Chapter 05

How the numbers work

What your plan assumes and works out behind every chart.

1 How the numbers work Every chart comes from one calculator that projects your plan year by year to age 100. The order it works in, its conventions and the 4% freedom age rule.
2 CPF at 55 and CPF LIFE At 55, CPF moves your SA then OA into a Retirement Account, up to your CPF retirement sum. The rule, the 2025 to 2027 sums, then how your plan models it.
3 Housing and property Loan limits, downpayment staging, stamp duty, grants and progressive payments. The MAS, HDB and IRAS rules first, then how your plan models them.
4 Income and tax How your salary grows, how side income and self-employment are handled, and how income tax is worked out on IRAS's resident rates, a year behind.
5 Insurance and coverage How your plan projects each policy, costs MediShield Life and CareShield Life for everyone, and sets a coverage target to compare your cover against.
6 Children and milestones How your plan costs each child from pregnancy to university, and turns every goal into a scheduled expense with a savings target set by its importance.
7 Cash and assets Each year your plan adds up money in and out, keeps a cash buffer, invests what is left and covers a shortfall by selling assets in a fixed order.
8 Assumptions reference Every fixed number your plan uses, in one place: CPF rates and sums, housing caps and stamp duty, tax bands, insurance, child costs and goal weights.
9 Scope and limitations What your Perfingo plan doesn't model yet, like a second property or refinancing, and the deliberate choices it makes for insurance, housing, CPF and tax.

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