Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

Squirrel Your Money Away

I got some questions from several people after I blogged about my recent investment gains. I don’t claim to be an investment guru, in fact I’m far from it. But I guess most people are a little clueless as to how to start investing.

So here is my guide to investing your CPF money.

Why should you invest your CPF money? Because the interest rate is only 2.5% for the ordinary account. How will you ever be able to retire? I suggest you invest all of it. Here’s what you need to do.

Logon to www.cpf.gov.sg and check your myStatement. Check how much you have to invest.

The rules for investing your CPF should be read at least once, even if you don’t understand all the words.

Now go and open a CDP account, so you can invest your CPF money. All the forms are available at DBS Vickers. I recommend DBS Vickers because I use it. Other brokers might be better, but I don’t know.

Once you’ve linked your CFP account to your trading account, you can now buy and sell shares.

This is my strategy:
I chose to shun unit trusts (commision fees too high) and stocks (no time to follow). Instead, I embrace index funds because they have very low fees. Since I live in Singapore, I have the option of investing in an ETF, which is kinda like a index fund except it trades like a stock but acts like a fund. This means I can dump all my money into it and reap all kinds of advantages. Currently, most of my money is invested in the StreetTracks STI ETF.

This is my retirement money, so I’m not fucking around with it. I’m investing for the long term. Even if the stock market crashes tomorrow, you will not see me pulling my investments out. I’ll cash in when I retire.

I also suggest investing your money in real estate. Property in Malaysia is cheap and appreciates in value. Just do your homework and you should be able to find a few real gems.

Feel free to post any questions and I’ll try to answer.

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I plan to take all my CPF back with me when I leave Sg for good.

my dear girl, you can only do that if you leave peninsular malaysia for good. You cant touch it otherwise.

If i move back to msia i can’t take my money unless I move overseas? Dat’s reedeecules. I will buy shares then. But i’m not sure if i have enough inside since my CPF is only 5%. How many can you buy minimum?

Yes, cannot take the money out. There are too many west msian working in spore. If they are all allowed to take their money out, CPF will have unstable reserves.

You have to buy in multiples of 100 for STI ETF. At the current price of 19.8, the minimum is 1980. This doesnt include all the msc fees yet.

Haiyah, FF, now then you know. The powers of the Singapore government extend far beyond these fair shores. Move to East M’sia can, peninsular M’sia not counted.

That’s because there are not many East msians working in Singapore.

Cour Marly, you can’t just move to East Malaysia. You have to be born there. She needs a vistor visa to go east malaysia and she can only stay there for 2 months. If she wants to work there, she has to apply for work permit. This doesn’t apply to people born there.

looks like your money is stuck… so better invest it.

I just calculated and i think i have enough! I so essited.

Haiyo! All my plans gone down the drain. Thought I could buy my Rav 4 in Msia with my CPF.

you can take out for cpf when you are 55 years old, FF

FF : If you want to withdraw all your CPF before 55, the only way i can think of is to give up Malaysian citizenship and get another country’s citizenship.

In a way, don’t you think it’s a blessing that FF will not be blowing her savings on a liability like a car?

Mandrake> That’s what I meant… yeah, wasn’t clear from my post. Learnt the uniquenicity of East M’sia when I tried to check in at the domestic terminal of the airport when flying from Kuching to KL.

Dudes, I dont mean to burst your bubble, but unless you are in it for the long term like Caleb, don’t bother with the STI ETF. The STI needs to go up 100 points for you to make $100 on a $2000 investment… and most analysts dont expect the STI to breach 2050 this year (it’s 1960 today).

That was me anon above btw

long term good…short term bad….

ok, i got something to say about this … go look at my blog!

Is this similar to the superannuation here in oz? We can’t touch that money till we’re like, almost dead, at 60 or so.

I prefer UOBKayHian because I use it.