You will set up your monthly investing and write three rules for what you will do when prices fall.
Nadia owns her first ETF. She has a broker, a fund she chose for written reasons, and a contract note in a folder. What she doesn't have yet is a plan for the next twenty years, or a set of instructions for the version of herself who will open the app during a crash and want to sell everything.
This exercise writes both. It takes about 30 minutes. At the end you'll have your regular investing set up and one page of rules you can read when markets fall. Nadia's plan is the worked example, with made-up dates and figures, so adapt it to yours.
Write down three things about your regular investing.
The amount is the figure from your goal page in lesson 2.4, Write down what this money is for and when. Use the number you tested, the one that survived a heavy month.
The date should follow your payday, so the money goes in before it can be spent. A day or two after salary lands works well.
The method is either a regular savings plan or your own orders through your broker, the choice you made in lesson 7.2, Regular savings plans: how they work and what you own. If you chose your own orders, also write how often you'll buy: monthly, or less often if your broker's minimum fee makes that cheaper.
Then set it up. For a regular savings plan, complete the application and check the first deduction date. For your own orders, set up a standing transfer from your salary account into the account your broker debits, and put a repeating reminder in your calendar for each purchase date.
Nadia's plan reads: "S$500 a month, moved by standing instruction on the 26th, the day after payday, into my linked bank account. I'll place a limit order for Fund X on the first trading day after the 26th in January, April, July and October, investing about S$1,500 each time." She set the standing transfer and four calendar reminders that repeat every year.
Your first rule says how often you'll look at your account. Pick a frequency you can stick to that's low enough to stop you reacting to daily noise, as lesson 7.4, First-timer mistakes that cost Singapore investors money, explained.
Once a month is a sensible default, tied to a date you'll remember. Write the rule as something you will do, so you can tell whether you've kept it.
Nadia's first rule: "I check my account once a month, on the 26th, when my transfer goes through. I don't check it on other days, and I don't keep price alerts on for Fund X."
Your second rule says what you'll do when prices fall. This is the one that matters most, and the one you'll be most tempted to break.
Use your numbers from lesson 7.3, What a market fall looks like in your own account. Write what you'll keep doing, what you won't do, and what you'll do instead if the urge to act gets strong. A good rule for a fall closes the exits before you need them.
Nadia knows she's the type to stop investing when things look frightening. Her rule is written for that: "When Fund X falls, I keep my standing transfer and my quarterly orders exactly as planned, and I don't sell. If my balance is down by more than S$10,000, I reread my goal page and my two-sentence fund reason before doing anything, and I wait two weeks before making any change."
The two-week wait is deliberate. Most panicked decisions don't survive a fortnight.
Your third rule says when you'll step back and look at the plan as a whole: whether the amount still fits your budget, whether your goal has changed, whether your fund still meets your must-haves.
A review isn't a trade. It's a check that the plan still fits your life. Once a year is usually enough, plus whenever something big changes.
Nadia's third rule: "I review my plan every January, using my goal page and investing log. I also review it if I change jobs, get married, buy a flat or have a child. A review can change my monthly amount or my goal. It can't be triggered by a market fall."
That last sentence stops her from calling a panic a review.
Put your plan and your three rules on a single page. Keep it short enough to read in a minute. Store it where you'll find it in a hurry: printed and pinned somewhere at home, or as a note on your phone next to your goal page.
Nadia's page has five lines of plan and three rules. At the bottom she added one more sentence, for herself: "You wrote this when you were calm. Trust that version of you."
A finished page has your amount, date and method, all of them already set up and not just intended, followed by three rules for checking, falls and reviews. Each rule is specific enough that you could look back in a year and say whether you kept it. Together with your goal page, your broker sheet, your fund shortlist and your first contract note, it completes your project file.
Set up your monthly plan now, then write your three rules on a page you'll be able to find when markets fall.
Set up your monthly plan and write your three rules on one page you can read when markets fall.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).