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02-02-2011, 12:15 PM
I have never regarded my CPF savings as 'retirement' income. And I dun find the findings very surprising. Even with my modest lifestyle, I dun think depending on CPF savings for my retirement needs is enough. So instead my approach towards retirement is to generate my own income stream (when I'm no longer working/semi-retired) and used whatever coming out of CPF as a supplementary income.
I think one of the best financial decision I ever made was not overloading myself on insurance. I currently have 2 life insurance (including one with hospitalisation ridership). Even though I never understood the reasons then, I choose not to go for the sexy endownment plans or ILPs and a dozen of other variants. Same with taking the Unit Trust route. On hindsight, my instinct was correct.
There's nothing inherently bad about the CPF scheme in general. Its just that people need to realise that just becos you contributed to CPF does that mean or even guaranteed that you will have enough to have a carefree retirement. That will not be the case. The issues is probably worse for people in the lower 30% percentile. The top 30% percentile will not have any problems either way. The middle 40% probably can manage with some modifications to their lifestyle. But its the bottom 30% that will be hit with not having enough savings (possibly not enough to meet the CPF min sum) let alone depending on it alone for retirement.
I think one of the best financial decision I ever made was not overloading myself on insurance. I currently have 2 life insurance (including one with hospitalisation ridership). Even though I never understood the reasons then, I choose not to go for the sexy endownment plans or ILPs and a dozen of other variants. Same with taking the Unit Trust route. On hindsight, my instinct was correct.
There's nothing inherently bad about the CPF scheme in general. Its just that people need to realise that just becos you contributed to CPF does that mean or even guaranteed that you will have enough to have a carefree retirement. That will not be the case. The issues is probably worse for people in the lower 30% percentile. The top 30% percentile will not have any problems either way. The middle 40% probably can manage with some modifications to their lifestyle. But its the bottom 30% that will be hit with not having enough savings (possibly not enough to meet the CPF min sum) let alone depending on it alone for retirement.