Lets phrase it another way.

suppose one person has 100k in CPF OA as investable amount (after setting aside $20k, and taken 35% from the pool). The person decides to invest in SGX REITS and gets a regular dividend income.

In this case, would it be considered as Passive income?

Note that this person is foregoing the CPF OA regular 2.5% interest and taking a higher risk through buying of stocks.

Very good point.

For those above 55, like me, we have crossed this point where it is up to us if we want to take out the interest earned each year from our OA, SA and MA. The interest earned in RA will remain there till we are 65.

Just to share some intracies about the withdrawal of CPF monies (for those 55 and above)

The sequence of withdrawal goes like this:

First tier - withdrawing only interests.
1. The first thing to get withdrawn is interest earned in your SA for the year starting from each January. This is then followed by the interests earn from your OA (from Jan). The interest from your MA will flow over to your OA if you meet the BHS ($52k) and you can withdraw that. If you have not met the BHS, then the interest earned by your MA will remain in your MA.

Second tier - withdrawing the contribution you made for the year
2. Supposing the amount you wanted to withdraw exceeded the total interests earned by your 3 accounts, then the next thing that gets withdrawn is the contribution you made to your SA for the year. If this still not enough to cover the amount you wanted to withdraw, then they will take the contribution you made to your OA for the year.

Final tier - withrawal from your main savings
3. Supposing the amount you wanted to withdraw exceeded the amounts from the above 2 tiers, then they will deplete your SA first, followed by your OA.

In all the 3 tiers of withdrawal, the SA will always be withdrawn first.

Other points to note:
1. The interest for each preceding month is credited on the 5th of the following month
2. Best time to withdraw is thus on or after 5th of Dec each year (if you only want to withdraw the interests earned for the year)
3. You will notice that you can at most withdraw 11 months of interests because the Dec interest will only be credited on 5th Jan the following year.
4. If you go and withdraw in Jan, you will be withdrawing the principal amounts as they will be no interests!

For our case, we have been planning for $4k a month ($48k pa) of interests from our OA, SA and MA combined. But now we will have to make do with $44k pa of interest or 11 months.

As we are still working, we will let the interests snowball. Maybe by 60, we should be able to withdraw $48k pa of interest (based on 11 months).

Wow impressive $48k pa of interest earned in all 3 CPF accounts

For us we are 45, and I checked we only have $26k pa last year

Looks like Long way to build up for us for another 10 years

You will get there if you consistently contribute the max amount to your CPF yearly over the next 10 years.

The current max amount that an individual can contribute is $37,740 per year. So for both of you, over the next 10 years, that would be $750k!

Assuming just simple interest, you will get an additional $18.8k combined interests from CPF.

Thus together with current interest of $26k, you are looking at an interest (passive income) of at least $26k + $18.8k = $45k of interest! With compounded interest, it should be closer to $48k. Just like what we have now!

Oh but wait, when you turned 55, an amount of $166k from your SA will be transfered to your RA! The $166k is the current FRS. The limit will be raised by $5k each year.

For us the $48k interest is solely from our SA, OA and MA. Our RA earns $17k pa which cannot be touched till we are 65 and thats only through the monthly payout.

My CPF interest dropped from 34k to 18k plus last year due to deployment of OA for property investment.

How old are you?

If you are below 55, it is hard (if not impossible) for anyone to accumulate a combined amount across all accounts (OA, SA & MA) that will attract $34k in annual interest from CPF.

However, it is possible for a person to have used his CPF money to purchase properties, and yet grow his CPF OA back to $1m or more.

everyone sounds so rich in this forum

34yo

Celery 4K
Cash: 46K
Stocks: 7K
Ssb: 10K

3r hdb paid 100K out of 288K so far
No car

43 this year. Made some decent profits in flipping properties and stock trading. As I get older, the emphasis now is to own good properties long term to generate stable rental income. My intention is to retire once I hit ~12k per month rental income.

I suppose you are clueless about CPF and your story just falls apart.

CPF works like this. If you made money from property investments and liquidated them, CPF only takes back what you originally took out from your OA for the property purchase and any interest accrued from that amount. Profits from the sale go right into your pocket. Likewise rentals collected from property purchased with CPF money also goes into your pocket.

For CPFIS, only 35% of OA can be used for investment.