Personally, I feel that it is better to use CPF to pay for HDB monthly installment. Reason being, CPF funds have limited usage, as compared to cash. If you need to pay for your mobile bills, grocery, etc, you can use cash, but not CPF. The downside to this is that you would have a higher loan and accrued interest to repay if you ever decide to upgrade/downgrade your house. If you sell your house at market rate, but this market rate is lower than your purchase price, you do not have to pay back the accrued interest. The drawback of this situation is that you would have lesser CPF to set aside for your Retirement Sums.

Well, happened to be in a similar situation. This is what I said to him. You are not the only agent I know of. If every one of my friends who is an agent asked me to support them, just by taking one small policy, then who support me? Be respectful, be firm. And if you feel that this is a bit too blunt, then modify the sentences, but the idea still remains. I would say this is fair to at least take care of you from your point of view, and not just his point of view, since insurance is suppose to help people in their dire times of needs.

There’s a saying. Don’t keep up with the Joneses. Ironically, the trigger that started me on this journey, is the comparison of my lifestyle to others. My peers were getting married left, right centre and here I am being Mr Lonely. In a way, I feel that they have a better, more blissful life than I do. If my life is not as good as theirs, then at least I should “win” in one aspect of my life. That desire to win is the first few foundation brick of my life. My idea of love is similar to most people. I don’t want my loved ones to suffer and I equate that with having enough resources, aka money.

Short term or permanent? If it is short term, it is a temporary abstinence until the target is reached. As such, it can be everything. Well, most things anyway. Maybe except health because it is irreversible. If it is a permanent one, I guess there’s not much to give up. Maybe giving up a solidarity life of a hermit. You know, the more you give, the more you gain.

I’ll liken this to marrying to a woman and living happily ever after (since I’m a man but it applies to women as well). If I were to paraphrase, it’s like asking, is it a good time to marry when divorce rates are forecasted to be at an all time high in 2021? Notice how there seems to be some correlation but not causation? When you marry someone, you marry the one who is compatible with you, and you aim for happily ever after. Similarly when investing in stocks, you want to invest in excellent companies who can stand the trials of economic recession. Because no one can accurately forecast when the recession will arrive. Having said that, it doesn’t mean you expend all your cash on stocks. Always keep a standby, in case more opportunity comes up at a bargain. Just like you would be prepared to handle some unpleasant incidents, because they do happen, even in the most blissful of marriages ( and not because you expect your marriage to be miserable, right?)

First, find out how much u need for short term and long term goals. Then, work backwards and set a budget and stick to the savings. If this is ur first time budgeting, review it monthly for first 3 months. This is to see if the budget set is challenging, yet achieveable. Once u get the hang of it, u can reduce the frequency of reviews, to say, a quarterly or even yearly basis. For long term goals, u might wanna review if u can achieve consistent returns. For this, u would likely have to do it over at least a decade. When deciding how much to save, short term goals are slightly easier to project, as it is less likely to be affected by things such as inflation, economy, etc as compared to long term goals.

Are your parents there too? Maybe the his parents can tell her parents if they only listen to 同辈. Being generous is okay, but not being taken advantage of. The fact that you would ask means you feel like you are being taken advantage of. Talk to your gf and let her know. See if she wants to come up with a solution with you. (One way is saw people resolve, is for the girl to give money beforehand to the guy, before the guy pays for the meal. )

Endowment plans, in layman terms, can be considered as setting aside a sum of money for savings. The goal is to help you save over a no. of years. Investment-Linked Policies, or ILP, is setting aside the money for investments, specifically, into unit trusts, while keeping a portion for insurance.(They either sell units to pay for insurance, or part of your premiums paid is spent on insurance.) Newer version allows you to deploy 100% into investments. As they deal with investments, past performance does not indicate further results; and there is always a possibility that you may lose your capital. For both endowment and ILP, they have guaranteed and non guaranteed figures. Guaranteed figures are guaranteed, ie, you will definitely receive it when the plan reached maturity. However, this is where the differences lie. As ILP uses the premiums to invest, chances are, there is little/no guaranteed figures. The non-guaranteed portion can be higher as they may get higher returns. Endowment uses the funds to deal with lower risk products. As such, the % returns are generally lower. As to whether you should surrender, there are a few things to consider. a) what protections are you giving up,(if any) when you surrender the policy? Can you buy a substitute, e.g. Term life, whole life, etc. b) are you good at investing? Are there strategies you can use to invest, e.g. DCA(Dollar Cost Averaging) on an index funds, stock picking, property selecting? Hope this helps. If in doubt, just ping me or the commmunity.

Money can buy you sex, but can’t buy you love. Money can buy you house, but can’t buy you a home. Can’t remember what else was said along these lines.