Hello Grasshoppa,

Recently StashAway & BBM collaborated on their first event in Penang to share on How To Plan For Your Retirement. Over 60 people have RSVP for this event & the turnout rate is quite good for their first event in Penang. They have similar events like this in KL on weekly basis where they will be sharing on various topics related to Personal Finance & Investment.  Head over to StashAway’s FB to find out when and where!

What I Like About Their Penang Event?

Since this is the first event in Penang & the first event I attended for StashAway, I honestly find their event to be really educational & it is on par with other event that I have attended so far. It is an educational sharing session where they share an unspoken truth about your retirement. It may sound scary to some of those who attended but it’s something that many people are not aware of. Best part of this event is, it is FOC especially for Penangites like me that like Free & Cheap stuff. 🙂

I have attended many free events like this before but they are quite pushy on their products. What impress me about StashAway event is, they are really genuine when it comes to sharing about retirement & they only use 5 minutes of the total event time to share about StashAway product. In a way, they are not pushy about their product but they are more focused on educating their crowd about retirement. It is pretty clear that their focus is to create awareness on personal finance & education which is similar to what BBM goal is.

What Have I Learnt From StashAway x BBM Event?

I tried to take some photos during the event day but I realized that most of my photos  were pretty blurry. LOL. Thank God they were willing to share the slides with me so I am able to share it with you all. Anyway, it is 28 pages worth of material so I’ll be sharing only the key points of their presentation.

1. Where Will Average Malaysian Retirement Money Come From? 

Based on the slides shared by StashAway & studies done by them, main retirement income from average Malaysian comes from EPF, Home, Extra Medical Coverage & Other Investment. The most obvious one is most Malaysian rely on their EPF savings.

2. What Are The Average Savings In EPF?

As per EPF Annual Report 2017, average savings that Malaysian have in EPF is RM213K & only 1% have more than RM700K. That may be bad news for those who rely solely on EPF but if you have extra savings or investment somewhere else, that is not really a bad thing. But the numbers are a bit scary if you divide RM213K with 20 years. That’s around RM887/month. Even if you have RM700K, that is actually very little if you are using it for 20 years. The honest part when I look into this data is, many parents spend lesser on themselves & most of them will use the money to pay for their kids wedding, house deposit, education & etc. You may not agree with me but that’s the truth. End of the day, the retirement money will be way lesser than the amount that they have.

3. EPF Return Since 2008

Let’s assume you have RM10K in 2008 & if we compound it at average 6% per annum, you will get RM17,908.48. The power of compounding works but is your EPF savings really enough for your retirement? You can read more about EPF HERE.

4. Is EPF Really Enough For You? 

Based on the above picture, assume you are making RM3,000 at 25 & with 5% increment each year, you will have RM15,800 at 60. Take note that not all company give you 5% increment. Some may give lesser unless your company promote you or you change your job. On average, I think that this data is kinda accurate for average Malaysian. With that salary you may save up to RM753K in EPF & with 6% compounding interest, you will end up with RM1.63M. You will have RM6,700 per month if you live until 80 years. Is it enough for you?

5. What Is Basic Feature of Private Retirement Scheme (PRS)

I personally invest in PRS as well & what I like about PRS is I get to enjoy tax relief. Hopefully our current Government will provide long term tax relief or I don’t think I’ll be investing in it anymore after 2021. So far my investment in PRS is profitable & I get to enjoy tax relief too. You can read more on PRS HERE.

6. How Can StashAway Help You with Your Retirement Planning?

5 minutes of sharing about StashAway is pretty short & I was hoping that they could share more with the crowd but since their purpose is more on Financial Education, they serve the purpose right. All I could say is they are not pushy about their product unlike other talks that I’ve been to. Funniest thing that I heard during that event was, “You can invest tomorrow or next year. There is no expiry date in your investment.” LOL.

I have invested with StashAway since November last year & I am pretty satisfied with their return & the app platform. Since I am a huge believer in Low Fee Platform, StashAway is one of my preferred investment platform aside from Rakuten Trade. High Fees in certain platform such as Mutual Fund or other Investment Platform may dilute our investment return & it’s a huge NO NO to me. If you are keen to invest with StashAway, you can use my code as per above picture or you can use the link HERE to invest. All BBM readers will get to enjoy 50% off for your management fees for the first RM100,000 invested for 6 months.

You can also read my past article about StashAway as below : 
1.Why I Sold My Mutual Fund & Switch To The First SC-Licensed Robo-Advisor In Malaysia
2. Mutual Fund vs Robo-Advisor. Which Investment Is Better For You?

OSS!