You’ve seen my plan for building up my retirement income (here), and you’ve sent in the questions. In this article, I dive deeper into how I intend to get paid $5,000 per month in retirement from my CPF funds alone, as well as the steps I’m currently taking to get there. Let’s start with a quick recap – when we retire, most of us will still have expenses to pay for. I’ve categorised them as follows:

• Fixed expenses (cost of living)
• Travel expenses to overseas countries
• Unexpected expenses (e.g. medical bills, replacement costs for home appliances due to prolonged use, etc)

The amount we will need in retirement all boils down to how much our expenses add up to. If you asked me, the best solution involves planning for the expected costs of living (my needs) and travel expenses (my wants), while I rely on insurance or my emergency funds for the unexpected expenses....