Hi Lisa! Been wanting to reach out since I started watching you from the very beginning. I’ve always been very impressed with your understanding of the need for financial literacy and here’s just some advice on my end. If retirement before 65, (like 55 or 60 as you mentioned), I would avoid putting money through SRS. I understand it’s for tax relief, but being unable to withdraw without penalty before 62/63 makes it quite inflexible for that goal. Also, the opportunity cost is so high to have your money locked in SRS when you are still young. I’ll suggest SRS only when you have your retirement date/amount/details completely sorted out and you are using it as a tool outside of just tax relief. Consider investing yourself in an ETF via a cheap brokerage like Interactive Brokers. I’ve used Robo-advisors myself and through that also learned a lot and gained confidence to invest in my own, but the fees really do add up over decades of investing and compounding. Lastly, I strongly encourage that everyone keep insurance and investments/savings seperate. Most of the time, it only serves the insurance company, not the customers. But once again, an incredibly well made and detailed video. I applaud your dedication to share your knowledge. Have a wonderful 2025!🎉 Edit: Just got to the end of the video. Regarding using Robo-advisors for rebalancing, I subscribe to the philosophy of investing in almost all equities in ages 20-40. Ages 50-60 start keeping cash/bonds/SRS to reduce volatility and risk when it comes to start drawing down your assets. Hope that helps!
hey, i resonate with your videos from the start as we started work at the same time and you speak with a calmness about finance that is quite soothing! am also not a guru, but do note that the S&P 500 ETFs that you bought are generally popular. However, the ETFs in your excel sheet are actually subjected to 30% dividend withholding tax (takes 30% of the cut of your dividends) and has inheritance tax (if you pass away, it taxes around 40% i think) because it is domiciled in USA. There are other ETFs that are domiciled in non-US countries so can read up more on those
@CrazyPingPong97 yeah I realised this too! hence why i've stopped investing in VOO on syfe trade. do you think i should just sell those or hold on to them? 🤔
Would be good to show how much yield you’re getting from each asset, and whether is a dividend asset, or growth asset. If you’re from finance background, online brokerages would probably save you a lot of management fees. I do agree that reading helps.
Great guide for young investors! 🎉 Looks like you have a well diversified portfolio, which is great but unfortunately is more rare than it should be for young investors.
Just a suggestion, maybe you can consider the option to top-off CPF instead of SRS to get tax relief instead, unless you have hit the tax relief CPF ceiling of 16K for both personal and spouse/parents under CPF own-self top-up and use the OA portion in OA for robo-invest part :)
Hi Lisa! Been wanting to reach out since I started watching you from the very beginning. I’ve always been very impressed with your understanding of the need for financial literacy and here’s just some advice on my end.
If retirement before 65, (like 55 or 60 as you mentioned), I would avoid putting money through SRS. I understand it’s for tax relief, but being unable to withdraw without penalty before 62/63 makes it quite inflexible for that goal. Also, the opportunity cost is so high to have your money locked in SRS when you are still young. I’ll suggest SRS only when you have your retirement date/amount/details completely sorted out and you are using it as a tool outside of just tax relief.
Consider investing yourself in an ETF via a cheap brokerage like Interactive Brokers. I’ve used Robo-advisors myself and through that also learned a lot and gained confidence to invest in my own, but the fees really do add up over decades of investing and compounding.
Lastly, I strongly encourage that everyone keep insurance and investments/savings seperate. Most of the time, it only serves the insurance company, not the customers.
But once again, an incredibly well made and detailed video. I applaud your dedication to share your knowledge. Have a wonderful 2025!🎉
Edit: Just got to the end of the video. Regarding using Robo-advisors for rebalancing, I subscribe to the philosophy of investing in almost all equities in ages 20-40. Ages 50-60 start keeping cash/bonds/SRS to reduce volatility and risk when it comes to start drawing down your assets. Hope that helps!
This is all really fantastic advice! Thank you so much 🥰 I'll take it into consideration for my investing decisions this year!
hey, i resonate with your videos from the start as we started work at the same time and you speak with a calmness about finance that is quite soothing! am also not a guru, but do note that the S&P 500 ETFs that you bought are generally popular. However, the ETFs in your excel sheet are actually subjected to 30% dividend withholding tax (takes 30% of the cut of your dividends) and has inheritance tax (if you pass away, it taxes around 40% i think) because it is domiciled in USA. There are other ETFs that are domiciled in non-US countries so can read up more on those
@CrazyPingPong97 yeah I realised this too! hence why i've stopped investing in VOO on syfe trade. do you think i should just sell those or hold on to them? 🤔
thank you for crafting and creating content Lisa! appreciate it and wishing you a happy new year ❤
i love listening to Lisa voice and go to sleep. Best lullaby
Would be good to show how much yield you’re getting from each asset, and whether is a dividend asset, or growth asset.
If you’re from finance background, online brokerages would probably save you a lot of management fees.
I do agree that reading helps.
Great guide for young investors! 🎉 Looks like you have a well diversified portfolio, which is great but unfortunately is more rare than it should be for young investors.
Yay new video 😊
Slow and steady is the way to build wealth
Just a suggestion, maybe you can consider the option to top-off CPF instead of SRS to get tax relief instead, unless you have hit the tax relief CPF ceiling of 16K for both personal and spouse/parents under CPF own-self top-up and use the OA portion in OA for robo-invest part :)
good idea! i've stopped contributing to SRS for now, but i'll consider this strategy next time if i need the tax relief :-)
Js in time to dollar cost average into the stock market