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Most of us will work and earn a salary for 40 years (about 25 years-old to 65 years-old), but we have to “share” this salary with our future selves – who will not be working for about 20 years in retirement (from 65 years-old to 85 years-old). Essentially, every dollar that we spend today, we are taking away from our future selves. What we may not fully appreciate, at least without crunching the numbers, is how much our future selves may potentially rely on these savings. One of the easiest ways to start building our retirement nest egg is a common personal finance advice we’ve probably already heard: “Pay yourself first”. Rather than saving what is left of our salary at the end of each month, the idea is to put aside part of our income before we spend on anything else – including for our daily living needs. Even our grocery bills, internet plans, clothing expenses and transport budget can inflate with our lifestyle. Ideally, we should set a standing instruction with our bank to transfer this money to a separate account each month – to pay our future selves first. This exercise can be important in rewiring the way we think about our salary. When it comes to planning our personal finances, there’s rarely a one-size-fits-all number. If we don’t know where to begin, though, the 50-30-20 rule can be a good starting point. We should aim to spend a maximum of 50% of our salary on daily living expenses, 30% on discretionary expenses (i.e. our wants) and 20% towards savings. This may not be suitable for everyone. Fresh graduates, singles or DINKS (referring to couples with dual income, and no kids) may be able to save much more than 20% of their monthly salaries. Individuals on the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) path may prefer to cut out luxuries and save as much as possible. On the other hand, those who are part of the sandwiched generation, with young children and elderly parents, may find it challenging to siphon off 20% of their income into a separate account each month. We need to find the right number that works for us – both today and in the future. Our savings only earn a in a bank savings account. Even high-interest savings accounts offer an attainable interest return of about 3.5% p.a. Meanwhile, inflation will be chipping away at our savings. Over the past two years, the core inflation rate in Singapore has risen to . Anyone who left their savings sitting in a bank savings account would have seen their purchasing power shrink. In other words, we would no longer be able to afford the same basket of goods that our money could have bought two years ago. Compounded over 40 years, the value of our savings will be greatly eroded. Besides paying our future selves each month, we also need to invest for our future selves. We can take advantage of investment management firms such as the homegrown Lion Global Investors to build our retirement nest egg. For example, we can refer to Lion Global Investors’ fund centre to shortlist investments that provide regular income and are designed to be part of a retirement portfolio. For those who may not know where to start, we can zoom into the or ). Both funds invest in a diversified mix of asset classes across the US, Asia Pacific and Europe. The difference is that the “ ” fund targets an , while the “ ” fund targets a . We can see this in the funds’ exposure to equities VS fixed income. The Growth fund has close to 70% exposure to equities and 30% exposure to fixed income, while the Standard fund holds the opposite allocation. Based on our risk appetite or risk profile (i.e. whether we are nearing our retirement age), we can invest in either funds and rest assured that we gain broad global exposure to equities and fixed income. Those who are more investment-savvy and want to beef up their nest egg can take a more self-directed approach – complementing a global core retirement portfolio, such as the LionGlobal All Seasons Fund above, with a satellite portfolio. Via , we can shortlist the , giving us exposure to not just the largest stock market in the world with US stocks, but also companies in Japan, Europe and Canada. For those who prefer more segmented exposure, we can choose to invest in just the US stock market, or even just Asia Pacific or Japan. Lion Global Investors’ provides an investment that aims to track the performance of the S&P 500 Index. Besides giving us exposure to the 500 biggest stocks in the US market – many of which we will be familiar with (table on the right), we also enjoy diversification to various major sectors. Investors with conviction in the continued rise of Asia can consider investing in the LionGlobal Asia Pacific Fund. We gain broad exposure in the biggest companies (table on the right) listed across major Asia Pacific economies such as China, Australia, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and others. Many Asia Pacific funds and/or ETFs may exclude Japan exposure. We can choose to invest in the biggest companies (table on the right) listed in the fourth largest economy in the world through the . We could also choose fixed income investments that deliver stable and visible distributions via Lion Global Investors. For example, its enables investors to gain exposure to Singapore dollar-denominated debt securities issued by the Singapore Government, as well as the Financial and Real Estate sector. Alternatively, we may prefer broader fixed income exposure via the – which can give us broader exposure to various economies and sectors. Besides funds, we can also invest in ETFs. One ETF that can help us achieve both stable dividend distributions and potential capital appreciation is the . It gives us diversified exposure to the 30 largest and most tradeable APAC financial institutions. Index Characteristics We will also be quite familiar with the index top 10 holdings: As employees in Singapore, we are contributing to our CPF monthly. Funds in our CPF Ordinary Account (OA) and Special Account (SA) will ultimately be channelled into our Retirement Account (RA) when we turn 55 – to provide us lifelong monthly payouts via CPF LIFE after we turn 65. While our Special Account pays us a floor rate of 4.0%, and has , our Ordinary Account continues to pay us floor rate of 2.5%. We can consider investing our OA funds to boost our retirement nest egg. For a start, we can invest in Singapore Government T-bills, which has a cut-off yield of 3.74% . For those of us who have a longer runway before retiring and the risk appetite, we may be able to compound our Ordinary Account savings into a much more meaningful sum for our retirement. In the same token, we can consider some of Lion Global Investors’ investments listed above, enabling us to gain diverse global exposure to equities, as well as more concentrated investments in various regions, sectors and asset classes, via the CPF Investment Scheme (CPF-IS) We can find out more about the individual investments on their respective fund page on Lion Global Investors’ website: – – – – – – – –   We can invest in the funds discussed above via and . As for the ETFs, we can invest in them via our broker – similar to how we would buy and sell stocks.