Retirement Planning

Are you old enough to remember the good old days when a worker stayed with one employer and retired with a "nice pension"? Those days seem to be gone, maybe for good. Today, you need to take charge and plan for your own retirement security. Relying on EPF for the bulk of your retirement income is an iffy proposition at best. Also, many companies today don't have traditional pension plans.

How much income should you plan on needing when you retire? A financial planning rule of thumb is to figure on needing 70% to 80% of your pre-retirement income. That income is the income you'll be earning at the time you retire, not the amount you're earning now.

In doing your projections, be sure to consider the dramatic effect inflation can have on earnings and expenses. Even at the relatively low 3% annual inflation we've been seeing in recent years, someone earning RM30,000 today may be earning RM40,000 in 10 years, RM54,000 in 20 years, and RM73,000 at retirement in 30 years if he or she receives nothing more than cost-of-living raises.

You can use the our Retiment Planning Calculator software (If you have any queries on the software, please feel free to contact me at lynnkhoo77@gmail.com.) to estimate what your retirement income needs might be and how much money you should be investing now to be able to meet those needs when you retire.

Once you've determined your retirement income needs, you need to plan for meeting those needs. The most advantageous way to invest for retirement is to take advantage of various opportunities to defer or avoid federal income tax on retirement investment earnings.

Education Planning

When should you start planning for a child's university education? Ideally, as soon as the child is born. The cost of four years at a private college or university currently is increasing faster than our inflation rate. Don't become alarmed if you haven't started planning for your child's college education. No matter what the child's age, strategies are available to help you come up with the necessary funds.


You can use the our Education Planning Calculator (If you have any queries on the software, please feel free to contact me at lynnkhoo77@gmail.com.) to estimate what how much is needed for your child's education and how much money you should be investing now to be able to meet those needs.

For young children, start putting money away regularly now, investing in higher-potential-growth securities and mutual funds as you would for other long-term goals, such as retirement. As your income increases, try to increase the amount you're investing. When a child reaches high school age, you'll probably want to begin moving college investments into lesser-risk investments.