You know, I’ve always wanted to invest for my mom.

About 16 years ago, I was still studying. Mom told me something over dinner I’ll never forget – Dad got to take a pay cut. The company my dad had worked for wasn’t doing well. The global financial crisis had hit his company. And we had to “tighten our belts”. That scared me. Especially when I knew my parents still had to pay for my sisters’ university education.

I was the eldest son from a middle-income Singapore family of three kids. I had to make sure my parents were well taken care of financially.

The problem was, I realized how much I made as a fresh graduate. Starting pay for graduates back then was around S$2,500-S$3,000 per month. I kept asking myself: how could I ever save up for a house, wedding and even have kids in the future… while also making sure my parents are comfortable in their retirement?

I was stuck in the middle, sandwiched between my future and taking care of my parents. In some ways, I had to figure out a way to make more money. Eventually, that planted a seed in my head: build passive income.

You’ll know I’ve tried different investing strategies over the years, some lost me tens of thousand dollars. But I eventually found a way for Mom’s savings to be kept safe, while growing her nest egg over time.

The thing is, I couldn’t treat Mom’s savings like an experiment. More importantly, I cannot afford for her stock portfolio to suffer any huge drawdown.

And here’s the part that I don’t like. If you’re retired and not collecting income from your portfolio, you have to sell your shares to pay for retirement expenses - whether the market is up or down. For instance, if your $600,000 portfolio drops 15% in a market sell off, it becomes $510,000. And because you continue to sell off your shares to pay you say $30,000 for retirement, you might end up selling at the wrong time. This also means there’s now fewer shares left to recover when the stock market bounces back.

It’s a double whammy. That was what I was trying to avoid, I didn’t ever want to put Mom into that position. It will not only wreck her retirement, I’m sure she will kill me many times over.

Years ago, I remembered Dad told me he had to sell some of his SembMarine shares to pay for my sister’s education. I don’t know how to describe that feeling but I don’t like watching someone give back something they had spent years building up. It didn’t sit well with me.

So I set two rules for myself: protect the capital, and generate income she could actually live on.

These thoughts converged into one driving force that pushed me to find a solution... that’s income investing.

This allowed me to better save up my salary for my future, and use Mom’s capital to build a stock portfolio that paid her regularly - dividends. Whether I was working, studying or travelling. And the best part? I did this from my own bedroom. And I don’t have to eat into my own paycheck.

The thing about income investing that most people miss is this. It’s not about getting rich quickly. What matters most is being able to protect what you’ve built over the years. Making sure the wealth we’ve worked hard to build over the years doesn’t disappear by bad market timing, inflation or unexpected economic crashes. In fact, it continues to compound safely and profitably.​

To me, income investing is personal.

What about you, what does investing mean for you?

Willie Keng, CFA

Founder, dividendtitan.com

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