Thanks BBCW and Maple for pointing this out... The numbers are legitimate although I do agree that it's a bit weird. The numbers I originally posted were from the month before. I just did a fresh check with her ytd night. The balance on top of her OA ($5k) and SA accounts were dividend payouts from the CPFIS. You are right that most of her RA was transferred into CPF life deferred annuity. She is 59 this year and about 4 years ago, she (unknowingly) bought into CPF life Std plan giving a payout of approx $621-$677/mth. The current bal in her accounts are:
OA: $5k/-
SA: $0/-
MA: $22514.41/-
RA: $4537.73/-
CPF Life annuity paid to date: $73250.32/-
You are right that she was quite desperate. Very timely, a few years back, a UOB banker approached her to buy unit trust from him and she did. As for the stocks, she purchased them many years ago when she was till working.. They were all penny stocks like freightlink, thaibev, lifebranz, mostly penny stocks and are quite worthless now, sadly...
I believe her FRS is $155k. Henrylbh is quite right that the $500/mth is for her personal expenses, to pay the bills and household expenses... It helps to complement her income of about $300/mth for helping my uncle to run his food stall without CPF contributions since she started in 2005.
Her home is a 5 room unit and not eligible for e lease buy back scheme. It is fully paid but she refuses to sell for sentimental reasons.
Is there a way we can fine tune her retirement plan based on e above? Thanks BBCW for your detailed inputs as always!
Before u take any action to adopt whatever the others are suggesting that u squeeze her dry of her "emergency and survival" funds, pls answer the following questions and do the following:
1. How much are u prepared to support ($) her other than the $500 mthly allowance?
2. She only has the basic medishield life, are u going to help her pay for medicals which cannot use medisave?
3. Are u going to topup her RA with your own funds?
4. U should arrange a meeting with CPF to discuss and confirm her CPF LIfe scheme since no one here understands/knows the old scheme, I have some info, if u google u should be able to find it, but better to find out from CPFB, Below is how it works based on old info I have:
5. She is under the old CPF Standard Plan where at 55 only 50% of "FRS" is transferred to CPF life pool, the other 50% will be transferred when she start her payout at 65.
6. Why she only has 5k in OA - my guess is CPFB left it there for her since everyone is entitled to withdraw the first 5k.
7. Check her CPF account online, retrieve the statements from the year she join CPF Life at 55, u should see that 73k+ transferred to RA. Why 73K which is less than 75K (50%)? U shld know by now roughly cos 5k is kept in OA.
8. Check her CPF statements for the past years how her RA increased to the current balance?
9. She has 10k in CPFIS - check her statements how much she withdrew from OA, is that 10k after net loss? If she liquidates, this money is likely reserved for transfer to RA/CPF Life
10.. If CPF requires her to transfer the remaining 50% from OA/SA/RA, are u prepared to topup for her?
11. If she is not required to makeup the remaining 50% for CPF life, what would u do?
That's all for now.
ps if u had been more active earlier in 2015/2016, u would be able to help her salvage her funds so she can join the current CPF life schemes and not "lose" 4% on her RA of 73K