You will be able to build a plan that sets what you give your parents now and how you would handle larger costs later.
Put everything you've decided about supporting your parents onto one page per set of parents, and write it with your partner. Each page shows the monthly allowance and how it fits your split and budget, the larger costs likely to come and the schemes that could reduce them, a care fund with a monthly amount and target, and what each sibling has agreed to give.
You already have three pieces: a note on each parent's situation from lesson 5.1, a list of schemes to check from lesson 5.2, and a draft message to your siblings from lesson 5.3. Each one is useful on its own. Together, though, they still don't answer what your partner will eventually ask: how much is being given, to whom, and what happens when a large cost comes up. One page per set of parents lets both of you see the whole commitment and agree to it. Do the exercise together, because each of you ends up supporting the other's parents too, even if only indirectly. It takes about half an hour.
For each set of parents, write the current allowance and the amount you plan to give next year. Then check it twice.
First, check it against the split you agreed in module 3. If allowances are personal, as lesson 3.2 describes, each partner pays their own parents from personal money. The allowance then has to fit inside what that partner has left after shared costs. If allowances are shared, they come from the shared account, and your shared contributions must be enough to cover them.
Second, check it against your budget from lesson 4.4, where the allowance is an essential line. Ask whether the household could still pay it if one of you stopped working. If it couldn't, agree now what would happen, for example a smaller amount for a while, discussed with your siblings.
For each parent, list the larger costs that are reasonably likely over the next ten years, based on their health and age. These might include regular specialist treatment, a hospital stay, help at home, a helper or day care. You don't need precise figures. Where you have no idea what something costs, write "get quote" and the type of provider you would ask.
Next to each cost, list the schemes from lesson 5.2 that could reduce it:
MediShield Life and any Integrated Shield Plan, for hospital bills CHAS, for clinic visits CareShield Life or ElderShield, for severe disability the support listed by the Agency for Integrated Care, for care at home
Mark a scheme "confirmed" only when you have checked the parent's eligibility on the official website. Until then, mark it "to check".
One-off costs need money that is kept apart from both your emergency fund and the allowance. A care fund is a separate account or pot that you pay into every month and use only for your parents' one-off costs.
A care fund takes one of two forms. A dated goal has a target amount and a date, such as an amount ready before a parent's planned operation next year. An open-ended fund has a monthly amount and a target balance. Once it reaches the target, payments stop until some of the money is used.
A care fund can also be shared or personal. Many couples keep one shared care fund for both sets of parents, so neither partner feels their family is on a separate budget.
For the last part of each page, write what each sibling gives each month, in money or time, and the rule for one-off costs. If your siblings haven't agreed yet, write what you proposed and the date you sent it, and update the plan when they reply.
Hui Min and Daniel are a couple, and all the figures in their plan are invented examples. Hui Min's parents live in Ang Mo Kio. She gives them S$500 a month from her personal account and plans to keep it at that level next year. Her father's CPF balance is unknown, so two items are marked "to check": a CPF top-up under the Retirement Sum Topping-Up scheme, and whether he is eligible for the Matched Retirement Savings Scheme. The likely larger costs are knee surgery and, later, help at home. Her parents' MediShield Life is confirmed. Her brother lives with the parents, covers the household bills and does most of the care. One-off costs above S$300 are split equally after insurance and subsidies.
Daniel's parents live in Tampines. He gives them S$400 a month from his personal account. He has proposed to his siblings that his sister gives S$300 a month plus her time, his brother gives S$500, and he stays at S$400. One-off costs after insurance would be split in the same proportion as the allowances, 300 : 500 : 400. On a S$3,000 bill after insurance, his sister would pay S$750, his brother S$1,250 and Daniel S$1,000. His mother's Integrated Shield Plan is confirmed, but its ward class is still to check.
They set up one shared care fund for both sets of parents. It is a pot inside their shared account, paid S$200 a month, open-ended, with a target of S$10,000. If nothing is spent, it takes fifty months to fill.
Bring your notes from lessons 5.1 to 5.3, sit down with your partner, and start with the monthly amounts.
Fill in the parent support plan for both sets of parents and agree it with your partner.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).