Can I live past age 80? What can I do to aid myself on retirement? When should i decide to retire? I believe these are some of the commonly asked questions. First lets see what the statistics show about how old does Singaporeans normally live to?
Singapore has around 300,000 individuals aged between 50-54 who will
be due to retire in the next 10-15 years. At least that’s what the we hope for them. To say we want to retire is easy, problem is many of us have inadequate savings and investments in place to allow ourselves to financially retire.
Not only that, there's been a trend on having children at a later point of our lives. Adding on the financial burden of paying for their education. I also believe most of us took up a maximum loan for HDB which causes us to finance ourselves late into the 50s.
Here's the golden question "How much do i need to retire?"
Well, this depends, if you are a connoisseur and love lavish foods, you definitely need more. Or you like cars and bought one for retirement, you need to think of how to finance that car in your retirement. Or you are thinking of running a Kopitiam store in your retirement. No fret! all these can be planned too!
But hear this! No matter how young or old you are, how little you have kept till this point, It's Never Too Late to Start!
Where are you at this point in time?
Consolidate your portfolio, and work out how much you own right now, and compare this with what you want to achieve. Log in to your CPF and calculate how much you will have in your Retirement Account (RA) and then use this calculator to determine the amount you will receive per month. Combine this with your current investments marked for retirement!
Maximise it!
Maximise what you have! Take a look at the returns you are having, be it being handled by yourself, or you let an investment consultant handle, do your best to maximise the return. If you would like to know the formula to maximise your money, take a look at How to Accumulate Wealth,
Alternatives
Is CPF the only place to invest your retirement sum safely? Definitely not! But before you consider the alternatives, check with yourself : Are you willing to risk your retirement sum? Do you have the capabilities to make sound financial decision? What is the timeline you have given yourself?
If after going through the risks and benefits and you decide that you want to invest, take note!
If you do not already know, you can invest using monies from your CPF! Though you need a minimum of 20,000 in your ordinary account (OA) and 40,000 in your special account (SA). Understand the risks involved before taking up any kinds of investments because at the end of the day, you do not want to jeopardize your retirement plans.
Am I saving enough?
That heavily depends on the kind of lifestyle you really like to lead after retirement. If everyone leads a simple life and based exactly on government expectations, as long as you hit the minimum sum, you are more then adequate in your retirement. This means you can have enough to feed yourselves and not die from starvation. However as the standard of living has increased and Singapore being a more Capitalist country. Life is no longer about going to the coffeeshop below our houses to chat with other similar retirees. Nowadays we would love a dim sum or two from Tim Ho Wan instead.
Are you willing to sacrifice your current lifestyle? Or do you want to at least maintain your current lifestyle? Or even (Yes it's possible!) improve your lifestyle and habits?
Hello! My team and I would like to share and discuss topics on financial planning especially on the topic of necessity, and how financial planning interlinks with our daily hectic lives in Singapore! Feel free to ask us any questions and we will do our best to answer any of your queries!
