Quarterly updates, expenses and social media.

For those of you who follow me in my YouTube channel, you would know that something unfortunate happened recently to my father.

So, I expect to have less time for social media.

I have also been told that I would have to be prepared for another $20,000 or so in annual medical expenses for my father.

This revelation came after I had a talk with my mother regarding her medical insurance coverage.

I decided that she should not downgrade her medical insurance coverage as we really don't know if we might be hit by large hospitalization bills in future.

This covers her preference for Class A ward if she should be hospitalized.

I have calculated that if she should be blessed with a long life, her coverage, including a rider, would amount to $20,000 per year from age 99.

Now, it is about half of that but it will increase every 2 years till age 100.

I will be paying for her.

I did an update last year on my expenses about how I need at least $136,000 a year.

Now that I must set aside another $30,000 per year, increasing to $40,000 per year over time, I would need at least $166,000 to $176,000 a year in passive income to cover everything.

I won't have as much surplus money to invest with.

Well, I haven't been doing much investing in recent months apart from parking more money in T-bills.

So, no big deal, I guess.

Then, we also have the recent speech by Alvin Tan in Parliament on financial influencers in Singapore.

They must be licensed and regulated.

See: The Straits Times.

That got me thinking.

Together with all the things which have happened recently in my life, I really don't need more stuff to worry about.

Blogging and, now, YouTube video making, are hobbies to me.

Hobbies must be enjoyable and not make me worry.

I thought of giving up these hobbies but I still enjoy them.

I also like interacting with most of my readers and viewers as I think most of them are nice people and they also understand that I am not giving financial advice.

Unfortunately, doing what I do, it is too easy for my content to be misconstrued.

Like I have said many times before, I am not running a blog or YouTube channel as a business.

If I do them for a living, then, I would not mind the hassle of being licensed and regulated.

At this stage of my life, I just want to have more fun and have less to worry about.

So, what am I going to do?

For my own sanity, I have decided to have a compromise.

I will continue to blog and make YouTube videos but only on a quarterly basis.

This would be for the usual quarterly portfolio updates where I talk about what I have done to my investment portfolio and how it has performed.

This should be pretty safe from being misconstrued as financial advice.

Depending on how things go, this could morph into a bi-monthly or monthly update but that is up in the air for now.

Going to be rather unlikely, I feel.

Why?

With all the additional expenses I am saddling myself with, I doubt there would be much happening on the investment front as I have less surplus cash to invest with.

A bit overwhelming?

No one expected these developments but things happen.

I am sure there are many people who will continue blogging and making YouTube videos in this space.

Money is an important topic, after all.

So, with many more content creators in this space than there were when I started this blog 15 years ago, I am sure my leaving isn't a big deal.

I will end this blog by saying that we should always remember what Warren Buffett said before.

"Never ask barbers if we need a haircut."

Also remember that no one cares more about our money than we do.

If AK can do it, so can you!

Related post:

F.I.R.E. AK still needs $136K yearly.