Our CPF 2021

This is a slightly overdue post for a couple of reasons. Besides Baby Ong sleeping much later and staying awake much longer which translate to lesser me/blogging time, the honest truth is CPF yearly interest no longer excites me. lol. Anchor pays out much higher interest (~19%) per block (~6 seconds) vs once a year -.- You can take a look at our last article on how we are using Anchor to semi-retire :)

CPF plays a crucial role in retirement planning (probably not so much for us but might still be applicable to you) and should be managed accordingly. Our plan remains to max out MA (which will then overflow to SA/OA), then follow by SA (meeting the FRS) and let compounding take over to ensure that we will always be able to meet the new minimum sum in the respective accounts. Our CPF update will be done annually together with the interests that are being paid out. 

KPO's CPF

Age 31, Total CPF ~$179k

I was transferring OA to SA for higher interest once I started working and blogged about it here - CPF Milestone ($40k in Special Account) and The Power of Compound Interest. I stopped transferring and began to build up OA to prepare for our BTO HDB downpayment in 2018. There was a change in policy (HDB 想通了/achieved enlightenment. lol) and we can now keep up to $20,000 in OA. You can read about why we do not wish to wipe our OA here - Chiong Housing Loan or Take It Slow?

In 2019, we paid the remaining downpayment for our BTO, hence you can see a drop in OA. The plan now is to keep at least $20k in OA as a buffer in the event if we lose our job/income, we can still continue to pay off the housing loan for the next 2-3 years without any worry.

2 years back, we chose to refinance our HDB housing loan to a bank loan for a saving of ~$200 per month. You can read more about it here - My Experience with Mortgage Brokers - Redbrick and iCompareLoan. I also did CPF RSTU (7k to CPF SA) and Voluntary Contribution (VC) to CPF MA for tax optimization.

Interest received:
OA - $844.11
SA - $4,029.60
MA - $1,583.28

Total: $6,456.99

CZM's CPF

Age 31, Total CPF ~$201k

As we have been planning for CZM to retire early, we made sure that she has as much money as possible in her OA to contribute to the monthly mortgage. Based on our current mortgage of SG$1.5k, that's going to last us about 5 years once she stops working.

Interest received:
OA - $1,022.99
SA - $4,512.56
MA - $1,800.49

Total: $7,336.04

Together, the interest received are $13,793.03 :)

I have a spreadsheet that attempts to forecast CPF minimum sum and tracks how close/far are we to meeting/hitting the minimum sum. This is computed by adding OA and SA together (which forms RA when we hit 55). As of 2021, I have only met 70.85% based on the current minimum sum of $186,000 while CZM is at 81.56%. More than half the journey done to meeting FRS!

Something I like to do, assuming that CZM stopped working now and there will be $0 contribution to her CPF, will she be able to hit the minimum retirement sum? Using a finance calculator and her current SA of $104,887, the future value when we are 55 is $258,516. Pretty close to the lower bound of the estimation ($238,000 which is compounding the minimum sum at 1%). Regardless, I am pretty sure she will hit the minimum retirement sum even if she stops working this year as I will probably top-up her CPF using crypto profits. lol.

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You might be interested in these blog posts too:
- 2017 Net Worth

- 2018 Net Worth

- 2019 Net Worth

- 2020 Net Worth

- Our CPF 2018

- Our CPF 2019
- Our CPF 2020

- Our CPF 2021

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