According to DBS NAV Planner, my property (a 3-room HDB flat) only accounts for 12.35% of my total assets. For years, I've maintained that my home is for my own living, using Singapore Real Estate Investment Trusts (S-REITs) and DBS Retail Unit Trusts as tools for my personal financial management and investment.
I decided to retire early, at age 58, on March 1, 2024, seven years earlier than the official retirement age of 65, which was originally scheduled for 2030.
My CPF investments have maintained a profitable return on investment so far. On March 16, 2024, having reached the FRS, I decided to close my CPF investments account and withdraw all my CPF investments, allowing me greater flexibility and convenience in managing my retirement assets.
The value of investment funds fluctuates with global economic developments, so the timing of fund redemptions is crucial. Past returns, which can be found online, are for reference only. The following is my CPF Investment portfolio before closing, please feel free to refer to it:
73.56% — FSSA dividend advantage fund
6.84% — Mapletree Pan Asia Cm reit
5.67% — Frasers log & co tr
3.79% — Sasseur reit
3.67% — Lendlease gl co reit
3.53% — Capitaland ascendas reit
2.92% — Aims apac reit
Achieving retirement officially opens the door to my money working for me. I no longer work for money and become fully committed to controlling my finances and my time. The next step is to reduce investment risk, increase sustainable investment returns, and properly manage my retirement assets.
The first formula below estimates the actual amount of cash invested in my CDP fund, using my Amova Singapore Dividend Equity Fund (ASDE) as a benchmark. It provides a standardized way to track relative performance.
Estimated CDP Cash Invested Principal = (ASDE Principal x CDP Market Value) / ASDE Market Value
The second formula below tells me the actual dividend yield of my CDP portfolio, adjusted for invested capital. I regularly update this data in Excel to monitor whether my portfolio remains within my target yield range of 4-8%.
Annual CDP Dividend Return % = (Total Annual CDP Dividends Received x 100) / Estimated CDP Cash Invested Principal
The above formula provides a deterministic (data-based) way to measure the performance of my CDP portfolio by projecting potential paper gains or losses. You can also use the above formula to benchmark your CDP fund against an index fund or ETF. Maintaining no more than 10% of your entire fund in any single stock is generally quite safe. (The formula image was provided by Microsoft Copilot)
Generally speaking, I'm not a risk-taker. I tend to choose decisions with clearly defined and controllable risks, carefully designing my life to keep those risks within manageable limits, and ensuring they are clearly visible and repeatable. The systems I build are designed to control and manage risk, making it bearable.
I’m not trying to predict the market. I rebalance when my cash buffer falls below a set range, gradually reducing positions and simplifying the portfolio.
I learned how to invest properly through the CPF Investment Scheme (CPFIS). Without CPFIS, I probably wouldn’t have the portfolio I have today. In many ways, my entire investment system actually grew out of the CPFIS framework.
The CPF Investment Scheme also helped me develop a disciplined investment strategy and, more importantly, kept me away from investment scams.
📖 Financial Transparency as System Validation
To pursue the Advanced Degree in Life Engineering (CYSM), I made public my portfolio of liquid assets. This is something many people cannot bring themselves to do. Transparency in financial modules is not about showing wealth, but about demonstrating the operational stability of the system. CYSM is not a theory on paper—it is a life protocol validated by real-world constraints.
The true difficulty, however, is not merely in making a portfolio public. The real challenge lies in allowing a theory to be tested against reality. Many are willing to share ideas, philosophies, or methods, but few are willing to disclose actual asset allocation, cash flow structures, spending levels, or risk-bearing strategies. Once such data is revealed, a theory shifts from opinion to verifiable structure.
By publishing key operating parameters—liquid asset allocation, REITs, ETFs, SSBs, cash buffers, living expenses, the SGD 667 low-energy engine, and the 5.61% yield engine—CYSM moved beyond abstract discourse. Readers can now observe not only what CYSM says, but how CYSM runs.
This transparency aligns with CYSM’s guiding principle: Theory may guide, but systems must run. Once data is public, time becomes the strictest examiner. Only long-term stability proves resilience. In this sense, publishing asset configurations is not the “degree” itself, but rather the submission of experimental data. The true test of CYSM lies in whether the system can continue to operate stably under the constraints of Signal × Time × Stability.
About my work >> https://www.facebook.com/libra1966bensim/directory_work
The above formula provides a deterministic (data-based) way to measure the performance of my CDP portfolio by projecting potential paper gains or losses. You can also use the above formula to benchmark your CDP fund against an index fund or ETF. Maintaining no more than 10% of your entire fund in any single stock is generally quite safe. (The formula image was provided by Microsoft Copilot)
