Treasury Bills

All the below is based on Singapore Govt Treasury Bills, part of Singapore Government Securities.

This is the safest type of instrument especially if the Treasury Bill is issued by our Government. In general, this is something which is considered to be risk-free as it means borrowing our government money. Minimum investment size is $1K depending on where it's being sold.

Such investment instrument is issued on a discount on its maturity value by our government. The investment period is 3 mths and 12 mths. Liquidity is available unlike fixed deposit, they can be sold before maturity. It's just a matter on how much interest you'll get from such sale. But due to the low risk involved, there interest rate is not very high.

The interest aren't very high according to the statistics I've seem today. You may want to put them in those higher interest rate banks instead.

Term Insurance

The cost of such insurance depends on your age but it's by far the cheapest form of insurance available. Normally it covers death and total permanent disability only. Some covers critical illness as well but you will need to confirm this with your agent. There are some policies that you can buy the critical illness as a rider of the term plan. Read more on critical illness.

If you wanted to be covered permanently but is currently can't afford to do so, try finding a term insurance with convertible option that allows you to convert it into permanent insurance without the need to prove that you are still healthy. As in as long as you gets insured and remains insured for the term insurance, you can convert it into a normal life insurance that has cash values built up on the dates available for conversion.

CPF Education Scheme

Hmm as I've mentioned before, unlike normal Tuition Fee Loan and Study Loan Schemes from the bank, CPF Education Scheme incurs interest from the moment it's withdrawn as this is to ensure that the person of whom you borrowed that money from will continue to maintain their original retirement savings. Although some felt better as it means borrowing money from their parents but.. If you can afford to repay back majority of your loans after graduation, it's better to take the bank loan after all. But whichever is the case, it's best to secure your loan repayment from the moment you take it using term insurance policy so that it's a lot more affordable and value for money during the schooling term. After all, we want to protect our family from the debt we incur in our sch fees and we do want to protect their retirement funds as well.

Just make sure that your calculations and plans is right. With the right plan to repay the debts and the right policy bought, that's the best thing we can do at this point in time. :)