Hi anon! Let’s break down your current situation bit by bit and see what you should do moving forward. The first half of this answer tackles your first question on financial planning for your 2 financial goals - family and retirement . The second half of this answer will tackle your other question on what to do with your funds from your savings & investments. ! TL;DR: A simple guide to achieving your financial goals and managing your funds is to: 1. Prepare to set aside approximately $363,156 for your family’s finances and $342,775 for your retirement finances. 2. To achieve these figures, you can follow the 50-20-5-25 income allocation ratio. 3. With your existing funds, you should manage them by: continuously growing them through investments, keeping the liquid funds in a suitable savings account, and ensuring you & your family are on the right insurance policies for protection. #1 How much to save up for your 2 financial goals: Goal 1: Family - kids' future education - Secondary school: At least $184,800 - Tertiary education. Assuming your kids are heading for Junior College, you would need to save approximately $29,842 per child. Assuming your kids are heading for Polytechnic instead, you would need to save approximately $10,500 per child. - University. Assuming your kids are heading for local universities, e.g. NUS, you would need to save approximately $50,236 - $59,336 per child. (P.S. These figures are all calculated on approximation. Do let me know if you’d like to see a break down of the costs I used in this calculation!) Now let’s calculate the maximum amount you would need to save (still an approximation ) for both kids to best prepare yourself for the future. Assuming both of your kids headed for Junior College and took on the costliest degree at NUS, you would need to save up a total of $363,156 for the two of them. Goal 2: Retirement - how to retire comfortably From our Seedly article on how much you need to save in order to retire and meet your basic needs, a married male and female Singaporean that would like to retire at age 64 would have to prepare at least $134,007 and $208,768 respectively (do alter this figure based on your lifestyle, needs and preferences). This means that both of you have to ensure there is a total of $342,775 for your collective retirement. Overall, you would need to save up a total of at least $704,413 in your CPF & savings account in order to achieve both of your financial goals. #2 What should you do to save up for it Here at Seedly, we typically recommend the 50-30-20 income allocation ratio for young adults. But given that you two are parents instead, we suggest tweaking the ratios a little to cater to your needs. You can consider this new ratio instead: 50% expenses, 20% savings for retirement, 5% savings for your children & 25% investments. #3 What to do with the funds from your savings & investments a) Keep growing your finances through investments It’s great that you guys are already investing, but what you should be paying attention to would be the allocation of your investible funds. Based on our Age vs Risk Seedly article, your risk appetite should be slightly lower now compared to your prime investing days. I’d say invest 60% (or less) of your available funds in riskier assets like stocks, with the rest being invested in bonds. b) Safe keep your liquid funds in the right savings account Investments aside, do ensure the rest of your funds (the more liquid ones) are placed in the right savings account that can provide you with advantageous interest rates. I’d highly recommend going with the DBS Multiplier Account. I’m sure at the age of 40, you guys can easily hit the highest (or higher) tiers of interest rates based on your account balance and categories of eligible transactions. So go take advantage of that 3.8% p.a. rate! c) Protect yourself and your family with the right insurance policies For sure you would’ve gotten some insurance policies for yourself and the family but are you on the right plans? Take 30mins of your time to do some planning using our Seedly article breaking down the various types of insurance. At the end of the day, do ensure you’ve gotten health + life insurance for yourself and the family. Personal accident would be a good add-on if your family needs it. That’s my two cents worth of opinion! At the end of the day, you know your finances and financial position best so do adapt the advice accordingly! I suggest doing more research and gathering more advice before making any major decisions. The community here on Seedly is here to help too! #powerofcommunity Do seek the help of a financial planner/advisor as well if you feel that you can’t DIY things on your own or need additional support. I hope this summary provides a rough template for your financial planning. All the best in achieving your financial goals :-)

Hi there anon, Agreed with what Clarence shared! If having a car value adds to your lifestyle (work, family, friends, hobbies .etc) and if it outweighs the high costs incurred in it (getting your license, COE, car's cost, maintenance, petrol .etc), then I think you should get it. I think both public transport and driving your own car have their own perks. I personally wouldn't get a car because I am relatively satisfied with our public transport (compared to some other countries) and other transport alternatives like Grab & Gojek. If you're looking for more information & analysis, here are some helpful Seedly articles about driving in Singapore! 1. How much should you be earning before buying a car in SG: https://blog.seedly.sg/buy-car-how-much-should-be-earning/ 2. Cost of getting a car in SG 2019: https://blog.seedly.sg/factors-cost-car-price-singapore/ 3. Driver's license costs in SG: https://blog.seedly.sg/cost-driving-license-singapore-private-vs-school/ 4. Petrol price comparison in SG: https://blog.seedly.sg/ultimate-comparison-petrol-station-prices-best-credit-card-fuel-promotions-singapore-sinopec-shell-esso-caltex-spc/ 5. Other 'Transportation' articles on Seedly: https://blog.seedly.sg/category/financial-lifestyle/transportation/ Hope they help!! :-)

Hi anon! I’ve most certainly not served the nation but here at Seedly, we’re all about making smarter financial decisions. So let’s break things down together and see how we can grow your finances during your NS years. ! TL;DR: These 3 tools should be able to help you grow your finances over your 2 years in NS: - POSB Save As You Serve (SAYS): 2% p.a. interest on your monthly savings - CIMB FastSaver Account: 1% p.a. interest for balances up to S$50,000 - Investing as a beginner: STI-ETF, SSB, Robo-Advisors For starters, it’s great that you don’t picture yourself spending a lot in your NS days! Do keep up with the good work and discipline over the next 2 years. With whatever savings you have at the moment together with your monthly NS pay, here are 3 different ways you can grow your money: #1 POSB Save As You Serve (SAYS): From as little as S$50 per month, you get to enjoy up to 0.25% p.a. base interest + 2% p.a. additional interest . Also, if you intend to get a debit card to use alongside the account, there’s the SAFRA DBS Debit Card and HomeTeamNS-PAssion POSB Debit Card with pretty reasonable cash rebate deals and additional privileges #2 CIMB FastSaver: A popular savings account among young adults, the CIMB FastSaver is a really attractive savings account due to its 1% p.a. interest rate. - From as little as S$1,000 per month, you get to enjoy 1% p.a. interests for balances up to S$50,000. - Beyond S$50,000 balance, you get to enjoy 1.50% p.a. interests up to S$75,000 balance. - Beyond S$75,000 balance, you’ll only get to enjoy 0.6% p.a. interests . I’m pretty sure you have AND can maintain at least S$1,000 in the account given how disciplined you are. Not sure about you but 1% p.a. interest rate sounds pretty good to me especially when there aren’t multiple conditions to fulfil! There’s no need to hit a minimum spend every month, do salary crediting or meet any online bank transaction quota. By simply depositing a portion of your monthly NS salary into this account, you get that 1% p.a. You can continue using the CIMB FastSaver Account beyond NS too, the account is pretty popular among undergrads and fresh grads saving up for their financial goals! #3 Investing for beginners: Given that you’re ready to do your own research, I take it that you want to start investing but you aren’t too sure where to begin or what to do. I recently answered a similar question for an investing newbie here, do take a read! To sum things up, I would recommend you invest in STI-ETF, SSB and Robo-Advisors since you’re a beginner. Given that you’ll be busy serving the nation, these investment products are great for you too since they’re passive investments over a long term horizon. To learn more about the 3 investment products, here are some useful Seedly articles to help you along the way: STI-ETF: - STI-ETF: A Simple Way To Invest In Singapore’s Top 30 Companies - What Are Your Returns If You Dollar Cost Averaged On The STI-ETF for 8 Years SSB: - Interest Rates & How To Buy SSB - Should You Choose Singapore Savings Bond (SSB) or Fixed Deposits (FD)? Robo-Advisors: - SG Robo-Advisor Comparison - SeedlyTV Ep04: Robo-Wars More importantly, as a beginner of investing who’s also busy serving the nation, I’d recommend you do Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) through a Regular Shares Savings (RSS) Plan. The idea behind doing DCA is essentially setting aside a sum every month (as low as $100!) to invest. You can do DCA for all 3 investment products by setting aside a sum of your monthly NS pay to invest in them, e.g. $100 in each investment product. I hope this summary on where you can park your savings & NS pay in order to grow them over the next 2 years was helpful! Wishing you all the best serving the nation and achieving your financial goals! :-)

Hi anon, I recently answered a similar question here, have a read: https://seedly.sg/questions/where-should-a-part-time-student-park-his-money-at. All the related articles you can read & learn from are linked in that answer! There're plenty of free materials for you to learn about investing, Seedly articles included :) I also agree with Zaine's input! Always do your due diligence researching and learning about the investment product(s) you're putting your money in, don't dive into something that's foreign to you. As a newbie, I'd highly recommend passive investments unless you're ready to commit a great amount of your time into preparing & managing your active investments. Also, do bear in mind that investing is a 1 out of the 5 pillars of Personal Finance. Do ensure you've read up and prepared your other pillars of Personal Finance on top of your investments :) Wishing you all the best in reaching your financial goals!

Hi anon, I recently answered a similar question on how a newbie can get started with investing, have a read here: https://seedly.sg/questions/where-should-a-part-time-student-park-his-money-at?aid=17577 There are plenty of free resources available for newbies to get started on investing! In short, you should: 1. Check everything on the investment checklist before getting started 2. Do some financial planning and research 3. Work out a basic portfolio that meets your financial goals. Plan it based on your risk appetite, returns expectation and starting capital. Do your due diligence researching and planning before you dive into things. Also, do note that your investing portfolio isn't static, do adapt them accordingly to your life stages and expectations. Wishing you all the best in your financial goals :-)

Hi Linda, Great question! I'm sure there are plenty of fellow Singaporeans with dreams and plans to retire a millionaire or get that pot of gold ASAP. My only tip for you is: be patient & let the art of compounding do the trick for you. Compounding can take place over these 2 verticals of Personal Finance: Investments & Savings. We've got plenty of Seedly articles breaking compounding down and summarizing the 2 named verticals of Personal Finance. Here are the top few I would recommend you to do a quick read on! - Compound Interest: A Ridiculously Easy Way to Get Rich - The Ultimate Guide to Investing in Singapore - Cheat Sheet: Investment Products at a Glance - Investment Products That Require Less Than $1,000 for Working Adults to Invest - Cheatsheet: Best Savings Account for Working Adults Do sit down with a financial advicer/planner (or DIY it yourself) to sort out your financial goals and plans for the future. Question your risk appetite & how much capital you're willing to fork out. I hope this helps and all the best! :-)