Attended an investment seminar organized by CitiBank this evening. The fact is, our savings are meagre and we're spooked that if we continue to keep our spare cash under our pillows (not literally, of course) instead of investing it for higher returns than the bank's fixed deposit or CPF, there just won't be enough for us to retire on [yes, we're thinking far in advance for once] and still maintain our current lifestyle.

Ideally, what we should have is a stash of wealth that will last till the day we croak, and perhaps some left over to tidy up the mess we've left behind. We also have to hedge against the inflation rate and the GST, which won't stay at a mere 5% for long. Then there're those geriatric medical expenses to think about; and for the moment we don't even have kids to plan for and already the finances look like there won't be enough to go around if there were any more of us.

When you talk to an insurance agent, as we did sometime in the past week, your financial life is always going to look bleak.

Hence, today's seminar which we decided to attend to evaluate our options apart from buying yet another life insurance policy. We heard about building a portfolio of investments that balances risk with growth. That, for best results, we should diversify our equity as far as possible in terms of the proportion of stocks and bonds we own; across different industry types; and across different countries in the region and worldwide.

In other words, bet on a whole bunch of horses so that the winnings of at least one horse will cover the losses of the other horses and leave a fat profit besides. The bank's fund managers are there to help us to intelligently pick which horses to bet on so that we don't risk all on a stupid, random crap shoot.

Too much info to absorb all at once. Didn't help that both June and I zoned out during major portions of the presentation. Still, the idea of putting some money to work to generate more money seems like an idea worth considering...