My Laddering Strategy for Singapore Savings Bonds by Tenure
I started buying Singapore Savings Bonds in late 2018, mostly because I wanted a Singapore-dollar denominated parking spot for cash that did not feel like a gamble. Back then I was buying single issues and holding them to maturity, which worked but meant I had to wait years before seeing any principal back. Once I switched to a laddered approach across the available tenures, the cash flow pattern changed completely. A slice matures every six months, the rest keeps earning the long-end rate, and I no longer feel locked in.
Australia does not have an exact twin to the SSB, but the idea of staggering Commonwealth Government Securities or term deposits by maturity is well known there too. When I catch up with friends back in Melbourne about bond ladders over a long lunch, the language translates easily even if the products do not. The appeal is the same: predictable returns, capital preservation, and a regular cadence of cash that you can actually use when life happens.
This post walks through how I built my SSB ladder, how I handle reinvestment when a tranche matures, and what I am watching as rates move. It is a personal record, not a recommendation for anyone else. A separate write-up on understanding CPF allocations for different age groups covers how I think about CPF alongside these bonds, which a few Aussie readers have asked about after comparing the systems.
Why a staggered structure works for me
The simple appeal of a bond ladder is that you trade a bit of yield for flexibility. By buying across one-year, five-year, and ten-year issues, you always have money returning inside twelve months even if the long end is locked up. For someone who keeps an eye on opportunities elsewhere, that liquidity buffer is worth more than a small pickup in yield.
I also like the psychological effect. Watching a tranche mature every six months feels like a small pay day, even though the principal just gets recycled. An Australian mate who runs a self-managed super fund in Sydney once told me he does the same thing with his government bond holdings because it stops him from panic-selling when markets wobble. The structure does the work that discipline often cannot, and it stops you from doing something rash on a rough arvo in the markets.
Another reason is rate averaging. I have no view on where Singapore yields are headed, so spreading purchases across several years smooths my entry cost. Some tranches were bought near the bottom of the rate cycle and others near the top, and the blended yield is closer to the long-run average than any single purchase would have been. It is the same logic that some Australian retirees use when they drip-feed into bond ETFs rather than going in all at once.
Setting up the initial rungs
When I first built the ladder, I worked backwards from the maximum ten-year tenor. SSBs cap at ten years, so I bought a ten-year issue with about a third of the money I planned to deploy. Then I filled in five-year, three-year, two-year, and one-year slots so that something would mature every year for the next decade. The shape of the ladder was deliberate rather than accidental.
The minimum purchase of S$500 made it easy to scale without committing too much at once. I funded each rung from cash I had already set aside for fixed income, not from money I might need for emergencies. That separation matters because the ladder only works if you genuinely do not need the principal for ten years. If you are the sort of person who keeps a buffer in a high-yield savings account for a rainy day, the ladder slots in neatly on top of that.
I kept the receipts and issue details in a spreadsheet with the issue date, tenor, and yield to maturity for each tranche. It sounds pedantic, but the SSB portal does not present the data in a way that makes ladder management intuitive. A simple table of what matures when, and at what rate, saves a lot of fumbling later. Some people track this on paper, others use a notebook app. The medium does not matter as long as the information is findable when you need it.
Reinvesting when a tranche matures
The interesting part begins when the first rung comes due. By design, the shortest tranche matures first, and the proceeds arrive in my SRS or bank account depending on where I bought them. I then have a choice: cash out, extend into a new long-end issue, or rotate into something else entirely. Most of the time the answer is obvious, but every now and then it is not.
My default is to roll the proceeds into a fresh ten-year SSB. That keeps the ladder intact, with the longest tenor always held by the most recent issue. It also means the average duration of the portfolio creeps upward over time, which is fine for me because I am not planning to touch this money for a long while. If rates are attractive when the tranche matures, I might even add a bit of new cash on top to keep the rungs evenly sized.
Every now and then, particularly when I have a near-term spending goal, I will skip the reinvestment and let the cash sit in a high-yield savings account for a few months. It is not optimal from a pure yield standpoint, but it keeps the ladder responsive to actual life. I learned this during a renovation phase when I was glad to have a maturing tranche ready to go rather than having to break a longer-tenor issue.
Tracking yields against alternatives
A ladder is only worth maintaining if the bonds remain competitive. I check the published SSB rates every six months and compare them to Singapore T-bills, fixed deposits, and the yields available on Singapore-listed REITs. The comparison is not perfect because SSBs are fully government-backed and capital guaranteed, but it keeps me honest about whether the structure is still pulling its weight.
Australian readers might compare SSBs to the rates on offer from the major banks for term deposits, or to the running yield on broad Australian bond ETFs. Those are not direct substitutes because the currency and credit profile differ, but the exercise of asking whether the ladder is still earning its keep applies anywhere. I have a colleague in Brisbane who reviews his bond ETF holdings the same way every six months, and it is a habit worth copying.
When SSB yields fell below 1% for long-end issues a couple of years ago, I paused new purchases and let the ladder wind down slightly through attrition. As rates climbed again, I restarted buying. The structure is durable, but the funding decisions remain active. Lifestyle spending creeps in too, and my notes on lifestyle reviews sometimes nudge me to redirect money that would otherwise have gone into a new rung.
| Tenure Slot | Typical Yield Range (recent issues) | Years to First Maturity | Liquidity Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-year | 2.0% – 3.0% | 1 | Emergency cash reserve |
| 5-year | 2.5% – 3.2% | 5 | Medium-term buffer |
| 10-year | 2.8% – 3.4% | 10 | Long-term core |
The table above is a snapshot of how I think about the rungs, not a forecast. Yields move with the issue date, and the spread between short and long tenures widens or compresses depending on the rate environment.
Tweaks I am considering for the coming years
A few adjustments are on my mind. First, I am thinking about whether to overweight the five-year slot relative to the ten-year. The yield pickup for going to ten years has been modest lately, and five years gives me a chance to redeploy capital sooner. If the long end steepens, I will move back the other way and tilt back towards the maximum tenor.
Second, I want to be more deliberate about currency matching. Most of my SSB holdings are denominated in Singapore dollars because that is where I live and earn. But I keep an eye on the AUD/SGD cross-rate because part of my long-term plans involve retirement back in Australia, and a weaker Singapore dollar would erode the value of these holdings in Australian terms when I eventually convert. It is a small thing, but it matters over a decade.
Finally, I am tempted to automate the rollover process so I am not making manual decisions every six months. The SSB portal allows scheduled instructions for some accounts, and removing the temptation to overthink each maturity is probably worth a small amount of yield. We will see how the next couple of tranches go before I commit to that, because a ladder should still feel like a deliberate choice rather than a set-and-forget product.
A few practical notes for anyone thinking about doing something similar:
- Decide on the split between ten-year, five-year, and one-year holdings before you place the first order. It is harder to retrofit a ladder than to build one deliberately.
- Keep a simple record of issue dates, tenors, and yields. The portal will not do it for you, and memory is not reliable after a few years.
- Be honest about whether you might need the money before ten years. If there is any doubt, keep the long-end tranche smaller and lean on the shorter rungs.
- Compare SSB yields to T-bills and fixed deposits at least twice a year. A ladder that was good in 2022 might be mediocre in 2024, and the spread shifts quietly.
- Treat any reinvestment decision as a fresh one. Yesterday's reason to roll over does not bind you today, especially if your circumstances have changed.
If you want to see how the bond habit sits alongside my everyday spending, I keep a running note on my spending on subscription services in Singapore. The two habits are not really comparable, but they both show where the cash goes each month and they both reward a steady approach.
That is roughly where things stand. The ladder has been a quiet, reliable part of my portfolio for several years now, and I plan to keep it running for the foreseeable future. If any of this has been useful, have a look around the rest of the site for similar personal-finance notes, and feel free to leave a comment with your own approach to bond laddering or SSB investing.