CPF

I was together with my current wife for 5 years before proposing so we had long enough time to discuss. good thing is we were very much aligned in life's direction and spending habit's so there wasn't anything much to worry before. An advice would be to discuss and plan your finances before taking the relationship to the next level :)

Hi anon! Few years back I invested via my insurer into First State Dividend Adv A to grow the returns so I can make a higher downpayment on my bto upon key collection. Mistake I did was to trust my agent and blindly invest =x Luckily though, the returns are ~10% +/- What I didn't know was that there were sales charges (which fortunately would be 0 from 1 Oct 2020 if I'm not wrong), ongoing trailer/platform charges of 0.4% (I think) plus every quarter cpf would deduct $2.14 for the investments. I haven't quite calculated my total growth but since the returns are still double digit and my key collection delayed, I am taking my time to research then decide if I will continue with it or to withdraw and then invest via endowus which has lower fees, or withdraw to reduce loan amount.. All these is because my partner and I haven't decided what to do with our bto.. Whether we will stay till retirement or to sell after MOP.. And whether to service via cpf or cash or both haha. There's a lot to think about but I think I will periodically invest maybe every year or few years lump sum. Go global to diversify :)

I think the main difference is, HDB has a fixed interest at 2.6% no matter the condition of the economy. Bank interest rate may be lower than HDB loan now, but it fluctuates depending on the economy i guess? I dont know how the ecnomics work but thats what I understand. So I would rather have a stable interest rate throhgout my loan years than having a unstable interest rate that the banks are offering. Banks of course you can re finance and change to other banks but the rates are usuallly about there lah so to save the hassle i stick to HDB loan. Just my opinion, Im no property agent or financial advisor hehe :)

Hello! In my opinion, there is no easy solution to this problem. It will be almost impossible for him to meet the Basic Retirement Sum (BRS) now. Although you could top up to his SA to meet the BRS but you would need a big sum of money. As far as I know, if he did not manage to meet the BRS, his payout would be pro-rated. Alternatively, you can help him to source for additional income streams so that it can help with his retirement. 1) Downgrade your house. It is not an easy option but have a chat with him. House isn't an asset if it doesn't generate income. By downgrading the house part of the $$ would be pumped back into the OA which can help him to meet the BRS. 2) Rent out one of the room. 3) Buy a annuity plan. An annuity plan is a special type of endowment that provide periodic payouts very much like CPFLife. Such plan would be of great help as it can provide guaranteed monthly payout once your father retired. (if you wish to learn more about this. Feel free to pm me.) Personally, my father is a similar situation as your father except he is 61 now, has no savings, and forced to retire due to parkinson disease. I'm a financial advisor (but im still in uni) and my brother is working now. So what we are doing now is to split the cost of my father retirement together. It is definitely not easy to be in the sandwich generation but let's us do our proper financial planning to break this cycle of relying the next generation for retirement =).

Hi anon, Yes, for that year. You'll get 3.5% savings on your tax plus 4% on your top up, so effectively 7.5%. This is followed by 4% on your SA in the years after that since tax relief is only granted for that year that you top up. It's good that you are looking towards beefing up your SA. People say that the FRS amount is hard to reach, but all your need is time and compounding. You don't have to get there in 5 years or 10 years, but give yourself 20 years and you'll likely get there.

Hi Anon, Accrued interest is just a way for CPF to ensure that Singaporeans have enough saved up for retirement when they sell the property. If your parents are 55 years old, CPF is effectively a high interest savings account that has daily liquidity for them. If your parents have cash sitting in the bank earning a paltry interest, you should encourage them to do a voluntary refund into CPF and earn the higher interest. I encourage you to read more in our article here: https://sg.endow.us/2FVvbew

I think you can only buy SGX shares using CPF. I bought some SGX shares using my cpf funds. There is a list of stocks you can buy using cpf, you cannot buy it from other markets. (I KNOW RIGHT, WHAT A BUMMER) SPDR is under US market so unless, DBS app allows you to buy it, its possible but if its not possible, then no choice can only buy from the list of "approved" stocks using your CPF funds. (Rant : in my opinion nobody should control what we can or cannot buy, whoever is in charge of that who is reading this, please consider changing that rule, we already give in part of our salary to you, so please adopt a win win situation for the citizens)

Hi JTan, I believe that the maximum you can top up your RA to at 55 is the year's prevailing ERS. After that, you'll continue to grow the RA monies via interest paid to that account, which, if you have ERS, should oustrip the rate of increase of the ERS. The rest of your monies would then reside in SA/OA/MA, depending on your account balances. With the CPF SA shielding trick, you could easily end up with $500K across your SA and RA at 55 and that will be quite a good safety net. With CPF LIFE paying you from 65, and leaving money in SA to compound at 4%, you'll have 2 guaranteed sources of money when you retire, CPF LIFE plus interest/interest+principal withdrawals from your SA. I personally am aiming to rely on CPF as the first layer of guaranteed income, but will definitely have more layers built on top of that.

Hi Samantha! On topping up CPF Hope you have considered the trade-offs between illiquidity of CPF monies, CPF returns and the tax savings you can get from Retirement Sum Top Up. SA Top up monies cannot be withdrawn, cannot be invested (so cannot be used for SA shielding) but will form part of your BRS. On investing your CPF with Endowus Thank you for considering us! Want to share my personal views on this. As a 31yo middle income single male, with no ambition of buying my own private property, I should be able to 1. buy a BTO 2br flexi if I am still single at 35 2. stop my investments and save up my CPF OA monies for my housing payments if I were to settle down. I intend to be more aggressive with my own investments/money management because I am disciplined enough to plan to the dollar. This may not work for you though. Your decision process Your own decision making depends on 1. how much you are going to spend on housing 2. how fast you accumulate your CPF OA moving forward I think it is better to invest very long term through Endowus to maximise your chance of success. You may want to understand more about the trade-offs of financing your property with CPF to help you make a better decision. I wrote this article for people like us! https://sg.endow.us/2FVvbew

Hi Anon, You are right, Endowus helps you invest in Unit trusts, and you can invest all your investible CPF (anything above $20,000) with us. You can read more about why Endowus is a great CPFIS investment solution here: