Speaker 1: You're listening to a CNA podcast.
Speaker 2: It's Andrea Heng. And I am back with another episode
Speaker 2: of Money Talks, the podcast where we discuss all things
Speaker 2: to do with personal finance, how to save better, invest
Speaker 2: better and plan for our retirement better. Can't forget about
Speaker 2: that one. Now, in the last episode, I explored the
Speaker 2: risks and rewards of investment linked insurance policies that I
Speaker 2: LP S for those of you who don't know. And
Speaker 2: if it's
Speaker 2: good idea to terminate an I LP, if it's not
Speaker 2: working for you, if that's something you've been thinking about,
Speaker 2: you want to check it out. Well, today, however, I
Speaker 2: want to talk about something that we probably don't think
Speaker 2: about often enough and that is investing your CPF money,
Speaker 2: especially when you are younger. I'll tell you how much younger. Ok.
Speaker 2: Now we all know what CPF is it
Speaker 2: a portion of your monthly salary that's set aside that
Speaker 2: you can use for housing your medical needs. I know
Speaker 2: I've done that before. Now, whatever is left behind, accumulates
Speaker 2: interest over time and just form a tidy nest egg. Now,
Speaker 2: if you are in your twenties or thirties and that's
Speaker 2: the age group we're talking about today. Chances are you
Speaker 2: might have already tapped into your CPF to pay for
Speaker 2: your first home
Speaker 2: and then ignore what's happening in your ordinary account or
Speaker 2: your O A because you're thinking, you know what? I
Speaker 2: have to wait till I'm 55 to cash it out. Anyway. Well,
Speaker 2: this episode might change your mind here to offer strategies
Speaker 2: for maximizing your CPF. Money. Is Lawrence Tan. It's the
Speaker 2: training and content
Speaker 2: team lead at the Institute for Financial Literacy and we
Speaker 2: welcome him to money talks. Hey, Lawrence. Hi, Andrea. Pleasure
Speaker 2: to be here. It is our pleasure to have you, Lawrence.
Speaker 2: Let's start with a personal anecdote. When did you start
Speaker 2: investing your CPF money? Were you already investing actively elsewhere
Speaker 2: and thought, ah, it's time for me to maximize my
Speaker 2: CPF money.
Speaker 2: So, just like most people who started work and after
Speaker 2: you see some CPF balances accumulate, you sort of feel
Speaker 2: that it's something that I can see, but I cannot touch.
Speaker 2: And then of course, you have all sorts of anecdotes
Speaker 2: coming your way that this money is too far for
Speaker 2: you to use and useless. So that's why I started
Speaker 2: to invest without really having I would say on hindsight,
Speaker 2: fully understanding the risk reward equation. So, yeah, probably around
Speaker 2: mid twenties, mid twenties. That's pretty healthy. I think I
Speaker 2: did about the same too.
Speaker 2: But it took me a how do I say this
Speaker 2: a milestone in my life to realize, hey, I can
Speaker 2: actually invest this money even though I can't touch it.
Speaker 2: So before we get into the nitty gritty, I wanted
Speaker 2: to ask you, could you explain what investing using this,
Speaker 2: using your CPF moneys and tails versus cash? Are there
Speaker 2: specific kinds of instruments, vehicles, products that you can use
Speaker 2: versus what we normally invest in?
Speaker 2: So the CPF investment scheme or CPFIS for short is
Speaker 2: specifically tailored to give savers an opportunity to invest in
Speaker 2: a selected basket of products. So it's not open to
Speaker 2: every product that is available out there. Generally, it's a
Speaker 2: bit more conservative from a risk perspective and that's a
Speaker 2: good reason for it because this is your hard earned money.
Speaker 2: And CPF as you mentioned in the introduction, is really
Speaker 2: for three pillars, right? One for medical needs, of course,
Speaker 2: we have your ma
Speaker 2: your ordinary account, which is for your home. Most people
Speaker 2: use it for home and also your S A for
Speaker 2: your retirement, which is a very critical component and sometimes
Speaker 2: when you're younger, you don't think about it. So you
Speaker 2: have to make sure that you do not lose too
Speaker 2: much of your capital through improper investment. So the risk
Speaker 2: basket for products under the CPFIS scheme is calibrated. So generally,
Speaker 2: they are very conservative products having said that you have
Speaker 2: to then look at the fact that there is risk
Speaker 2: free return from your CPF. So you want to obviously
Speaker 2: invest in something that can outperform a risk free return
Speaker 2: with a relatively logical risk reward trade off, right? Because
Speaker 2: if it's paying you 2.5% and you think you can
Speaker 2: only get about 3% question is whether it makes sense
Speaker 2: given the higher risk. So these are some of the considerations, right?
Speaker 2: And of course, recently, you can also invest your CPF
Speaker 2: into things like Singapore government bonds or Singapore savings bonds.
Speaker 2: So there's a little bit more products available. And if
Speaker 2: you don't like 2.5% you think SSB is giving you 3%
Speaker 2: or you know, you can go for that and you
Speaker 2: have the same level of risk. So that's how you
Speaker 2: should think about investing your CPFIS, right? Ok. That's cool.
Speaker 2: Is there a minimum amount that we need to have
Speaker 2: in that O A for us to even invest in
Speaker 2: or to make it even worse?
Speaker 2: Thinking about investing? Well, actually at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: you take a look at how much you are prepared
Speaker 2: to put your capital. The money that you don't need
Speaker 2: investing is always about, you know, the money that you
Speaker 2: can put aside for the long term. I like to
Speaker 2: use that analogy of, you know, investing, you invest your
Speaker 2: beer money, not your milk powder money that straight away
Speaker 2: drives from the point of the kind of money that
Speaker 2: you should be using, right? You immediately know what you mean,
Speaker 2: the money is fungible. But you know,
Speaker 2: if you think about it, your money is money. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you don't have to feed somebody. So that's the kind
Speaker 2: of thinking that you sort of have in mind. But
Speaker 2: having said that again, CPF like I said, is cost
Speaker 2: savings because whatever you build up in your O A
Speaker 2: eventually when you reach obviously my age or closer to that,
Speaker 2: it all forms part of your S A for So
Speaker 2: O A plus S A becomes your retirement account. So
Speaker 2: you don't want to be too about it. That's not
Speaker 2: to say though that you talked about how some of
Speaker 2: the
Speaker 2: pfis instruments tend to be quite conservative. It gives you
Speaker 2: quite a bit of room in terms of your risk
Speaker 2: reward capabilities, but that's not to say that you can't
Speaker 2: lose on your CPF investments, can you? Of course, I
Speaker 2: think the last time I looked at data from CPF,
Speaker 2: at least 50% of people who have invested within the
Speaker 2: CPFIS investments don't outperform the 2.5%. So in other words,
Speaker 2: you would have been better off just leaving the money
Speaker 2: there
Speaker 2: sleeping better, right? Whatever. So the track record is not great.
Speaker 2: It's not that every seven out of 10 investors who
Speaker 2: invested in CPFIS do better than 2.5%. It's not that
Speaker 2: it's probably about 40 50% at best. So we have
Speaker 2: to remember that it's not right. It's not a given.
Speaker 2: So think carefully. There are instruments you can invest, you
Speaker 2: can put into ETF S which potentially gives you a
Speaker 2: bit more 6 7%.
Speaker 2: But there's always a risk. Of course, of course, with
Speaker 2: ETF S. Now how different is investing CPF versus cash
Speaker 2: apart from the types of products? What other considerations are
Speaker 2: there in terms of the differences? I think again, we
Speaker 2: come back to the core mission of what CPF is for, right?
Speaker 2: We all earn a certain level of income, we contribute
Speaker 2: significantly CPF as well as from the employer side.
Speaker 2: So the mission of CPF is really to build three
Speaker 2: key pillars that we talked about, right? Health care, retirement
Speaker 2: and housing needs, right? Although O A along the way,
Speaker 2: because of your demand, you have allowed to invest, you know,
Speaker 2: you can even use it for education loan and some
Speaker 2: of the other stuff. But the fundamentals of CPF should be,
Speaker 2: we should remind ourselves of it, right? Cash is always
Speaker 2: the other source. The question is, of course, you know,
Speaker 2: what are you getting from the cash? To me, the
Speaker 2: logic is obviously, if cash is lazy out there
Speaker 2: is getting only 1% I mean, these days, at least
Speaker 2: interest rate is slightly better, but you know, rewind 34
Speaker 2: or five years back, the interest rates were bad, you
Speaker 2: are hardly getting anything. So then you have lazy cash,
Speaker 2: then of course, you want to deploy lazy cash first, right? Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course. As a 2030 year old when you start off,
Speaker 2: I think inevitably you will start carrying some debt. So
Speaker 2: you have to ask yourself again carefully. Should I invest
Speaker 2: or should I just my debt? If your debt is
Speaker 2: costing you 4 5%
Speaker 2: you retire with lazy cash, you are actually saving 4 5%.
Speaker 2: Right straight away. You get a yield, you get a
Speaker 2: pick up 4 5%. So you can, you must think
Speaker 2: of it that way, right? If you think that you
Speaker 2: can outperform 4 5% or whatever that your debt is,
Speaker 2: then invest the cash, right, then that's the way to
Speaker 2: think about investing, right? So use those lazy cash,
Speaker 2: but take into consideration whether how much debt you're carrying
Speaker 2: at what cost and then ask yourself, would you be
Speaker 2: better off retiring the debt or you can invest the
Speaker 2: cash with multiple returns over the course of the debt? Right. Right.
Speaker 2: So either shut that debt down and that will be
Speaker 2: an investment. Of course, it is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, down
Speaker 2: the road. So either that or if you don't have debt,
Speaker 2: which I don't know who would have debt in Singapore
Speaker 2: in your twenties and twenties maybe, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I think I would say, yeah, definitely, definitely have that. Ok.
Speaker 2: So either shut the debt down or think about the
Speaker 2: kinds of instruments that can give you that kind of
Speaker 2: returns that would be above and beyond it being asleep
Speaker 2: in your way of being ok. Now, I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk about the age group here. I'm way past my
Speaker 2: twenties and thirties and I wish I had better advice
Speaker 2: when I was at that age. But you know what? Yeah,
Speaker 2: better late than never I say,
Speaker 2: but let's talk about that group of people, the twenties
Speaker 2: and thirties. Do you think that this age group and
Speaker 2: especially in today's context where you have a lot of
Speaker 2: temptation in terms of retail investing, should they have a
Speaker 2: different strategy when it comes to investing their CPF versus
Speaker 2: those in their forties? For example, where they would have
Speaker 2: been a bit more mature in terms of where their
Speaker 2: CPF allocations and accumulations would have been? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think this you can see as more distractions. Um
Speaker 2: the flipside is that there are more avenues, more, more opportunities,
Speaker 2: more channels. So the question is how do you navigate it,
Speaker 2: make sense of it? But bottom line in investing, there's
Speaker 2: no shortcut, you have to do your ground work, you
Speaker 2: have to do your homework, whatever you call it, you
Speaker 2: have to be disciplined, you have to know where you're going,
Speaker 2: you have to know your objective. So these ground rules
Speaker 2: remain whether
Speaker 2: during my generation, your generation on this new, it's just
Speaker 2: that now you've got a lot more, perhaps a bit
Speaker 2: more confusing. Ask yourself whether you have the discipline to
Speaker 2: do the homework. Some people just hate financial analysis and
Speaker 2: they just want the latest hot tip from somebody that's
Speaker 2: not investing, right? That's gambling. So you need to know
Speaker 2: the difference. If you are of the kind of mindset
Speaker 2: where you just want a quick tip to make some
Speaker 2: money in 3 to 4 weeks time, then you know,
Speaker 2: that's not investing. So I think that's the advice for
Speaker 2: the younger age group because
Speaker 2: unfortunately, maybe because people are more impatient, things are faster
Speaker 2: and you see a lot of influences from socials and
Speaker 2: all that stuff and you want things to be quick.
Speaker 2: Hence you have this thing about people trying to get
Speaker 2: rich quick. But I wanted to ask because of their
Speaker 2: longer runway at that age, would this mean that they
Speaker 2: can afford to be a bit more aggressive? The good
Speaker 2: news is of course they can afford to, they can
Speaker 2: afford to provide it again. We come back to the fundamentals, right?
Speaker 2: What is your objective for every pot of money that
Speaker 2: you want to invest? Right? Do you have the aptitude
Speaker 2: to do the groundwork and the homework? These are fundamentals
Speaker 2: must be there, right? If you do have all this
Speaker 2: and you are clear about your objective, you can take
Speaker 2: more risk because you are younger, you have the benefit
Speaker 2: of two things compounding. Plus you can recover. Yes, right.
Speaker 2: You can recover. Should markets you know, go into a
Speaker 2: bit of a dive, you can recover. So you have
Speaker 2: the advantage but then again,
Speaker 2: if you don't have the aptitude, you need to outsource
Speaker 2: or you are a very risk averse person. The last
Speaker 2: thing you should be doing is to invest and then
Speaker 2: not being able to sleep at night or have quarrels
Speaker 2: with your spouse. Forget it. It's not worth it, it's
Speaker 2: not worth it. So these are some of the things
Speaker 2: which you have is very personal and each individual has
Speaker 2: to sort of know your makeup. If you have all
Speaker 2: these things addressed and you are happy that this is
Speaker 2: beer money, right? Then do your homework
Speaker 2: and there's a world of products, there's a world of opportunities.
Speaker 2: Um and being young, like I said, you can afford
Speaker 2: to take more risk, but it's not like a must
Speaker 2: do or it
Speaker 2: something which are compulsory because you're young, right? Yeah. So
Speaker 2: I wanted to pick up on that. So there is
Speaker 2: obviously another camp that says, you know what, at 2.5%
Speaker 2: leaving my money in CPF. Not a big deal. Not
Speaker 2: so bad. I should just ignore it, let it roll.
Speaker 2: I'll let it sleep in my CPF account. What do
Speaker 2: you say to this? 2.5% will be short of inflation obviously,
Speaker 2: but given the fact that he's going to compound over
Speaker 2: a period of time, you know, long term is not
Speaker 2: that bad. And if you don't have the risk appetite
Speaker 2: or the aptitude to invest, then that's the best for you. Right.
Speaker 2: You can outsource, you can put your money into a
Speaker 2: fund and have a regular way of investing. There are
Speaker 2: some tradeoffs with that because you outsource to somebody, you
Speaker 2: rely on their strategy, of course, you have to pay them.
Speaker 2: So there are some of these things that you have
Speaker 2: to be happy with. But to me that's fine. If
Speaker 2: that is your personality, your profile is fine, there's nothing
Speaker 2: too bad about it. You won't lose out necessarily. Well,
Speaker 2: you will not have something that grows as quickly, right?
Speaker 2: With compounding, perhaps you could, you know, depends on again
Speaker 2: what the inflation outlook is in the next two or
Speaker 2: three years. But
Speaker 2: if things hopefully taper down without runaway hyper inflation, then
Speaker 2: it's OK. Right. But if inflation becomes a bit out
Speaker 2: of control, then of course, it puts a lot of
Speaker 2: pressure on, then even 2.5 can sort of fall into
Speaker 2: the camp of a bit lazy money.
Speaker 2: But then again, overall interest rate should adjust. Like if
Speaker 2: things persist at a high level, we, we shall see. Ok.
Speaker 2: So that's the other thing that I wanted to touch
Speaker 2: on there is this longer investment horizon. We're talking about
Speaker 2: 20 to 25 years before you can even touch that
Speaker 2: money in your CPF. Right. So you would need to
Speaker 2: rid the ups and downs of the market again, depending
Speaker 2: on your risk, appetite, your aptitude to stomach all the
Speaker 2: ups and downs of volatility in the market.
Speaker 2: So it's obviously as a younger person in your twenties
Speaker 2: and thirties, you'd feel easily disheartened. You might even panic. Um,
Speaker 2: when you see your investments in the negative, it's turning
Speaker 2: red on the piece of paper or rather it's on
Speaker 2: your digital app. Now, what advice would you have in
Speaker 2: terms of
Speaker 2: emotionally handling these episodes? So there are two parts to it. Right.
Speaker 2: I think most people would be still using the CPF
Speaker 2: especially they heavily for their mortgage. That is an investment
Speaker 2: in itself because you are using it to pay down
Speaker 2: a loan on a property which you hope will sustain value.
Speaker 2: So it's also an investment in terms of investing in
Speaker 2: financial market products which are more volatile than your home.
Speaker 2: Then of course, it comes back to my point at
Speaker 2: the outset. Do you have the attitude to take this? Right.
Speaker 2: It will be ups and downs. My advice is if
Speaker 2: you feel stressed, don't delete the app or whatever, don't,
Speaker 2: don't stand
Speaker 2: did every other day in your office, then perhaps you
Speaker 2: should outsource some of your investing or tear down in
Speaker 2: terms of your risk profile. So you don't have this
Speaker 2: sort of volatility, right? So move from a moderately conservative,
Speaker 2: slightly more conservative. Correct, correct. My advice is always keep
Speaker 2: an eye on the objective, right? What have you invested
Speaker 2: in are the fundamentals of the underlying assets? Have they changed?
Speaker 2: Notwithstanding an event or a market episode, have they changed? Right.
Speaker 2: Obviously COVID has given us a very good example of
Speaker 2: how some fundamental stocks, businesses can be impacted. So you
Speaker 2: really get a sense of, ok, are we facing the
Speaker 2: kind of Black Swan situation or is it, you know,
Speaker 2: really a sense of a situation where a short term
Speaker 2: market psychology,
Speaker 2: an industry event, which is sort of limiting, it will
Speaker 2: be limiting, although it looks very bad perhaps on the
Speaker 2: day's newspaper. Sure. But if you look over a cycle,
Speaker 2: you will be limiting. So if your fundamentals are there,
Speaker 2: the assets, the business that you've invested in or the
Speaker 2: stock that you've invested in the fundamentals have not changed.
Speaker 2: Stay the course. Yeah, I think that's the piece of
Speaker 2: advice that we've been hearing consistently here on money talks
Speaker 2: is that you look at the market fundamentals or even
Speaker 2: the businesses fundamentals,
Speaker 2: funds fundamentals. If they have remained intact over the course
Speaker 2: of say something like COVID, then it's just best to
Speaker 2: stay the course. Don't back out, just don't panic just
Speaker 2: because you see the first sign of bad news and
Speaker 2: that premises again, back to our basic that these monies
Speaker 2: are beer money, right? It is something which you have
Speaker 2: no sudden need or you don't say that I'm going to,
Speaker 2: I really need that cash in one month's time because
Speaker 2: of XYZ. So you got to make sure that this
Speaker 2: is not the kind of that part of your funds.
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Speaker 2: So one of the things obviously, and we've talked about
Speaker 2: this during this conversation, Lawrence is how we use CPF
Speaker 2: to pay off our housing loans for these younger people
Speaker 2: in their twenties and thirties, they would either have a
Speaker 2: BT O or a younger flat relatively or just they're
Speaker 2: just being that by virtue of the fact that they're younger,
Speaker 2: they have the option of using their CPF to pay
Speaker 2: off their housing loan as quickly as possible. And I
Speaker 2: know people who have done this,
Speaker 2: but then they fall into the trap of weak cash flow,
Speaker 2: for example. So overall using your CPF to clear your
Speaker 2: housing loan, is this a sound strategy rather than using
Speaker 2: the money for investments, for example. So again, it boils
Speaker 2: back down to where are your lazy money for each individual, right?
Speaker 2: If your CPF funds at 2.5% is your Laziest money
Speaker 2: because you have put your funds in things that you
Speaker 2: can yield 10 15% or whatever or be higher risk,
Speaker 2: then of course, paying down loans is always a good
Speaker 2: thing to me. Right. So if you sacrifice 2.5% but you,
Speaker 2: you are saving 5% on your housing loan, Hey, that's
Speaker 2: a good carry. So if that's your Laziest money, then
Speaker 2: of course. Right? But if you have lazy money, then don't, right.
Speaker 2: If you have lazier money somewhere, then don't. So at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, you have to look at
Speaker 2: where your funds are.
Speaker 2: So that's the way to sort of make that decision
Speaker 2: for most younger people with mortgage. My advice is don't
Speaker 2: forget that your mortgage, you're paying 4 5%. That's a
Speaker 2: drag on your investment, your overall wealth, right? So you
Speaker 2: can pay off do so. Ok. Ok. That's good advice.
Speaker 2: Have you had any stories where
Speaker 2: uh CPF investments have gone awry? Any pitfalls that you've
Speaker 2: heard of that we need to be aware of because
Speaker 2: I've heard of some myself, but I wanted to hear
Speaker 2: from you what you've heard on your side. I think
Speaker 2: the CPF IFI S scheme is relatively ring fenced. Hence,
Speaker 2: there's always a logic why you can only invest in
Speaker 2: certain type of products. So where people have lost money
Speaker 2: it is more because of market risk, right? And
Speaker 2: they needed the funds immediately and, and it was not
Speaker 2: a good time. Hence the milk powder money versus beer
Speaker 2: money thing. So they were not clear how long term
Speaker 2: could they deploy the funds. Right. And, and of course,
Speaker 2: we always always have a camp of people who panic
Speaker 2: and they decide to withdraw and then they basically crystallize
Speaker 2: the loss. So the horror stories have been well relatively
Speaker 2: mild because it's not because of scams or some
Speaker 2: regulated scheme that has misled. So CPFIS is kind of contained.
Speaker 2: So I've not heard of any scam related or people
Speaker 2: who have invested in, in stuff which have turned negative
Speaker 2: because they were poorly regulated. Right? Yeah. So CPF SI
Speaker 2: S is really contained. Ok. That's good. That's reassuring.
Speaker 2: Ok, so wanted to get your thoughts on the best
Speaker 2: hacks for growing CPF money within a 20 to 25
Speaker 2: year horizon. Ok. Let's hear it. So a couple of things,
Speaker 2: I'm going to start with a big picture. Of course,
Speaker 2: I have to champion money since and if so best
Speaker 2: hack is invest in yourself, come to our platform ifl
Speaker 2: we conduct courses
Speaker 2: for free, including some of these investment topics and a
Speaker 2: lot more. Secondly, with your twenties and thirties, I would
Speaker 2: imagine you want to also save on tax and CPF
Speaker 2: is a good way, we all get tax relief. But
Speaker 2: if you are starting out and you are not at
Speaker 2: AC PF wage cap, which is 6000, it's going to
Speaker 2: be 6003 in September this year, by the way. So
Speaker 2: your wage is not there, right? And you have an
Speaker 2: additional wages that your employer pays you. Maybe
Speaker 2: for specific duties, not additional duties. You may get some
Speaker 2: commissions from sales or you may get some employers pay
Speaker 2: you for your handphone. So some of these go and
Speaker 2: check out whether some of them qualify as wages, if
Speaker 2: you can contribute additional wages to your CPF, of course,
Speaker 2: that's better and you get additional relief. So those help
Speaker 2: you on the tax side, right?
Speaker 2: Um If you're self-employed, many 2030 years could be self-employed.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to contribute, right? I heard of instances where
Speaker 2: you don't contribute because you, you think that you, you
Speaker 2: maybe you are so busy or you don't have the
Speaker 2: sense that this is the important part because if your
Speaker 2: salary staff is automated, right? But self-employed, you have to
Speaker 2: do it. So contribute regularly as if you are an
Speaker 2: employee and an employer, both sides top up
Speaker 2: or a medisave account and these are all tax benefits.
Speaker 2: So to me, those are the very clear hacks that
Speaker 2: you should take advantage of. Those are really great hacks. Laurence,
Speaker 2: I have to say very, very good ones and final
Speaker 2: advice for young people thinking of dipping their toes into
Speaker 2: CPF investing, maybe top three pieces of advice. Well, I
Speaker 2: like to use the ABC S, right? OK. So first
Speaker 2: thing investing to avoid investments, which doesn't fit your risk
Speaker 2: profile if you are going to be
Speaker 2: panicking and worried all the time to avoid. That second
Speaker 2: thing is be careful. I call it maybe the formal mentality. Yes. OK. Yes,
Speaker 2: I think you do that. So you hear somebody says, oh,
Speaker 2: this is the best game in town and this person
Speaker 2: says that he made so much money from it. Formal
Speaker 2: builds up, right? Be very careful to sort of put
Speaker 2: that at bay and do your own research. Like go
Speaker 2: back to the fundamentals, do your own research. Do you
Speaker 2: have the aptitude and the risk appetite?
Speaker 2: Is this beer money or milk powder money? Some of
Speaker 2: these things, right? What is the objective of your investment?
Speaker 2: And of course, c is always be careful about your
Speaker 2: CPF two CS, but always be careful with your CPF
Speaker 2: because I've lived through the twenties and thirties. I think
Speaker 2: when I was at the age, I also felt that
Speaker 2: CPF is something like somehow it takes away my cash flow.
Speaker 2: I I wish I had the cash flow because I
Speaker 2: needed for housing. You sort of either belittle it, ignore
Speaker 2: it or be agitated with it, right? And plus you
Speaker 2: have a lot of people who may spew wise cracks
Speaker 2: about the fact that the government is taking your money
Speaker 2: and stuff.
Speaker 2: So you have all these hotspots. But again, I think
Speaker 2: that the most important thing is don't underestimate the power
Speaker 2: of CPF,
Speaker 2: I think for Singaporeans, it is one of the most
Speaker 2: important financial asset. If you manage it well from young
Speaker 2: in your twenties and thirties, you will be well placed
Speaker 2: in your forties and fifties. When you see the benefit
Speaker 2: of CPF coming back, it's that nest egg that we
Speaker 2: always thought for sure. So investing your CPF money can
Speaker 2: be a great way to grow that retirement nest egg.
Speaker 2: As long as you keep your eye on the prize
Speaker 2: like Lauren says,
Speaker 2: and remember it's a long game that you're playing when
Speaker 2: it comes to CPFIS. As with all investments, of course,
Speaker 2: do your homework. Keep on top of developments. Don't get
Speaker 2: into trends and products you don't understand. Don't give in
Speaker 2: to that formal thanks, Lawrence for the great advice and
Speaker 2: for being here today. Oh, you're welcome. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2: And thank you to you, our listener. If you've enjoyed
Speaker 2: this episode of Money Talks, there's always more content for
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Speaker 2: The team behind Money Talks is Jacqueline Chan, Joanne Chan, Tiffany,
Speaker 2: Ang Christina Robert and I'm Andrea. He