You will be able to run a one-hour yearly review that keeps the plan current without tinkering.
Grace's yearly review last year took a whole weekend. She reread forum threads, compared her funds with ten new ones, watched three videos about where markets were heading and ended up changing nothing except her mood. Farhan's took ten minutes, because he skipped it.
Neither is a review. A good one takes about an hour, follows the same checklist every year and changes the plan only where something real has changed. This lesson sets out what goes on that checklist, and just as usefully, what stays off it.
Start with your account map from lesson 7.4, Draw your account map. Update every value on the same day, add up the total across accounts and compare each asset type with its target.
Then apply your rebalancing rule exactly as written. If you use the hybrid rule from lesson 6.2, the review date is one of your check dates anyway. If a band has been crossed, rebalance, using new money first where you can, as lesson 6.3 showed. If not, write "inside band, no trade" and move on. Either outcome counts as a success, because the decision came from the rule you wrote in a calm moment.
Update the bad year figure too. Your one-line allocation from lesson 1.4 included a dollar loss for a 30% share fall. As your portfolio grows, that dollar figure grows with it. Recalculate it, and ask honestly whether you could still watch that amount disappear without selling. If the answer has changed, that is a real reason to revisit your allocation, and it is the only market-related number on the checklist that can lead to a change.
Next, open your comparison sheet from lesson 3.5, Build an ETF comparison sheet, and refresh each fund's figures from its latest factsheet and annual report: TER, tracking difference for the latest year added to the average, and fund size.
Small month-to-month movements do not matter here, and a fund that cut its TER needs nothing from you. A fund whose tracking difference has widened for two years running, or whose assets have shrunk sharply, deserves a closer look, for the reasons in lessons 3.2 and 3.4. Then check whether a cheaper equivalent now exists: a new fund on the same index, or a cheaper class of the same fund.
Be careful with the answer. Switching funds means selling, which costs commission and spread and may cost time out of the market. A new fund also has no track record yet. As a rule of thumb, switch only when the all-in saving is clear, likely to persist for years, and the new fund has enough history and size to trust. A difference of a few hundredths of a percent rarely justifies the cost and effort of a switch.
The third part looks outside your portfolio. Account rules and limits change, and so do your goals.
The SRS contribution cap on the IRAS website, and any change to SRS rules The CPF interest rates and CPFIS rules on the CPF Board website, if you use or are considering CPFIS Your broker's fee page, for changes to commission or platform fees Your goals, horizon and savings rate: any new goal, any date that has moved, any change in income Your share class choices from lesson 4.3, if you have moved from building to drawing
Most years, almost nothing on this list changes. That is fine. The point is that you looked, on a date you chose, rather than discovering a change by accident.
Finish by writing a short dated note: what you checked, what you changed and why. Farhan's first note reads: "Rebalanced, shares were 71%. Fund B's TER cut, no switch needed. SRS cap checked. No change to goals. Next review: first Saturday of January."
Everything not on the checklist is left alone. That includes the forecasts, the hot sectors and the list of funds that did better than yours last year. The review exists to keep the plan current. Tinkering with it because you have an hour set aside and feel you ought to do something is how a careful plan turns into the chat group portfolio from lesson 2.3, One world fund or a set of building blocks.
One practical point: pick a date you will actually keep. A date tied to something regular, such as the first weekend of the year, your birthday or the week your bonus lands, is easier to keep than a random one. Farhan uses the first Saturday of January, which is also one of his rebalancing check dates, so one sitting covers both.
Choose your date before you write the checklist, so that the checklist has an appointment to belong to.
Put your yearly review date in your calendar and write the checklist you will use on that day.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).