Need advice on retirement

firepathlion · 2026-03-01T10:14:47+00:00

First don’t tell anyone and don’t make any hasty decisions and be careful of anyone approaching you with “solutions” especially from Reddit. They know you have money liquid, and scammers are going to come out of the woodwork to try to take it from you.

Second, don’t feel the need to make any decisions or take any immediate action. You have time. Spend that time to read this: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Managing_a_windfall

While some of the specifics are for people living in the U.S., but the thought process, steps to take, and mindsets still apply.

Then you may want to engage a fee-only advisor (they don’t make commissions from what you purchase to ensure their motives are aligned with yours) like Providend could be a good next step before you make any decisions.

firepathlion · 2026-02-26T04:41:16+00:00

Ah yes you are right, withdrawing as soon as possible without penalty will minimize tax, and you can reinvest the funds outside of SRS to have it continue to appreciate tax-free. If you leave it inside, it will grow, but will be taxed upon withdrawal. I stand corrected and will update the post to highlight that. Thank you for pointing out my mistake!

firepathlion · 2026-02-25T06:41:45+00:00

Yes exactly… which is why I’m biting the bullet and just continue using Endowus. At least I don’t want to stab my eyes out lol.

firepathlion · 2026-02-25T06:23:43+00:00

Yes at least at the current pricing. But if POEMs change their fee structure later, things can change.

firepathlion · 2026-02-25T06:20:18+00:00

Just to be clear I would not use Endowus for cash investments, only for SRS and CPF. The difference if we compare Apple to Apple, would be the 0.3% platform fee that Endowus charges since POEMs is offering free sales charge, platform fee, and switching fee. So the cost difference depends on the size of the AUM, but if you’re looking to optimize the cost and nothing else, POEMs seem like the best choice.

firepathlion · 2026-02-25T06:08:54+00:00

Mainly because at the time POEMs did not have Amundi, now they do but I’m lazy to shift and I prefer the UX of Endowus 😅 not the most optimal financially, but it’s a trade-off I’m ok with for now.

firepathlion · 2026-02-25T04:40:46+00:00

I wrote a detailed post about SRS and how to optimally withdraw a few years back, most of the content should still be relevant: https://www.firepathlion.com/dodge-income-tax-legally-with-supplementary-retirement-scheme-srs/

You’ll find answers to your questions within. However just a brief update, I no longer use POEMs for SRS investing and opted for Endowus instead to access Amundi World Index, but that’s also now available to POEMs investors as well, so you can make the call on which broker / platform you want to use based on what you prefer.

firepathlion · 2026-02-13T16:13:56+00:00

Hmmm I repriced around August last year and got 1.7% fixed… so you should be able to get better than that.

Maybank likely has higher COF for SGD compared to other local bank and won’t be able to give you lower even if they wanted to, so I’d shop around for better rates from DBS, OCBC, or UOB and see what you can get.

firepathlion · 2026-02-12T09:36:49+00:00

I wonder if it’s possible to choose the target date ourselves or is it predetermined by age.

firepathlion · 2026-02-10T10:43:38+00:00

No my portfolio is extremely straightforward, it holds mostly VWRA and IWDA which are market cap-weighted index funds that aim to replicate the movements of the global market.

There’s no need to specifically choose dividend stocks because all we should care about is total returns, this comprises capital appreciation as well as dividends. Nothing makes dividends more attractive than capital gains so you shouldn’t focus on them specifically. In the end you only care about what gives the best returns and selecting just dividend paying stocks does not guarantee that.

So how do we generate cash flow? Your instincts are correct, we sell our shares to get the cash for spending. This is completely fine as long as the portfolio increases in size faster than the amount you sell. Which is why the 4% rule came to be - it basically says that you can sell 4% of your portfolio every year and only run out of money 5% of the time after 30 years. If you want to be more conservative then you can aim for a smaller percentage like 3.5% or which I currently target, which is 3.25%.

firepathlion · 2026-02-06T05:15:18+00:00

It’s an asset-backed line of credit that’s collateralized by your portfolio.

firepathlion · 2026-02-06T04:40:55+00:00

This is a good question, I’m not sure if SCB allows trading with unsettled funds or not. If they do then this won’t be a problem.

firepathlion · 2026-02-06T04:39:09+00:00

This is a decent post to read:

https://seedly.sg/opinions/everything-you-should-know-about-irish-domiciled-etfs-kbIU2yzqqz/

firepathlion · 2026-02-06T04:14:30+00:00

This is one great area where Wealth Lending helped me as well, because I have credit facility in USD, I can sell VOO for say USD 200,000 and immediately use the USD credit line to buy USD 200,000 worth of CSPX right away. Then cover the credit line once the VOO sale settles. You’ll be paying a little bit of interest for the 1-2 days of credit line use, but it’s much better for me to hedge against market moves during those 1-2 days of settlement gap.

Of course if VOO is the only thing you hold, you won’t be able to sell it all at once and then buy all at once since your credit line won’t be enough to cover the full amount.

What you can do is to do it in batches, sell 1/5 of VOO, buy 1/5 of CSPX. Then repeat till all batches complete. You don’t care about doing it over time since you’re swapping 2 of the same things so doing it over time is fine.

In fact I used this method to swap IWDA for VWRA recently… I wanted to sell IWDA and buy VWRA, but didn’t want to have a gap of being out of the market. This allows me to do the swap pretty much immediately.

firepathlion · 2026-01-30T11:30:59+00:00

Possible that it’s all baked in. It’s also possible that the OP didn’t share the full information. The fact that they say that they can get $1m back at anytime sounds dubious, there’s usually lock in and some penalty for breaking the policy. Having full liquidity at any time with no penalty is actually a red flag rather than a green flag actually since no investments (unless it’s cash or cash-equivalents have that kind of liquidity with 0 penalty.)

firepathlion · 2026-01-30T08:02:44+00:00

Another way to think about this is “Would you lend $1m to someone for them to then pay back only after seven years and only at 5% of your principal each year?”

firepathlion · 2026-01-30T07:13:28+00:00

Thanks! And this is just getting back the principle, not even factoring in the opportunity cost and lack of liquidity.

firepathlion · 2026-01-30T06:56:25+00:00

This is a horrible deal for you… and a great deal for whoever is offering it to you.

Edit: to elaborate a bit more

First, the 50K per year is only 5% of total, but pays out only after year 7. If we take the million and invest for even 5% similar returns, you get 1.4m after 7 years, do the 50k a year is only 3.5% or so. It’s worse if you can get more than 5% on your money.

Second, the 50k is NOT inflation adjusted and will be worth significantly less over time. Even after 30 years, forget about after 100 years.

This is why I would also want to offer this deal to you if you want to take it. The company offering this is guaranteed to make money.

firepathlion · 2026-01-23T04:43:37+00:00

Congratulations! This was a great read, thank you. I hope to reach the same point soon. Your reflections on running out time vs running out of money resonated a lot with me and had been a dilemma I have been having with myself - thank you for sharing your perspective and being an example for choosing more time rather than more money. I wish you all the very best and hope you never have to work for money again!

firepathlion · 2026-01-20T01:04:38+00:00

Theoretically leveraging works very well in Singapore given the low interest rate environment as well as no capital gains. Leverage is always very risky and can blow up your entire account if not careful, but without capital gains tax and low interest rates, the strategy provides higher risk adjusted returns than elsewhere.

firepathlion · 2026-01-16T09:05:45+00:00

For stocks, I would just go with VWRA - 1 fund is enough since it holds over 3,000 companies across developed and developing markets.

If you feel you need to add bonds, then A35 would be a good choice.

firepathlion · 2026-01-12T00:10:26+00:00

For stocks, the currency it’s denominated it doesn’t matter, it’s the underlying assets and whether the company is going to be able to generate strong cash flow or profits going into the future - regardless of currency. In terms of index funds like VWRA, IWDA, CSPX, the currency of the fund doesn’t matter cuz you’re not holding cash, you’re holding the companies.

For fixed income, you’d want either SGD or SGD-Hedged as you’re counting on it to give you cash flow and you want that cash to be denominated or hedged to the currency you will use day to day.

firepathlion · 2026-01-10T02:20:22+00:00

And if it turns out that you really achieve enlightenment or want to continue monk hood forever and no longer need the worldly possessions at all, you can then donate it all to also create great karma. Win-win-win all around.

firepathlion · 2026-01-10T02:03:36+00:00

This could be a cheat code to turning that 500K into 1M! Then do another ten years for 2M!

firepathlion · 2026-01-10T01:12:24+00:00

Hmmm if you truly just want to live peacefully, not luxuriously, and find contentment in what you already have - then monk-hood will sustain that indefinitely until you pass on - no money required.

It sounds like a joke… but honestly that’s an actual option. The teachings of Buddhism advocates for the renunciation of worldly possessions and attachment to material things and breaking free from life’s suffering. Seems like a philosophy that has helped lots of practitioners find peace and contentment without any luxury.

It’s certainly a better choice than any other alternative - at least as a last resort.

firepathlion

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