You will build a plan for the cash and CPF portions of your home's upfront cost.
By now you have a list of upfront costs from lesson 4.1, a split into cash and CPF from lesson 4.2, and a view on how much CPF you want to use from lesson 4.3. This exercise puts them on one timeline, so you can see that both the cash and the CPF will be there on each date a payment is due. Allow about thirty minutes, with your CPF statement and HFE letter or loan approval to hand if you have them.
Start from a realistic price range for the home you expect to buy, taken from recent HDB sales launches, resale transactions published on the HDB website, or private property listings. Plan on the upper end of your range, so the plan still works if you end up paying it.
Then write down the loan type you expect, HDB or bank, and the loan amount. If you have an HFE letter or an in-principle approval from a bank, use its figure. If not, use the current limits from the HDB and MAS websites and mark the figure as an estimate. The loan type decides the cash rules, as lesson 4.2, Which parts must be cash and which CPF can pay, showed.
Next, lay out the payment stages by date. Set up a sheet with these columns: month, stage, item, total, cash, CPF, and projected CPF balance after payment.
Number the months from today. Then add a row for each payment, grouped by stage: the booking or option stage, the signing stage, completion or key collection, and renovation and moving in. For each row, put the amount in the cash column, the CPF column, or split across both.
For a new flat, the gap between booking and collecting the keys can be several years, and HDB publishes an estimated completion date for each project. For a resale flat or private home, the stages are usually a few months apart. Use the dates that apply to your case, and mark any you have guessed.
From your CPF statement, find your Ordinary Account balance today and how much goes into it each month. If you're buying with a partner, add both.
For each payment date, work out the projected balance: today's balance plus monthly contributions times the number of months, minus any CPF payments already made. Leave out interest to stay cautious. If the projected balance at any payment is lower than the CPF amount due, move the shortfall into the cash column for that row.
Then total the cash by date and set the goal. Add up the cash column. That is the cash goal. Then check it by date the way you checked the wedding in lesson 3.4, Build your wedding budget and savings plan: start from what you have saved, add the monthly saving, subtract each cash payment when it falls due, and make sure the running balance never goes below zero.
Here is Mei and Daniel's plan, with the made-up figures from lessons 4.1 and 4.2. They book a new flat in month 3, sign the lease in month 9, and expect to collect the keys in month 57. Renovation is paid in month 58, and furniture and moving in month 60.
Their Ordinary Accounts hold S$40,000 together, with about S$1,100 a month going in.
Month 3, booking: option fee S$2,000, cash Month 9, signing: downpayment S$19,000 and stamp duty and fees S$7,000, all CPF; projected balance before payment S$49,900, after S$23,900 Month 57, keys: downpayment S$59,000, CPF; projected balance before S$76,700, after S$17,700 Month 58, renovation: S$25,000, cash Month 60, furniture and moving: S$5,000, cash
CPF covers S$85,000 and the projected balance never falls short. The cash goal is S$32,000.
They have S$2,000 saved already, which pays the option fee in month 3. From the goals sheet in lesson 1.4, they planned S$500 a month for this goal. Running it month by month: after the option fee in month 3 they have S$1,500 left, by month 57 they have S$28,500, after renovation in month 58 they have S$4,000, and after furniture in month 60 they have exactly zero.
The plan works, with no margin at all. If the renovation quote rises, or the keys come a few months early, they are short. Mei and Daniel decide to keep S$500 a month for now and to recheck the renovation quote and HDB's completion estimate every six months, as lesson 1.2 recommended. If either moves, the monthly figure moves with it.
Open the goals sheet from lesson 1.4, Build your goals sheet. Add or update the home row: the cash goal as the target, the date of the last cash payment, what you have saved, and the monthly figure. If the cash payments are spread across years, you can add one row per stage instead, each with its own date.
Write the CPF projection beside it as a note, so that at each review you can compare it with your actual CPF statement.
A finished plan shows every upfront cost by date, split into cash and CPF, with a projected CPF balance that covers each CPF payment and a cash running balance that never drops below zero. The cash portion sits in your goals sheet as a dated goal. Yours is what the activity asks for.
Complete the downpayment plan with cash and CPF columns by date, and add the cash goal to your goals sheet.
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