is a marathon. There's a good number of decades.
No point burn out too early.

Work 5 years after graduation, burn out, stressed, depressed, etc... no point.
But staying in a lum nua job, no career prospects... well... someone's gotta do the job. If that makes you happy that's fine. But if want to earn more, then one has to find better jobs, harder jobs, etc...

It's like you're a mage class, but low on MP.
Cast one powerful spell then no more MP and cannot cast anymore spells.
Or you're a mage class with high MP but only learn low level spells.
Can cast a lot of spells but the damage is low.
It's a balance. Need to have good enough MP and strong enough spells.

Discipline & Focus
I also think this is highly related to perseverance.
And yet, I feel it's somewhat different.
To make yourself do things that isn't natural, that you don't really want to do and to keep doing it.
Like the discipline to eat less, cut sugar, exercise.
Spend less, save more. Discipline to sleep early, or study/read for an hour everyday, and to keep doing it.

And not get distracted by other things. That requires focus.
I never realized that focus is actually quite rare. After chatting with more people around me, I realize people get distracted a lot. They do something then their mind wanders. Or they try to do something, then something else crops up and they do something else, but then after that they don't quickly return to the first thing they were doing. They forget what they were doing and they just do other random activity.
May get worse for future generations, cos of all the short vids which are so popular these days.
It may raise a generation of folks who can't hold attention for more than a couple of minutes.

Earn & Save & Invest
Come on... it's all 3 right?
Let's not kid ourselves.
U strike lottery, don't save and invest, there's nothing left.
If you can't earn much, how to save?
If you can't save, how to invest?
As much as I get a lot of stuff free, I also recognize that there's an accumulation phase and an investing phase.
It's a balance of them all. Of course those who earn more MAY have an easier time saving.
MAY, cos if they earn more, but have an expensive lifestyle, they may save more, but their savings are meagre in proportion to their spending.
Someone who earns $100k, and saves $10k, vs someone who earns $10k and saves $5k...
The higher earner would have a hard time trying to save for retirement if his lifestyle is expensive.

And as easy it is to say these 3 words, earn, save, invest...
They are an accumulation of the traits which I mentioned above.
Intelligence, wisdom, common sense, hard work, perseverance, discipline, focus.
There are probably other traits which are important which I haven't listed.
And the thing is, it's not just one or the other, we need a good balance of them all to navigate through life.

It's like looking for the best wonton mee. There is none. There are a bunch of wonton mees that are better than others.
So there's no best trait or skill or most important skill to get you through life. There are a bunch of skills and characteristics which are generally important and the whole bunch of them will help get you through life.

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1 Comment

Weathering the Storm

18/7/2022

0 Comments

Hi, being invested in the market means a need to stomach some kind of volatility right? What do you reckon is a good mindset and/or strategy to sit through a downturn like this? Or, concretely, how do you manage your own portfolio? Thank you.
-FY

Reader FY commented in my previous post.
It's a worthy question.
The thing is... I haven't written much or thought much about this cos... well, I don't think it's a big deal.
But... it is a big deal for a lot of people and I should write about it.

For me, I've watched the markets crash in 1998 during the Asian financial crisis.
2008, the Global Financial crisis.
2019, COVID crisis.
They all recovered. So for me, it's pretty much been there, done that.
Of course it's no fun looking at my portfolio which is down maybe 15-20% or maybe even 40%.
But life goes on. Depending on the type of investments invested in.

Some investments won't ever recover. Some will.
What was your intention when you made those investments?
What were the principles behind that investment?
If you buy good companies which provide good services to people, the companies will generally survive downturns and recover.
Whether they do better or worse than the general market or benchmark is a different matter.
During good times, people post how good their investments do vs their benchmarks.
During bad times, people are just hoping that their investments stay solvent, and can recover.

Good stable companies will most likely recover and continue to do well and continue to provide services 10-20-30 years down the road.
And my own portfolio is pretty much structured in this way.
Of course still no fun looking at a reduced portfolio size.
I've put my money in (what I feel) are long term stocks. If I look at a 10 year, 20 year horizon, the next 6 months or 1 year... it's just a blip. I just don't read so much financial news, go out as per normal, I don't lose any sleep over it.
If you/I read the doom and gloom news, I read it once last week, stress, read it again the next day, stress, then the following day, stress...
There's no end of doom and gloom news. That's how the financial world works. For the whole down period, there will be bad news and "world coming to an end" articles every single day.
But in a long horizon, it's just 1 chapter in a 20-30 chapter book.

I liken investments to starting a BBQ fire.
A lot of people don't know how to start a fire at the BBQ pit.
A lot of people that I've seen... they put the starter, add the charcoal, light the starter, then fan it too early, then blow out the fire.
When actually, starting a BBQ fire is really easy.
Put the starter, stack the charcoal well, light the starter, and walk away and do other things.
The charcoal will take time to heat up, let time pass. Go and do other things, like prep the food, talk to friends, whatever. When the time is ready, then scatter the red hot charcoal and fan it and watch it burst into flames.

Assuming that you've stacked the charcoal well and placed the starter in the right places...
So during this time of downturn...
Just... go do something else and let the starter and charcoal heat up.

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The Best Investment in Times of Inflation?

14/7/2022

2 Comments

This post is not meant to be investment advice.
It's just... well... stuff to think about.

So we've read a lot during our financial research and school and all that...
Stuff that's inflation protected... Or to hedge against inflation.
Yea... sure...

Gold?
Bitcoin?
Stocks?
Bonds?

Yea... all dropping and essentially most people who bought in the past 6 months or so has lost money.

And then... what people say you should stay out of during inflationary times...
Cash... The only winner.

So prices of stuff rise... commodities, etc... so there's some loss in spending power when holding cash...
BUT... sure beats actually losing money when compared to putting money in other assets listed above. Double whammy, lose money and the remaining money is also eroded by loss in spending power.

Maybe the aunties who run around from bank to bank searching for the best FD rates were on to something.

Just stuff to think about...

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The Shoeshine Boy

17/6/2022

3 Comments

It's been a long time since I posted.
Just felt like it cos... well it's a worthy time to post something.

A lot of seasoned investors know of the story of the shoeshine boy...
Legend has it that...

The story took place in 1929 : Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy, Sr. JFK's father, claimed that he knew it was time to get out of the stock market when he got investment tips from a shoeshine boy. On that moment Joe Kennedy had the intuition that we were at the end of the bull market and subsequently he decided to short the market and became .. multi-millionaire !
Ever since, the shoeshine boy has been the metaphor for "time to get out"; for the end of the mania phase in which everyone, even the shoeshine boy, wants in.

https://www.4investors.eu/post/the-shoeshine-boy-indicator

And so... I saw this maybe 6-12 months back...
People who shouldn't be talking about markets, crypto, NFT, etc...
Well... people who shouldn't be doing these stuff, were starting to get their hands into these stuff.
Aunties, here and there, the teens on the MRT, the ah beng neighbour, etc...
And I was like... ok it's about time.

I didn't sell down. In fact I'm still fully invested.
As a long term investor, I need to be able to sit through most of these ups and downs.
I did however switch out some of my iffy stocks for stocks which I felt would weather the downturn and recover well.
So I'm pretty comfortable with my current portfolio.
It's down by around 15% from the high watermark or "all time high".
I'm still up around 15% from what I've put in.
Of course not shiok to see the numbers down from ATH, but life goes on.
We don't live in a world where stocks always go up.

The thing I've learnt or seen these few months or years...
A lot of people love Warren Buffet, a lot of people talk about long term, or "value" investing.
Everyone feels they are a value investor. Else why would they buy anything, cos well, they feel there's value in what they bought.
The thing is... in the view of WB, gold, has little value. It doesn't do anything except sit around. It doesn't provide utility in a sense...
Similarly, crypto, at this point, isn't there yet. Blockchain tech will probably be used some time in the future. But it's not there yet.
That's not to say people didn't make money from crypto. There's been folks who made a lot, there's been folks who lost a lot.
But let's not get this wrong. There's no "value" investing going on in the world of crypto, yet.
You can tell yourself what you want. It is what it is.
I did get a toe wet in crypto, despite not being a fan. That "portfolio" is down 75%.

Other updates on my own life
I got myself back into the food rescue community. So food is once again free for me since I got back from overseas.
My wife takes Grab or other private hires a lot to and from work and when we visit our parents.
It was a deal between us, my wife wanted to get a car, I didn't want it. So the compromise was for us to use private hire as a casual form of travel. We do take public transport if the location is convenient and not too far away. Average spend is close to $600 on private hire transport per month.
We're trying to make it a point to increase our spending on consumer discretionary. The idea to "live it up a little". We thought it would be a good idea to "splurge" a bit every month.
This has proven a little challenging as we hardly have stuff which we tend to splurge on.
Our main interest is eating, but we eat at home a lot as food is free, and on weekends we visit our parents so we also hardly eat out on weekends.
We recognize that we aren't young anymore and eating out too much isn't really good for our health and waistline.
We hardly buy merchandize, or stuff, simply because we have no need for it.
So it's been quite hard for us to push another $400-$500 in discretionary spending. Also some of the places we used to visit raised their prices and reduced their items, so we feel the "value" isn't there anymore.

Essentially, life has pretty much been cruising along. There's some level of routine, going out with friends, going out with my wife, going to visit parents, some days are spent doing "nothing", research, reading.

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3 Comments

My Weight Loss Journey

6/4/2022

29 Comments

So I started my weight loss journey on 5th March with a starting weight of 82+ kg.
On 3rd Apr, my weight was 72.2 kg.
29 days of effort.
It's not over yet, I'm aiming to be under 70kg, but I'm tapering it down the weight loss will be slower and I'm starting to eat more. This is intentional. Just part of the plan.

During this past month, there's been many comments.
Why you need to diet?
You're not fat.
Why don't you try doing <insert suggestion>.

And pretty much, most people are just finding topics to talk about.
Unfortunately this tends to annoy me. Cos... well... I'm HUNGRY.
And these kinds of talk during this period is just annoying.
I mean like... HELLO!!! This journey is hard enough as it is without some weird comments, and me having to justify why I need/want to lose weight or why I don't want to eat.

I've had I think 4? Maybe 5 weight loss phases in my life.
All done in similar style and similar time frames. This time being the fastest I've ever accomplished it.
I've done a lot of reading about diets, metabolism, insulin control, exercise, etc.
And for me, it's been a sufficiently safe journey. I don't claim to be an expert on overall weight loss.
I do claim to know what works for my body and my own personal weight loss goals.

Typically these comments come from older folk. It's those aunties that come up with weird comments.
Younger folk tend to understand about physical appearance, health, diet, exercise, whatever.
Younger folk tend to not bother too much and just leave me alone.
And the worst thing is... these older folk or folks providing "ideas"... Haven't dieted or embarked on a weight loss journey for even a day in their lives, they haven't done any reading on the subject or had any interest in a healthier lifestyle.
I think younger folk get it. Most have tried to lose weight, or embarked on some program.

There really isn't much secret to weight loss.
Same as there isn't much secret to getting wealthier.
Just spend less, earn more and invest.
Similarly for weight loss, just eat less and exercise more.

No it's not easy.
It requires focus, commitment and sheer will.
Learnt some new techniques along this journey...
And I haven't even finished the cucumbers I bought... It's been pickled. So they will last for some time.

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29 Comments

What Are You Willing To Give Up To Get What You Want?

10/3/2022

38 Comments

I suppose this sentence spins in many ways.

How much are you willing to give up to get what you want?
How much do you want something is proportional to what you are willing to give up to get it.
How much you are willing to sacrifice determines how much you want something.

So today, I'm on day 6 out of my approximately 90 day weight loss plan.
The story started 7 days ago. I had lunch with a friend and my wife. I ate my share and some of my wife's leftovers, and some of my friend's leftovers.
Then I shared a bubble tea with my wife.
Then for dinner I went to a friend's house for steamboat, and ate a lot.
Then I shared another bubble tea with my wife.
Then we went with my friend to go eat waffles and ice cream and I shared it with my wife.

Now, of course my wife eats less than me. That's why I tend to finish her share. So she somewhat manages to maintain her weight quite well.
As for me, I've been on a slow upward trajectory throughout the years.
It's normal for me. I go through similar boom bust cycles as the markets.
I haven't been putting on much weight recently. I tend to have a certain weight range and I hoover +/-2 kg around that for the past number of years, even throughout my days overseas.
But of course, I've been slimmer.

So as I lay in bed that night after the day of feasting, unable to sleep cos of all the dong ding oolong I've consumed for the day, I suddenly felt this tinge of loser-ness. I felt terrible for eating so much and being at my current weight. So I decided that I would start my diet plan the next day.
And I would do what I normally do. Cut calories and do some reasonable exercise.
I won't go into details cos... I've posted about it before and it's quite extreme so it's not recommended.

I go through this weight loss plan every 10 years or so, I lose maybe 8-12 kg, within 3 months, then after that I get back to my normal eating life, I slowly gain weight back for the next 5 years or so, then I maintain at my current weight for the next couple of years, then I feel bad about it, then I go on another weight loss regime.

Due to the calorie cut, I'm always hungry. Before the diet plan, I eat pretty regularly, snacks, supper, etc.
So now I don't allow myself the excess, and my meals are significantly smaller, so I'm hungry maybe an hour after my meals.
So I did some research about low calorie snacks, in the hopes of being able to snack in between the day so that I wouldn't have to suffer so much until my next meal.
Essentially, the best snacks came down to vegetables with a lot of water content, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, celery.
I would have gone for tomatoes cos I like them more, but it's inefficient. They don't keep for very long and so I can't buy them in bulk, and I can't really preserve them in any easy way.
I absolutely hate celery so... not going down that route.
I came down to cucumbers. I don't love cucumbers, I eat them with my chicken rice, but I don't proactively buy them to eat them... well, too bad for me, sacrifices have to be made.
Anyway, basically, I bought a bunch of cucumbers and pickled them. So in a couple of hours or days, I will have a low calorie snack to munch on.

The thing is, if I analyze my whole weight journey throughout the years, this is the route I'm willing to accept.
There's folks who love to exercise. I don't.
There's folks who don't really like to eat. I love my food and want to eat as and when I want.
So there's folks who tell me why don't I moderate my daily consumption and exercise then I can maintain my weight over many years.
The thing is, this is what I'm willing to do with regards to my weight.
I don't want to restrict myself on a regular basis. I like to gorge some days, drink bubble tea or ice cream as and when I feel like it.
And then every decade or so, I go down this 3 month weight loss regime to reset.

And this goes for many things in life.
Financial wealth is similar.
It's easier for me, cos I don't have an inclination to spend. I don't like spending.
But I've come to realize that that's not the case for most people. People like to spend. They want things. They want to buy stuff, go out, eat, have experiences, upgrade their stuff, look for the next fun thing to do.
And... just cos I don't like doing such things, (or maybe I do, except that I don't like spending more than I like doing these stuffs), I think... I can now better understand these folks.
Cos as much as I would rather eat and gain weight for 10 years, then go on a crash weight loss plan, some people would just rather spend now and plan for their lives later.
It's just the system that they are willing to accept.

And if they really want to turn their financial well being around, then they have to work out something that's against what they are inclined to do.
And similarly, since I want to lose some weight, I also need to work out something that's against what I'm inclined to do.

Same goes for learning a new skill, language, etc.
Are you willing to put in the hours and sacrifice to get what you want? If something doesn't work, try something else, adapt, learn from others, research, etc?
If not then probably, you just don't want it enough.

Some people are born smarter, richer, fitter. But that doesn't mean we can't get to a high level of competency in what we want to do.
For most of us, life is about the choices we make, the sacrifices, hard work and drive we have to get what we want, health, wealth, happiness, etc.
And I suppose, if we want it bad enough, we will try all sorts of ways to get it.

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38 Comments

I Don't Own My HDB, And I'm OK With That

18/1/2022

5 Comments

I've written about HDB 99 year LEASE a couple of times.
https://earlyretirementsg.weebly.com/blog/the-99yr-hdb-lease-time-bomb
https://earlyretirementsg.weebly.com/blog/what-it-really-means-when-you-buy-your-hdb
https://earlyretirementsg.weebly.com/blog/why-is-it-so-hard-to-understand-99-year-lease

https://earlyretirementsg.weebly.com/blog/are-99-year-properties-good-investments
Note: LEASE is in caps... cos... LEASE is LEASE. You don't own it. Tell yourself whatever you want.

Anyway, I've accepted that I don't own my HDB.
And I'm ok with that.
For the past 2.5 years when I've been out of the country, I've been renting.
I don't know how much the rental was in Paris, cos the company handled it.
But in US, the apartment cost me US$1,830 every month.

I signed a 99 year lease contract with HDB to rent this place at Dawson for S$45x,000. I forgot the exact price I had to pay for the BTO.
This works out to be around S$400 per month using straight line depreciation.
(Not counting bank loan and interest.)

Current price for a similar unit in the block I stay is around S$820,000.
So even if I take over someone's remaining 93 year lease from within the same block, it works out to be under S$750 per month.
*Notice how I phrased it ;)

For a first world country, we are paying some really cheap rentals.
Sure, it's not a condo, but it's not shabby either. Most of us have a park/playground near where we stay, we have coffeeshops nearby, easy access to food and amenities.

This low rent is of course only available cos we're paying bulk prices for a long term contract.
Current market rent for an HDB is maybe S$1,500 per month. Which is starting to be pretty expensive.

The thing is, we/I always have a choice.
I can move to a freehold property, and yet I choose not to.
There are some cheaper freehold properties in some ulu places. Not great location but it's still freehold.

I like the idea of "fully paying" my rent for the rest of my life. So that I don't have to worry about having a roof over my head.
Yes, from an investing point of view, it's not the brightest idea.
But from a stress and mental point of view, I feel it's the direction for us.
My wife can leave her job anytime she wants cos there's no loan.
I don't want to have a situation where we're sitting on a loan and my wife isn't free to move as and when she wishes, and if markets turn bad, I end up with a situation where I have a loan and my investments aren't doing well enough to easily pay off the loan.
Wrote about this here.
https://earlyretirementsg.weebly.com/blog/defending-your-position

The thing is... well... I've come to be more ok with not owning my HDB and that it's just a long term lease. Rental at S$500 per month, or S$700 per month. That's already a steal.
Furthermore, I could easily transfer the remaining lease of my current place to someone else and take over the lease of a place on the east side and nearer to our parents and we would likely get a bigger HDB and even get some money back.

Bulk purchase of long term rent really isn't that bad if you think about it from an expense point of view.

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5 Comments

How Much Do You Trust Experience?

7/1/2022

20 Comments

Ok...
So... Let's say you know an old guy.
He's old, he's a billionaire, he's experienced in investing and has a good track record.
And he says that XYZ stock is a good investment.
He puts money where his mouth is and makes large investments on this stock.

What do you do?

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20 Comments

Zero Value Items (Part 2)

31/12/2021

2 Comments

Long time ago, I wrote a post on this topic.
https://earlyretirementsg.weebly.com/blog/zero-value-items

I recently returned back to Singapore mid Dec and have been packing up my place at Queenstown.
After 2+ years living overseas without all my stuff, it becomes very apparent, what I need, and what I don't need.
Also, a lot of the stuff I have at my place have grown old, dusty, a bit moldy, cos they have not been used/touched in 2 years.

There are a lot of items which we/I deemed useful, valuable.
But in the end, it's really considered a zero value item.

What I would call a zero value item is... well, it's just sitting there being a dead weight. It does nothing.
I might have bought it for $200 but now, it's not being used. I might THINK that it's still worth $200 cos of anchoring, but really it's now zero value, cos there's no utility from this item/items.

And after 2 years, I come back and I see some leather items get moldy and hard to clean, and I throw them away, or some leather cracked, etc etc...
I had a leather wallet, received as a gift couple years back, but at that time my existing wallet was still moderately used, so I didn't switch out. Then after 2 year, I come back wanting to change my old wallet to the new one... The new one was now moldy and we couldn't get the mold out, so had to just dispose it.
Luckily I had another new wallet which I could clean up and switch to this new one.

So note to self: If someone gives a new wallet, belt, etc... to use the new wallet, belt, and maybe keep the old one as a spare, or even sell the old one. If the old one becomes moldy and needs to throw after a few years, at least not so heart pain.

So we decided to go on Carousell and drop off stuff for real cheap.
I'm talking 10-15% of retail prices.
The thing is, I want to just dispose the zero value items and get some money back. Better than nothing back.
I'm not even going to use the items anymore. There's even a "cost" to maintain the items, cos it takes up space and needs cleaning after every couple of years.

So we've sold our TV for $40, still in good working condition, no dead pixels, but we haven't used a TV in 2.5 years, and our TV is just taking up space in the living room.
We sold a spare vacuum cleaner for $40, good as new, hardly used.
Sold some perfume which we received as gifts, cos... we don't use it and it's just sitting around.
Sold a Kate Spade bag, bought at $200+, sold at $25.
Other items still listed and waiting to be sold.

It might seem like a waste, cos IF we want to buy these things back, it would cost way way more.
However, for us, as we've been out of the country for so long, we pretty much know that we won't use these stuff. Even if we need them in future, if we don't use them often, these items might be spoilt and we'll need to throw and buy new ones.

But most likely for bags, wallet, a lot of personal accessories, we don't go back and use the old ones.
Like my wife has a couple of bags she likes to use. She had other bags last time, and they are just sitting in the cupboard. Maybe she might change out of her existing bags, then those bags will end up sitting in the cupboard and she will use the new "current" bags. She won't go back to them anymore.
She may think, "Oh, next time still can use." But more often than not, she won't.
And we've come to recognize this.

I've also been disposing old clothes that don't fit...
I have loads of clothes from when I was younger and I was slimmer. Ok I'm hoping to fit into them again... but I think... I'll dispose them first, then next time when... IF I lose weight, then I'll think of what to do when that happens.

Of course I won't be disposing some stuff that I seldom use but are important. Like my tool box, or spare LED panels for my lights.

The thing is, at least for us, we've realized how little we need to feel comfortable due to our 2 years out of the country.
We've pretty much been living out of the stuff which could fit into a couple of boxes... and we're ok with that. There are some comforts being back at my own place. I have more cooking equipment and other clothes which I like to use.

However, the learning lesson is pretty much... there's a good amount of stuff we don't really need or use. And it's really zero value. Cos it's just sitting around. And it's time to let them go, even though we bought them at an expensive price, it's no longer worth that amount and getting a couple of bucks from selling it, well, that's pretty worth it.
Note: I make sure that the sale is at my block lift lobby. It's not worth for me to travel to anywhere to close the deal. So I don't care if they are late or don't turn up. Selling on Carousell also has it's issues cos of no-show, or late folks. But that's a different story.

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Important Traits To Get Thru Life

Weathering the Storm

The Best Investment in Times of Inflation?

The Shoeshine Boy

My Weight Loss Journey

What Are You Willing To Give Up To Get What You Want?

I Don't Own My HDB, And I'm OK With That

How Much Do You Trust Experience?

Zero Value Items (Part 2)

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