Should i top-up my CPF Special Account to the Full Retirement Sum?

Hi Teck Lun,

It depends on how comfortable you are with investing consistently and in a disciplined manner, and also your personal circumstances.

If you have been consistently investing and are comfortable with paper losses (without pulling money out of the market), you may want to consider doing better than the 4% from SA top up. This can be through SRS contribution if you are thinking of using cash, or investing your CPF OA in the equties market.

Coversely if you are the type that is not comfortable with long term investing, or find it harder to do so, then SA top up for cash or OA makes sense. But I would encourage you get your feet wet (at a slightly uncomfortable pace) and start investing consistently in the equities market. In the meantime you may want to read up more about investing and find out what works for you.

Hope this helps!

Hi Teck Lun!

Like WenHao mentioned, it really depends on your current situation. Especially how much you currently have in your CPF Special Account and how many more years you have to let it reach the Full Retirement Sum.

Since you mentioned SA instead of RA, I'm assuming you're not near 55 yet? Even if you're almost done paying your flat instalments or it's fully paid for, plans might change and you might decide to buy a second BTO or a resale a few years down the road. Which is why I personally feel that you should only transfer from OA to SA if you're very certain that you won't be using the funds in the future since it's a one-way transfer.

You can try using this Google Form I've created to project how much your CPF OA and SA will grow before topping up or transferring and decide from there.