If I had done this, I would have hit the minimum sum too.

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This is my reply to a comment by a reader and because I want as many people to read this as possible, I am publishing this as a regular blog post.

See qook's full comment: here.
".... I just ran some numbers and they were illuminating. If I'd done the same as AK, I would have hit my minimum sum too!"

AK's voluntary contribution in March 2014.

AK's reply:

Hi qook,

Yes, absolutely! That is what I have been trying to tell people for a long time. :)

Feed our CPF-SA early and feed it well. If we do it early enough and well enough, we would only have to do it for a few years and time will do the rest for us.

4% compound interest is powerful. 4% compound interest risk free is very attractive. 

However, we need a more substantial base to see more meaningful results. 

So, we need to help it along to help ourselves. ;)







Once you hit the ceilings for the SA and MA in any year, your monthly CPF contributions for the rest of the year will go to your OA and SA but not the MA.

So, the money in the SA will continue to grow into something much bigger. 

At age 55, there could possibly be a small windfall for us and not just a $5,000 payout. 

The rest of the money goes into a newly created RA and at age 65, CPF Life will kick in.

Like many things in life, the outcome depends on the decisions we made in the past. :)







Want to create a risk free and more conservative portion for our portfolio and not very sure about bonds? 

I hope this blog post has provided some food for thought. 

There is still quite a bit of time before the year ends.

Related posts:
1. Towards retirement adequacy before the year ends.
2. Videos on reaching 55 and CPF Life. (6 minutes in all.)
3. Build a bigger retirement fund with CPF-SA.
4. Do the right things and transform our lives. (Real story.)
5. We do better managing our savings than the CPF?

A way towards retirement adequacy before the year ends.

A reader sent this message to me in FB and agreed to have me share it in my blog:

Hi AK,


Many thanks for your blog post "How to grow my wealth as I approach 40 years of age" and the other cpf related posts.


After poking around our cpf site, finally decided to move my entire 2013 OA contributions into SA. While it is nowhere near the MS, i feel it's a step in the right direction despite the fact that i am closer 40 than 20!


Thank you for always sharing your thoughts, journey AND nagging at us


P


P.S.
CPF website has an "Ordinary Account-Special Account Savings Transfer Calculator". It estimates how much MORE interest we earn by moving $x amt from OA to SA account. Unfortunately, it only calculates up to age 55 and not the 65 you mentioned. However, it is still a great gauge. Perhaps this may be useful for your readers to convince themselves of how wonderful this 4/5% interest is!

Here's the link:
https://www.cpf.gov.sg/cpf_trans/ssl/financial_model/oa2sa/oa2sa_cal.asp

if you feel it will help others, please (share)

the exchange between you, Endrene and a few others were very helpful to me.

If you like what you read here, there are still a couple of weeks left before the year ends.

Related posts:
1. How to grow my wealth as I approach 40 years of age?
2. How to upsize $100K to $225K in 20 years?