facebookShould I top up my son CPF SA and MA account to the max? - Seedly

Anonymous

12 Nov 2019

CPF

Should I top up my son CPF SA and MA account to the max?

My son 26 he can't work due to TPD. Is it a good move to top up his CPF to full so that he has every mth income at 65? The compound interest @ 4% for 40 yrs is attractive. I am going to buy some endowment plan for him like 15,20,25yrs so that every 5 years he has some money going to him. From now we still can manage our daily money.CPF need ard 190k to top up to full for my son for 2 acct. We can't do investment.He can't manage his money he has short memory. 120k for endowment. Total 310k. Thank

Discussion (2)

What are your thoughts?

Learn how to style your text

Elijah Lee

12 Nov 2019

Senior Financial Services Manager at Phillip Securities (Jurong East)

Hi anon,

I'm sorry to hear about the condition of your son.

Assuming you maximize your son's MA and SA, you will have prepare him for an adequate stream of income when he is 65, which is almost 40 years away. If there are no major policy changes, that would ensure that his basic income streams will be ok 40 years from now. $176K in SA compounds to $812K in 39 years, not counting spillover from MA interest. You would be able to generate very decent income with that sum. I'm guessing that your $310K has been earmarked for this and that your own emergency funds, etc are taken care of.

The next question would be to ensure financial security during the period between now and him turning 65. Instead of an endowment that matures, consider deferred annuities as a way to generate guaranteed income for him.

I'm going to make a conjecture here and presume you are around age 50-55, which means that you will have an income stream to support him while you can still work. Once you retire around 65, this is when you will want an income stream from a deferred annuity to provide for him. The reason why an annuity might be better for him is because you will be getting a stream of income, which would mean that your capital is stretched over a period of time, generating better returns for you as opposed to maturing in a lump sum. I find that most people might be tempted to spend money if it is easily accessible to them; having the money come in as a stream will make people budget and spend carefully.

You'll also have to ensure that you have the appropriate insurance coverage for yourself in case anything happens to you, CI or otherwise, but that is out of the scope of this question and I will only mention it in passing.

If you have any further questions, feel free to reply to this post.

View 1 replies

Write your thoughts