What kind of financial planning should individual/family should have?

Will you be able to offer packages like Budget, normal, luxury and low to high risk products?

Example. A budget and low risk profile, you will advise the individual/family to buy term insurance with specific amount, hospital insurance that are not full coverage and investment that are stable low returns.

I find it hard for people to DIY for themselves and tailor made financial planning is costly. Although the packages may not be most effective, but it does provide a direction for us to follow.

Hi anonymous, thank you for the question. My conviction is that financial planning need not be complicated and you can actually DIY if you:

Take time to learn how to do it
You have the time to do it
You have the interest to do it

You save money by not using an adviser. So with a limit time and space, let me provide some simple guidance:

If you cannot save, you cannot invest - Start first by having a budget. How to do a simple budget

a. Estimate your monthly income

b. Set a target saving amount per month

c. Income - savings = How much you can spend

d. Divide your spending into fixed and variable expenses

e. For your fixed expenses such as mortgage, insurance premiums etc, set it aside every month (maybe into a separate account) and Giro off from this account to pay your fixed expenses

f. For your variable expenses, pay using cash or by debit card to avoid overspending

Your monthly target savings should help you accumulate up to 3-6 months of your monthly expenses. This is known as your emergency fund. This monies should never be invested but you can put it in high interest savings account (such as DBS Multiplier, UOB One, OCBC 360), FD, or SSBs

Cover yourself with sufficient insurance. The 3 must have insurances are:

a. Hospital Plan - such as Medishield Life or an IP

b. A low cost term plan to protect against loss of income due to death, disability or a critical illness)

c. An optional critical illness plan to pay for alternative treatment that cannot be paid via a hospital plan.

(You can visit www.moneyowl.com.sg to estimate your insurance needs and estimate the premiums)

Invest using low cost funds - low cost means total expense ratio(TER) is about 0.5% p.a. In investments, cost eats into returns. You can use ETFs that track the index or when MoneyOwl is ready to offer investment services in March, you can gain access into Dimensional Funds at no sales charges and low TER.

Write a simple will. MoneyOwl will offer complimentary will writing service very soon.

Hope this helps.