With a load of Singapore air miles “nerfs” being announced in the past few weeks (UOB Lady’s and DBS Woman’s World to name just a few), it’s hard to find any bright spots in the area of miles cards.

Even more so now, it’s important that we focus on cards that can really help boost our miles-earning potential where possible.

One way of doing that is spending on a credit cards for overseas spend. These cards typically give you a higher rate for overseas spending as you’re also paying a 3.25% to 3.5% fee on top of what the spot currency rate is.

As a result, since you’re effectively “paying” for miles when you spend on a miles credit card overseas, it’s important to ensure you’re paying with a card that is giving you (ideally) 4 miles per dollar.

That might not always be possible (and there are typically caps) but the UOB PRVI miles card actually gives you 3 miles per dollar on spend in Thai Baht, Malaysian Ringgit, Vietnamese Dong, and Indonesian Rupiah.

Given UOB’s Southeast Asian roots, and a strong presence in other countries around the region, they actually introduced this boosted rate for these four currencies only in October 2024.

Typically, overseas spend with the card only gets you 2.4mpd – or 20% less than those four ASEAN currencies now.

The great thing is that the spending on that 3mpd rate is uncapped. So the next time you’re in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, or Indonesia, you can consider using the UOB PRVI card and savings those precious 4mpd caps for other cards.

I’ve always had a genuine passion for simplifying long-term investing for individuals. The ability to grow our future wealth should never be constrained by either our income nor lack of financial knowledge.

Contrary to what most “financial advisors” out there market to us, we don’t need to be super wealthy or have a Finance degree from a top-tier university to be able to invest successfully on our own.

Anyone can do it. That’s why I’m excited to be launching “Investing Made Simple: A DIY Guide to Building Wealth With ETFs” for individuals who want to empower themselves to invest in a much smarter (and cheaper) way than the default in Singapore.

The investment industry here is riddled with vested interests, unjustifiable fees, and poor performance. I aim to help people take control of their own investing destiny through a fun and engaging process of lifelong learning.

In my course, over three 1-hour interactive sessions, I’ll cover: 

Right now, there’s an exclusive 1-week special where you can join the waitlist to get early access and 50% off.

That means early signups can get in first for just $150, 50% off the normal price of $300.

A common question I get asked is “What do I invest in”? And I’ve always said to anyone just starting out, before you put any money to work you need to focus on (and understand) the three big asset classes that grow our wealth; stocks, bonds, and alternatives.

Then, we need to decide how to get access to each. Fortunately, we live in an era where low-cost options like exchange-traded funds (ETFs) exist. They give us instantly-diversified exposure to pretty much any asset we want.

Understanding your risk appetite and investing time horizon will then allow you to appropriately buy an ETF for whatever asset mix suits you.

Remember, buying into European-listed ETFs – also known as UCITS ETFs – is a much more preferable strategy for those of us who as non-US citizens (for tax efficiency and also a preferred dividend withholding tax rate).

So what’s the main “growth” engine of any portfolio? It’s stocks, also known as “equities”. For this, we want to be global and it doesn’t get any better than the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF (LSE: VWRA).

With exposure to over 3,600 stocks globally, and at a total cost of just 0.22% per annum (p.a.), you don’t need to make a bet whether the US market will outperform or underperform other regions. It’s essentially a “stress free” global stocks option.

Next up, bonds. Not exactly getting the pulses racing with the returns but bonds help (technically) dampen any volatility in a portfolio. For this, again we want to be global and, thus, the iShares Core Global Aggregate Bond UCITS ETF (LSE: AGGG) fits the bill.

That’s because it gives investors exposure to over 18,000 global government and corporate investment-grade (IG) bonds. At an expense ratio of just 0.10%, it’s also extremely low-cost.

Finally, alternatives. For me, I’m not talking highly-correlated (and expensive) Private Equity (PE) but instead a commodities allocation via gold.

The best way to play gold (in US Dollars) is the iShares Physical Gold ETC (LSE: IGLN) as it’s a physically-backed gold ETF. That means they actually hold all the gold assets that back up the ETF’s assets under management (AUM), with the gold in this case being stored in London vaults with JPMorgan acting as the custodian.

With a total expense ratio (TER) of just 0.12% p.a., it’s a cheap way to get exposure to the asset class in US Dollars.

If you want exposure to gold in Singapore Dollars, then the SGX-listed SPDR Gold Shares Trust (SGX: GSD) allows that. However, the TER of 0.40% p.a. means it’s a more expensive option.