StashAway 2021 Review — Investing For Beginners
How much did I make? Revealing my 2020 earnings with StashAway Investing Platform after 1 year of investing.
In a blink of an eye, I’m celebrating my first anniversary investing with StashAway!
It has been a crazy 2020. Since many of us are financially affected due to the economic shutdown, I find that more people are learning how to properly manage money. That’s true, at least for me. I have learned a lot about being prudent with my finances and exploring ways to make my money work for me!
With bank’s interest rates dropping to almost zero, many of us are looking for opportunities to optimize our money better. We want to get better returns with our hard-earned money.
StashAway is a wealth management platform where you can invest your money. It offers a safe and fuss-free way for beginners to explore investing in other financial securities (such as stocks, bonds).
I hope that by sharing my journey, you can decide whether StashAway can be a good platform for you. If you have not started investing with your savings, StashAway is a good way to dip your toes into the realm of securities investing.
Let’s review my 1-year journey with StashAway and discuss on 2021 financial plans!
TL;DR,
I started investing with StashAway in 2020, exactly one year ago.
Today, I have invested S$38,550 in StashAway, and my current portfolio value is $38,876.13. I have gained S$325.13. Previously during Mar’2020 lows, I have lost -$2,484.95. I never sold and continue investing with StashAway.
Most of my gains are from StashAway Simple. Which offers the least risk and the most returns for 2020. I compared the various performance between StashAway Income, General Investing, and Simple.
If you would like to try out StashAway, both of us can get up to SGD10,000 managed for free for 6 months by using my referral link.
My Thoughts After 1 Year
After using StashAway for a year, I find that it’s an easy platform for beginners. It’s a place to park your money and forget about it. For me, I treat Stashaway like my bank account, as the current bank’s deposit rate is pretty crappy.
Here are my returns for 1 year of investing with StashAway. With S$38,550 invested, I have gained $325.13. Depending on how you calculate the returns over time, I take it that I’m getting less than 1% returns.
Decent, not ideal.
But better than losing money…
As you can see, March 2020 was the crash, and I have invested heavily in Jan and Feb. I regret that I didn’t dollar-cost average instead of investing a large sum upfront. By dollar-cost averaging, I could be better positioned to take advantage of the cheaper prices and buy low.
I invested one large chunk of money (about S$20,000) just before March lows. Added another chunk of money sometime during July and August, mostly to StashAway Simple account. In the later part of 2020, I dialed back from investing chunks of money and just added in S$500 every month. As this money is transferred from my bank account, I think it’s pretty decent as I would have probably can get the same amount from a bank’s interest.
Let’s look at the various portfolio breakdowns.
Income Investment
Income focuses mostly on Singapore securities(74%), while the smaller percentage are equities in other parts of Asia and Australia. Bonds (54%) and REITs (35%) hold larger weightage and a small portion in Singapore equities(10%).
Since STI has -12.5% returns for 1 year. I would say that this investment portfolio is generally okay as there are no losses (phew…). As you can see, in April, the portfolio took a significant drop.
Both STI and REITS have not recovered and are still down. So I’m glad that StashAway Income ended on a positive note.
General Investing
This portfolio invests in global equities; hence it’s quite diverse. The risk index I have selected is 12%. I have dollar cost average into this account, and so far, the returns are about 1.65%.
Simple
Lastly, StashAway Simple account returns have been quite consistent. It was supposed to be 1.8% returns, but due to the economic climate, the returns were reduced to 1.4% during September 2020.
In terms of dollar value, Simple returns have netted the most gains. While both income and general is lagging behind.
Considering that I have invested about $38.5k into StashAway, which to me, is quite a substantial sum of money.
I will be following the next steps for the first half of 2021:
- Continue adding $500 each month till May 2021
- Dollar-cost Average into General Investing portfolio — $750 per month (dipping into my Simple portfolio)
- Not going to touch the Income Portfolio at all. (I have not added or withdraw from this portfolio since Mar 2020)
Depending on each portfolio’s performance by mid-year, I’ll consider if I would want to add more to the portfolio.
Just like at the beginning, where I mentioned that I treat StashAway like another bank account (with slightly better returns). I’ll continue to invest in StashAway portfolios if there is no better place for me to park my cash.
For more information before you get started on StashAway, you can read my previous experiences here:
If you are curious and would like to try out StashAway, you can use my referral link. So that both of us would get up to SGD 10,000 managed for FREE for 6 months. YAY!
On other investment areas, I’ll also be starting on a new investing journey and have just signed up for a brokerage account. I want to handle and DIY some investments on my own. Once I have more information, I would definitely share more on it.
Let me know what are your thoughts on StashAway? And what are your investment strategies for 2021 and beyond?
I’ll be keen to hear more or answer any questions that you might have.
