"Guide to Planning Family Finances for Dads" practically screamed at me and I signed up to attend it the moment I came across Syfe's poster. Because I am a dad. I have a male ego to feed. I need to take care of my family, including my 2-year-old boy. You get my point.

Well, let me first share my thoughts on college fund planning before I entered the webinar. I did my due diligence, and mentally planned to set aside $60k for his university fees. Don't gasp in horror but I was just intending to dump all this money I could into his Child Development Account (CDA), a savings account in which the government deposits bonuses to help Singaporean parents raise their child. Specifically, I intended to save at least $5k a year. $5k X 12 years = $60k - getting it over and done with by the time he finishes his primary school at the age of 12.

Yes, I know there's this thing called endowment plans. And I know that many of you out there don't place stock on the correlation between MBTI profiling and money personality, but being a classic free-spirited ENFP, I absolutely hate, hate, hate the idea of having to bear the daily mental load of channelling $200-$500 to yet another policy. I don't like to feel tied down that way. Also, I feel that I should prioritise his CDA account because there may be occasions when I have no chance but to spend money from his account, right? For vaccinations and school-endorsed programs. So, pumping money into his CDA account yields more liquidity.

Now, I have heard of the Rule of 72. If you are not aware of it, it’s an easy way to calculate how long it is going to take for one’s money to double. What mortified me the other day was that I learnt that it also applies to inflation. So let's take inflation to be 3% per annum. The Rule of 72 suggests that the purchasing power of a pot of money will drop to half its value in (72 ÷ 3) = 24 years. So doesn't this mean that my $60k budget will lose half its value roughly by the time my ah boy goes to college? Oh my goodness.

Okay, so the above was a rather elaborate account of my motivation for attending the webinar. So did I learn anything useful from it? Well, the webinar started out with Basics 101 of financial planning. Since you are reading this, you probably know the drill, so repeat after me. Save 3-6 months of your salary as your emergency funds. Automate your savings and investments. Aim to save at least 20% of your salary.

What surprised me though was that the speaker mentioned about the tendency of many Singaporeans to accumulate huge sums of money in the bank because they hesitate about when they should take the plunge into the market. Really? I must confess I raised my eyebrows a bit. Well, I just throw $50 into my REIT+ portfolio every month because that is ALL that I can afford right now. Sure, I will pump in more, if I can afford it. (wah, sounds like the family planning slogan.) But just whack lar. $50 per month also can yield dividends.

Moving on. One thing I have always liked about Syfe is that they like to use case studies to illustrate their points, which makes understanding easier. Anyway, the speaker was mentioning about how this persona was budgeting $200k for his daughter's education fund because you never know if your child wants to go overseas to study, right? Geez, that sent a jolt throughout my body, I swear. It's one thing to look at tuition fees articles and tell myself that "never mind lar, ah boy will just study local university lor". It's another thing when I get exposed to how other parents may be saving up for an overseas education.

It's not that I'm kiasu (scared to lose) or need to feed my male ego. But well, this begs deep introspective questions. If my son wants to broaden his horizons and venture out of his comfort zone, shouldn't I be supporting his dream? But if I do so, to what extent should I encourage this endeavour? What is the structure my entire family needs to adopt? My wife and I fork out his overseas tuition fees and he picks apples at overseas orchards to earn his own allowance? Or do I feel generous enough to want to give him a no-strings-attached, no-holds-barred 100% Father & Mother Scholarship?

Anyway, one point that I think all of you might find useful is how the speakers arranged their various portfolios in ascending order of risk: Cash+ < REIT+ < Core < Equity100. So this should help you a bit in terms of selecting your best-fit portfolio.

I have always considered myself a moderate-risk investor, but what the speaker said about taking the time horizon into account was kinda like a paradigm shift for me. If my son needs to go to college 18 years from now, it means that I can just choose the Equity100 portfolio because we have so much time to weather the highs and lows of the stock market. He also mentioned one other thing that I agreed with - when you have a time horizon of 20 years, your portfolio should reap positive returns lar. Just chill and relax and wait for the fruits.

That's about it, I guess. I'm sorry that I don't have any nicely defined framework for you all to follow. These are my raw reactions after watching the webinar. Anyway, I may be the one with the ego but my wife wears the pants in the family, so we need to confer and consolidate and conquer.

This Syfe webinar was useful in raising some tough questions and delivering insights. I can't be the only clueless and lost parent, so I figure even posting this Opinions piece might help some of you out there.

In the words of Nightbirde,

It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok

If you’re lost

We’re all a little lost and it’s alright