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In my last blog, I said that as long as personal financial conditions permit, I would like to continue making voluntary contributions to my CPF account at least till I am 55 years of age.
See:
How much passive income is enough for you?
I believe that it should not come as a surprise to anyone that this plan is ridiculed by people unhappy with the CPF.
Some people unhappy with the CPF even got angry at me for sharing my thoughts on how to make the CPF work as a cornerstone in our retirement funding strategy.
See:
Unhappy with CPF and angry with AK.
Looking through some of my unfinished blogs which are pretty numerous, I decided to spruce up one on the CPF.
There are so many reasons why many blogs remain unfinished.
Of course, AK being lazy is one reason.
However, this blog was left unfinished probably out of respect for a friend.
I say "probably" because I am not sure if it was out of respect or out of pity.
He is actually more of a friend's friend than a friend.
What's the difference?
Anyway, it was something that happened more than a year ago.
The original blog went like this:
I am once again reminded of human mortality as I attended a funeral wake recently.
As I grow older, I suppose I might be attending more of such necessary and unhappy events.
I will avoid them if at all possible.
I sat at a table with some friends and in the chatter, someone said something about the CPF locking up our hard earned money and that it is as good as gone.
It was in response to another person who said it is better to live life to the fullest and there is no point in dying with lots of money left behind.
Anyway, I wasn't feeling talkative and I wanted to go home as soon as I was done with the dinner buffet.
AK is so anti-social.
So, I kept quiet and kept eating.
When they started talking about children and parents, I gulped down my drink and said farewell.
Why do I prefer my own company?
I wonder.
I know that there are quite a few out there who do not trust the government.
It is good not to be too trusting.
That is for sure.
Too trusting and we are in danger of becoming gullible.
However, if we become overly suspicious, we are in danger of becoming irrational.
We should ask the right questions before making a decision, absolutely.
When we become irrational, however, we ask all the wrong questions or start imagining things.
Anyway, this is a topic that I have covered multiple times.
1. The CPF is not a national PONZI scheme.
There is a maximum amount we can contribute to our CPF account each year.
Want to contribute more?
Sorry, not allowed.
Does a PONZI scheme work this way?
Read:
CPF is really a PONZI scheme!
2. The CPF is designed to help all members achieve a basic level of retirement funding adequacy.
"The CPF is a system that is meant to help the masses to help themselves.
"If we think the system cannot help us, it is probably because we have not tried to help ourselves."
Read:
Purpose of the CPF is to make the rich richer?
3. If we are very rich, we probably will have to look for other tools on top of the CPF.
"For most ordinary Singaporeans, if they want to hold some bonds to prepare for retirement, maxing out their CPF membership benefits is all they need."
Read:
CPF is all we need unless we are very rich.
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| Read: $800K in his CPF! |
Unfortunately, many who really need to make better use of the CPF do not realise what a good thing the CPF is.
We can bring horses to water but we cannot make them drink it or so the saying goes.
Fortunately, the mandatory component of the CPF makes the horses drink some water.
LOL. ;p
The horses might not be grateful and they complain a lot but they sure are lucky. :p
Related post:
CPF interest is passive income and CPF savings is real money.
You might also be interested in these blogs:
1. How much passive income is enough for you now?
2. CPF SA time and income lost due to peer pressure.
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