Financial Freedom by 40 | An introspective journal about my personal investing journey

Retirement planning for my parents

Written by Joce | Jun 20, 2020

One of the ways in which covid-19 has impacted my family is the growing concern that our household income may be affected as one of my parents is working in the oil and gas industry. Since both my parents are from the Merdeka generation (and also past retirement age), retrenchment is definitely front and center of their minds during this period of uncertainty. 

I decided to make a calculator to help my parents plan for their retirement. Unlike  the CPF calculator shared in part 1 of  "My Retirement Plan" series which is meant for individuals aged 54 or younger where the focus is on building up your CPF funds for retirement, the calculator I am sharing in this blog post is specifically meant for individuals who are approaching retirement or have already retired and would like to get a better picture of their income streams during retirement. The calculator helps to project income flow during your retirement years by consolidating various income sources: 

  • Payouts under CPF Life or Retirement Sum Scheme
  • Voluntary CPF withdrawals
  • SRS withdrawals
  • Up to 3 additional sources of income (eg. rental income, investment portfolio, dividend income, etc) 

Both my parents are on the Retirement Sum Scheme (RSS), the predecessor of CPF Life, so I have adjusted the calculator to be applicable regardless of which CPF payout scheme you're on. 

Before using the calculator, please take note that the calculator will work best if:

  1. You are aged 55 or older
  2. You are a Singaporean or PR
  3. You meet the Full Retirement Sum (FRS) or Basic Retirement Sum (BRS) or Minimum Sum (under RSS) and are free to withdraw the remaining funds in your Ordinary Account (OA) and Special Account (SA)

Please do not request for edit access as the spreadsheet is shared publicly. To use the calculator, follow instructions in the spreadsheet to make a copy or download it to your computer. As always, if you have suggestions for improvements or notice any calculator errors, feel free to drop me a comment below. 

Enjoy!