Singapore · after the last payslip
Most opportunities after work arrive as a letter. Most letters can wait.
Red File is a one-page guide for people in Singapore who have stopped full-time work, or will stop this year. The idea is one folder you can lift with one hand. If a paper cannot earn a place in that folder, it is probably not an opportunity.
This is not a government site and not financial advice. Scheme names change. Read the official page on gov.sg or cpf.gov.sg before you act. Do not hand the folder to a stranger who “can process it faster”.
What belongs in the file
Eight sheets, not a carton
Keep · identity
IC copy and a current address proof
Every counter will ask. A photocopy in the file saves the hunt through a drawer of takeaway menus.
Keep · money
Latest CPF statement
This is the map of what already exists: payout timing, what is locked, what a nomination would change. An opportunity here is usually “review”, not “transfer today”.
Keep · health
Medicine list and CHAS status
Clinics waste a morning when the list lives only on a phone. CHAS is a door to lower bills at participating GPs — check whether your usual clinic is on the list.
Keep · housing
HDB documents you would need for a question about the flat
Right-sizing, Lease Buyback or an upgrading letter only make sense next to the actual lease. Do not start that conversation from memory in a food court.
Keep · people
Who to call, and who holds a spare key
One page. Names, numbers, the neighbour who would notice a dark corridor. This is also an opportunity: a standing kopi hour is easier to keep when someone expects you.
From paper to a next step
Letters that can become a weekday plan
Silver Support or generation-package mail
If the letter looks official, confirm it on the government site, not by calling the number printed on a second flyer that arrived the same week. If you qualify, that is income you should not ignore. If you do not, put the letter in a “done” sleeve so it stops circulating on the table.
Community Club and SkillsFuture notices
These are the rare papers that create a reason to leave the block. Pick one class or one volunteer slot that ends before dinner. A stack of brochures is not a social life.
Hospital and polyclinic appointments
Write transport on the same page: bus number or who drives. Senior concession helps; standing through two changes of train before a fasting blood test does not.
Leave out of the file
These are not opportunities
- Cold-call scripts about “guaranteed retirement income”.
- QR codes from people you did not invite into the house.
- Every supermarket voucher that expires this Tuesday.
- A child’s unofficial spreadsheet of “what you should do with the flat”.
If you want paid hours, ask for the shift in writing and put that paper in the file. If you want quiet, the file is allowed to stay thin.