Practicalities

Ironically, despite my background in finance I have a morbid fear of dealing with finances, especially my own. I find it so emotionally involving (will I have enough, will I be able to survive? etc) that I can't look it square in the eye.

Beyond investing in the odd mutual fund, I basically ignored my finances when I was single (had enough to get by each month, but I did no real long term planning or investing). It didn't help that I had a terribly risk-averse investment profile. After getting married, I left it to Kisu to make investment decisions.

There was really no push for me to change anything until Ellis came along. Because she needs to be protected and provided for if anything happens to either of us, or worse, both. I felt I needed to be informed because one of my greatest fears is that something will happen to Kisu and I will have no clue about what to do.

One of the things we did is to map out our finances and try to review them regularly - at least now I know what assets and debts we have and where they all are. Tied to this is retirement planning and investing for Ellis (college education fund, etc).

One of the simplest things I did was to open a Kiddy account for her where I dumped the baby bonus. Later we will think about investing the money on her behalf.

I was also concerned about wills. I realised after asking around that many friends (with young kids) did not have wills which is why I thought I'd do a post on this whole planning-for-your-kids thing. The recent North-South highway crash where a 2 month old baby girl was left behind after her entire family was killed drove home the point.

It costs $200 to make a simple will (you can even do one for free with a template off the web), and is a good idea especially if assets like property are involved. It ensures that your assets are distributed as you desire, and your kids provided for.

Without a will your assets go to the Public Trustee if you pass away and is distributed under the Interstacy Law - which if you're married with children is 50% to spouse and 50% to children (for non-Muslims). But it takes a long time for your assets to be distributed (a Will makes things straightforward) and if your children are under 18, their share will be frozen till they are of age so it can't be used for their education, etc.

Other considerations:

CPF Nomination - the CPF site tells you that there is no need to make a nomination if you wish for your CPF to be distributed according to interstacy law, but it is advisable to nominate to avoid any delays/freezing of assets. You just need to print, sign and send in a form.

Insurance - it seems that current insurance policies do not list specific persons as beneficiaries. Instead the proceeds go to your estate - and distributed according to your Will if you have one, or by Interstacy Law.

Safe Deposit Boxes - contents are frozen if the account owner dies and a court order is required to open the box, content of which are subject to Estate Duty. Best to include this in your Will.