In March I went snowboarding and enjoyed the slow fading out of the gloomy winter season. Finally the first trees start blooming and the mood is getting better. Just like the weather in my current European home country, the markets also bounced back from a frosty December.
Let’s start with my favorite part: Looking at the expenses in March:
March expenses:
| March expenses | |||
| Category | EUR | SGD | USD |
| Travel | -941 | -1439 | -1063 |
| Car | -249 | -381 | -281 |
| Groceries | -211 | -323 | -238 |
| Eating out | -538 | -822 | -608 |
| Business | -145 | -222 | -164 |
| Cleaning & Ironing | -116 | -177 | -131 |
| Eyes, Hair, Health | -32 | -49 | -36 |
| Other | -157 | -240 | -177 |
| Utilities | -192 | -294 | -217 |
| Gifts | -302 | -462 | -341 |
| Entertainment | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Canteen | -44 | -67 | -50 |
| Bars | -58 | -89 | -66 |
| Uber | -175 | -268 | -198 |
| Total | -3160 | -4809 | -3571 |
Still spending too much money. Last year’s average spending was SGD 6,284 per month, so I am making improvements – but too few and too slowly. This year’s average monthly spending for the first quarter: SGD 5,536. It is absurd, given that I do not need to pay for my flat, health care and get meal vouchers from the company.
In my early retirement I plan on living off SGD 4,000 a month. Obviously I need to reduce expenses.
Especially the travel category is way too high.
Portfolio update
Portfolio increased by SGD 9,234 to SGD 355,673 (USD 262,500). Fresh investments of SGD 5,815 and gains of SGD 3,419 contributed.
Investments vs. plan
I invested SGD 5,815 into my portfolio which was less than planned (SGD 6,200). Things will improve in April, but right now I am having a hard time because of exchange rate and uncontrolled spending… So far I am lagging SGD 3,025 behind in my yearly plan.
Dividends received
SGD 19 – it was a small dividend month.
Outlook personal
April will mark the last holiday then I will be on a travel hiatus, doing only short weekend trips by car. I will save my vacation days for the depressive and cold days of November and December.
Own company had a sudden boost of activity in March with a lot of enquiries from potential customers. Hopefully soon I can close the first customer, that would be nice 
So far the company has been only cost.
Just for fun: market “outlook”
I never try and time the market, nobody can know for sure how it will develop. Still, if I had a magic crystal ball I would guess the forecast to look like this:
Gloomy! Markets have gone up so much in the first quarter, even thought the business outlook in my company and companies where friends work has worsened a lot. I feel it might be a good idea to prepare for the next major correction, but hopefully I am wrong!