Setting Aside some Funds as a Long Term Savings Goal for my Parents' Retirement
After receiving my bonus this year, I decided to set aside another portion of it for my parents retirement savings.
I thought I pen down my thought process and perhaps something for myself to review as time goes.
Here is what I based by choices on:
- Irregular lump sums (ideally in small amounts)
- Handsfree management where possible
- Flexibility with liquidity
- Low Fees
- Looking at a timeframe of about 10 years or more (my parents will be drawing down their savings supplemented by CPF LIFE)
I was comparing FSMOne (ETFs and funds) and Endowus when I found out that Endowus could actually do a one-time lump sum investment.
I am personally using both FSMOne (for Singapore and Hong Kong Equities, Tiger Brokers is tempting me as they provide access to the Shenzhen Exchange which FSMOne doesn't at the moment) and Endowus (to invest my CPF Ordinary Account funds). So I am leaning towards both of them as part of convenience (DBS and OCBC robo are very pricey franky).
Endowus is one of the low-fee Roboadvisors and they are very transparent with their fees and even offer trailer rebates, putting them on the side of common folk investors like me. Their funds are held with UOB, which is safe too.
So my account page, select the "Invest" option.
It brings you to select the source of funding, and in this instance, it is cash.
The next screen comes out and asks for your risk tolerance and some basic fact finding. I selected a risk profile for a portfolio of 60:40 equity bond ratio based on my own reading from personal finance materials. Please adjust your risk accordingly as we all have differing circumstances (I can take more risk in this because my parents have their own savings and this is more of buffer for later years).
They will ask you to name your goal, which in my case is to supplement my parent's retirement.
Based on my inputs, a portfolio is generated. For my instance, it is a 60:40 allocation I mentioned above.
I would like to point out that as time goes on, you can actually adjust the portfolio allocation to suit lifestyle requirements. From there, you can tweak risk tolerance. I will include a section below later on in this post.
If you ever do this, please keep in mind that you are adjusting for your lifestyle requirements but not of fear and greed, I have observed such behavioral patterns during the decline in March this year. That is actually harmful instead.
You can scroll down to see goal projections, fees, portfolio composition and historical performance. For simplicity, I used $100 for the projection. You can drag the pointer on the chart to estimate based on their simulations for the duration you are looking for.
The fees are here.
Portfolio Composition.
Historical Performance.
And if you think this is right for you, you can click to proceed.
You will receive an email from them regarding your new goal is ready to be funded. Note that there is an expiry date by when you should fund it or else it will be canceled.
They offer PayNow as a means of transfer, so it is rather simple and painless.
After you funded it, they will respond to you in 2-3 business days with a confirmation of the deposit, and another 2-3 business days with the confirmation of the investment.
And it is done!
Changing your Risk Tolerance
I have mentioned above about changing your risk tolerance, so here are some short steps.
Go to the specific goal you want and select "Goal Settings".
Select "Modify Goal" and it will bring you to the page where you can adjust and get a new recommendation to switch to.
Making Subsequent One-Time Investment
Similarly, you can make a subsequent one time investment too.
Go to the Goal you want and go to the "Accounts" section and click "Invest | Redeem".
They will ask you to select how do you wish to fund the account again.
Pick the funding method you want and proceed. They will ask you if you wish to do a one-time investment or if you want, you can change it to a recurring investment. Unlike usual investment plans, the fees are the same be it single or regular investments.
Click to continue, select the means of funding (PayNow or recurring GIRO) and you are done.
Conclusion
That's it.
I hope I have illustrated some ideas.
Perhaps it is not just for your parents' retirement savings but I think this can be applied for other long term savings goals to help you get closer to where you want to be too.
Hope it helps.
I am also sharing a link that he can get $10,000 advised fee free for 6 months, which is a savings of $20, the link is here.
You can click on it if you are interested as well.
Note that if you sign up using my link, I will get a small referral fee. There is no extra charge to you, in fact, you will get $10,000 advised fee free for 6 months (about $20 savings), it is not much but hey, $20 saved is $20 earned :)
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