When I was still a student, I had report cards to record my learning progress every year or every semester. They were used to show my academic performance in school. They were important since they allowed me to know what subjects I need to focus more effort on to improve and what subjects I did well in. They helped me to get better results. As the conventional wisdom goes: If I had good academic records, I had better choices for schools to further study and after graduating, it could help me get a better job and live a better life.

Once I ended my student life and started working, I find that in order to live a comfortable life, I need to be financially healthy. It does not matter how well my academic records were. They become not relevant. To that end, I need to monitor my financial situation. I need financial report cards so that I am aware of my financial situation and know the areas to improve.

This is what I learn from Robert Kiyosaki. So how are my financial records for this year?

I have been working with my current employer for almost 2 years now (20 months to be exact). From the records that I keep, I am able to maintain a 74.5 % saving rate for the whole year 2013. That is very high percentage as far as I know since I don’t have a car to feed, no family to support and live very frugally (main expenses are for food, rent and air tickets). A penny saved, is a penny gained. I don’t know how long I can continue with that rate of saving. But I think I am already used to live below the means and spend a lot less than what I earn. So the probability to continue the way I live is high 🙂 unless situation changes (unknown).

Apart from my job as my main source of income, I try to invest in stock market as a way to increase my net worth starting in May this year.

The table below shows the current states (unrealized gain/loss in %) of one of my stock broking account:

Yes. I bought a lot of stocks. 🙂 As long as I find that a company is worth buying, I just buy and keep. All of them pay decent dividends.

The highest gainer has gained +65.385 % while the worst performer is losing -17.703 %.

However, overall, considering the total amount that I invested in the stock account, let’s call it stock account 1, the total return is around +2.6 % (since May).

As for my another stock account, let’s call it stock account 2 (yes I opened 2 stock accounts at 2 different brokers), which I started to invest since November, the total return is about -3.9 % (too bad).

Take into account the market value from both stock account 1 and 2, and also including the dividend returns, my net worth from stock investing increases +1.8 %. Not bad for a beginner (at least I think so). My expectation is that my investment returns could at least beat the FD (fixed deposit) returns.

Finally, my 2014 plans will be to see all my investments to move into green zone and see my dividend incomes grow indefinitely. Hehe.

Total dividend income for 2013: RM 799.51.