Retirement Sum Scheme (RSS) vs CPF Life

We have deferred my mom's CPF payout since she was 65 years old so that we can milk more interest from the government. The latest we can defer her payout is up to 70 years old. My Mom is reaching 70 soon and we will need to decide if we want to opt her into CPF Life (and which CPF Life plan) or just stay on Retirement Sum Scheme (RSS) before her payout starts.

To make that decision, we did a comparison to see what her payout will be if she goes for RSS vs CPF Life's various plan. Thankfully, CPF has made it pretty easy to find out how much payout my mom will be getting with RSS as well as CPF life.

To find out how much payout she can get from RSS, we have to log into her CPF account via SingPass, click on My Messages then Retirement Sum Scheme (RSS) Payout Estimator shown below.

Her Payout from RSS is $590 for 15 years. This mean that her payout will only last till she turn 85 years old. Seems kind of short...

For CPF Life payout, we had to enter her information into CPF Life estimator and got the Total payout and bequest for various plans at 85 and 90 years old.

Here is a summary of the difference between her RSS and CPF Life various plans below.

From the comparison, RSS gives a higher monthly payout compared with all the CPF Life plan. However, CPF Life basic gives a higher total payout up to age 85 and all CPF Life plan gives a higher total payout up to age 90. On top of that, CPF Life continues to pay her for life. It seems that CPF Life is giving out a lower month payout so that more will remain in CPF Life to earn more interest for a longer and higher total payout. Also among all the CPF Life Plan, the basic plan is the one that give the higher total payout plus bequest up to age 90. 

Since we don't need the extra payout per month, we decided to opt for CPF Life basic that gives the higher overall payout plus bequest. Note that once you opt to enroll for CPF Life, the payout will start. So we will have to opt her into CPF Life basic around a week before she turns 70.

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