Mickey is a typical single white-collar Singaporean in his early thirties who works regular hours in a desk job. He plans to retire by the age of 50 and travel the world with his backpack.
He believes that with knowledge and planning, anyone can retire by the age of 50.
Download a FREE 3-step checklist on how you can better manage your salary each month.
This blog article is not sponsored and although I attended the workshop with a free ticket, the contents in this article are purely my own opinion.
After I attended the Seedly Personal Finance Festival, I walked away determined to learn more about investing on my own. When I was given an opportunity to attend a Readers' Investment Workshop conducted by Dawn from SG Budget Babe, I jumped at the opportunity in a heartbeat. I learnt so much from the workshop and walked away with so many actionable items in my notepad.
In my circle of friend, many consider Dawn as a mummy blogger who is great at personal finance. Little did they know, that Dawn is also an expert in investing.
Here's why I find her workshop a godsend for beginner investors like me.
Although the workshop is very heavy with many topics, Dawn explained each topic in great detail. One of the topics that I remembered vividly was how she explained what is ETF.
Most speakers would simply breeze through this topic by using STI ETF as an example of ETFs and move on to the next topic but Dawn spent time to explain the different types of ETFs available in the market and what to look out for when reading about ETFs.
Dawn explained in detail about how the ETF's expense ratio and management fees can impact the ETF's returns. She also touched on how we can understand the ETF's methodology, counters invested and tracking error.
While the above is just an example, Dawn practically did the same level of explanation for all the other types of investments – stocks, bonds, etc. and I was able to pick up new information about each investment vehicle.
Many speakers tend to reuse their case studies, especially when it comes to stock picks and identifying trends.
One thing that Dawn emphasised in planning her workshop was that all the case studies must be up to date and stock picks have to be stocks that her speakers are investing in themselves.
I could see the difference in how enthusiastic Dawn and her speakers spoke about their stock picks and why they chose to invest in those stocks. With skin in the game, they were able to elaborate why their stock picks were worth investing in and the various factors that made the stocks attractive.
Almost all the investment workshops that I've attended so far, the speakers would speak very positively about their investment strategies and why they work. If it were that simple, wouldn't everyone be rich by now, had they followed what the speakers taught?
The truth is, we can learn everything that was taught but that doesn't necessarily mean we will be able to replicate the same success. Dawn was very frank about this in her workshop.
In fact, she openly shared the successes and failures in her investment journey with the audience so that everyone is aware that there's no such thing as a sure-win in investing.
In most investment workshops, I usually walk away with 1-2 pages of notes containing key points shared by the speakers. This is the first workshop where I walked away with 7 pages of notes. Wow!
No I didn't doodle on my notepad. What happened was that the workshop had so many gold nuggets of information that my hands got tired from all that writing.
The presentations were very detailed and there were lots of information to write down. We even got to see the screening criteria used by the speakers to choose their stocks. Dawn even had a few slides dedicated to formulas used to evaluate stocks.
A investment workshop not to be missed.
I wish I could tell you when the next SG Budget Babe investment workshop is going to be and how you can sign up because I got so much value out of it.
But even Dawn doesn't know when she's going to conduct the next workshop.
My recommendation is to subscribe to SG Budget Babe so that you'll be one of the first to know when the next workshop is happening.
My first investment in overseas property and it's in Cambodia!
Disclosure: Some posts may contain affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase, I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you.
Copyright 2019 by Retire by 50.
Get Retirement Tips and Tricks!
Have tips on personal financing, retirement planning and investment tips delivered to your email.