You will produce one plan that funds your goals within what your budget can save each month.
Over this course you have built a goals sheet, chosen where each goal's money lives, and worked through detailed plans for the goals that apply to you. In lessons 8.1 to 8.3 you ranked them and put them in order. What you don't have yet is a single document you can hand to a partner, or open in a year, that shows the whole plan and why it looks the way it does. This project produces it. Allow about 45 minutes.
Produce one funded goals plan. It covers every big goal for the next ten years, gives each one a monthly amount, and adds up to exactly what your budget can save each month. It also records the trade-offs you made to get there, and when you will review it.
It is one page, or one tab in your spreadsheet. Someone who hasn't taken this course should be able to read it and understand what you are saving for, how much, where the money is, and what you gave up.
Start from your real monthly saving for goals, after your emergency fund and insurance are in place, as lesson 8.1, Why every goal cannot be first, set out. Use what your budget has actually saved over the last few months, not the figure you would like it to be. If it varies, use the lower end.
This number is the ceiling. Every month of the plan must add up to it, no more.
Next, list each goal with its full details. For each goal, write five things: the target amount, the date, the monthly figure for the current period, where the money is kept, and its priority from lesson 8.2. Pull them from your goals sheet and the detailed plans you built in modules 3 to 7.
Use the target that the detailed plan produced, not the rough one from lesson 1.1. For a wedding, that is the cash needed before the day. For a home, the cash portion. For a child, the pre-birth goal. For a course, your share after credits and sponsorship.
Add the monthly figures for the current period. If the total is above what you can save, use the tools from lessons 8.2 and 8.3, A ranking method for competing goals and Sequence goals instead of splitting them: fund the high-priority goals in full, give the rest what remains, move a flexible date, and put optional goals in a later period.
If the total is below what you can save, decide where the spare money goes, such as a goal that is underfunded or one you moved later. Leaving it unassigned usually means it gets spent.
Then check the later periods of your timeline the same way. Every period should add up to your saving figure.
Then write down the trade-offs. List every compromise you made to fit the plan. A later date, a smaller target, a goal moved behind another, a goal dropped. Write each one in a sentence with the reason.
These are the decisions you're most likely to forget, and the ones a partner will most want to understand. They are also the first things to revisit if your income rises.
Last, set the review dates. Set a review every six months, and put both dates for the next year in your calendar now. At each review, update the balances, recheck any moving targets from lesson 1.2, Set targets for goals whose price keeps moving, and check that each goal is on track.
Also write down the events that trigger an extra review: a change in income, a pregnancy, a move, a large price change in one of your targets, or a change in government support or housing rules.
Here is the current period of Mei and Daniel's plan, with the figures made up throughout the course.
Wedding: S$31,200 cash before the day, month 30, S$850 a month, savings account and fixed deposits timed to each deposit, priority 6 Home cash part: S$32,000, months 3 to 60, S$500 a month, mostly SSBs with near payments in the savings account, priority 6 Daniel's diploma: S$8,000, month 40, S$150 a month, savings account and one fixed deposit, priority 3 Car: S$20,000, month 66, nothing until month 41, T-bills once funding starts, priority 2
The total is S$1,500, exactly what their budget saves. Their timeline from lesson 8.3 shows the next periods, including the pre-birth goal from month 31 and the CDA deposits after the birth.
Their trade-offs read: "The diploma moves from month 24 to month 40, because the wedding and home come first and Daniel's course has several intakes a year. The car moves from month 60 to month 66 and only starts in month 41, because it is optional. The wedding target rose from S$30,000 to S$31,200 once we counted cash needed before the day."
Their reviews are set for the first weekend of April and October, with extra reviews if either changes jobs, if they start trying for a baby earlier, or if HDB's completion estimate moves.
A finished plan has every goal with its target, date, monthly figure, where kept and priority, a monthly total that equals your real saving figure, a short list of trade-offs in plain sentences, and two review dates already in your calendar. It fits on one page and someone else could follow it.
You now have everything needed to put your own plan together.
Complete the funded goals plan, check the monthly total against your budget, and set two review dates in your calendar.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).