Now that we’re about to enter December, it’s a good reminder to plan ahead for our travels…next December.

Yes, that’s right. And when it comes to redeeming KrisFlyer miles for Singapore Airlines flights, there’s never a better time.

If you’ve got kids, or you simply just want to get away from Singapore in December, then you’re likely going to be thinking about a trip in December 2026.

And as I outlined in a wide-ranging interview with CNA938’s Hui Wong earlier this week on the miles game in Singapore, if you want to secure redemption tickets with your KrisFlyer miles then you need to book as early as possible.

Remember you can book redemption tickets on Singapore Airlines up to 355 days in advance.

Indeed, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has released school holiday dates for 2026 for primary and secondary schools and the end of the school year is 20 November 2026.

In that sense, if families want to go on holiday right after school ends then they could technically redeem their November 2026 tickets in the next few days or so.

Overall, whether you have kids or you don’t, given the difficulty of redeeming flights in general it certainly pays to be a planner by trying to get your holidays (and redemption flights) sorted as early as possible.

We’re getting to the end of the year and it’s definitely one of those times where everyone is winding down for the year-end holidays. Given this lull, it’s a perfect time to do some financial admin before 2025 ends.

And one of the best ways to do that? Get all your voluntary tax relief top-ups out of the way well before 31 December rolls around.

On this front, there are two main channels for us to earn tax relief in Singapore. First off is voluntary top-ups to your CPF Special Account (SA) or MediSave Account (MA).

You can contribute up to $8,000 in any calendar year to these two CPF accounts, which can then be offset against your tax for that year of assessment (YA). Additionally, there’s also the ability to contribute another $8,000 to the CPF SA/MA of loved ones, including parents and grandparents.

One thing to remember is that you can only claim the tax relief on CPF SA top-ups up to the Full Retirement Sum (FRS), which currently stands at $213,000.

The second tax savings channel is the Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS). But as I’ve spoken about previously, it probably only makes sense to contribute to the SRS if you earn at least $120,000 per year if not significantly more.

If you do contribute though, you can contribute up to $15,300 as a Singapore Citizen/Permanent Resident (PR) and up to $35,700 as a Foreigner. After contributing to the SRS, you must invest it as it will earn only 0.05% per annum (p.a.) in interest if you leave it in cash.

Finally, do remain conscious of the fact that individuals can only claim a total of up to $80,000 of tax reliefs each year.

JPMorgan said in a research note that shares of DBS Group (SGX: D05), Singapore’s biggest bank, could reach $70 by the end of 2026.

It also said the bank could potentially pay an annual ordinary dividend per share of $3.30 for “years to come”.

Tim’s Take: As we all know, we should take sell-side analysts’ recommendations (aka forecasting/crystal-ball-gazing) on future prices with a huge bucket of salt.

That’s because no one truly knows where stock prices are headed. However, I found this latest hyperbolic headline rather interesting given DBS’s absolutely monster rally over the past five years or so.

JPMorgan makes a good point that DBS’s loans-to-asset ratio has come down over the past eight years or so and is now estimated to be slightly below 50% versus the 63% ratio it had in 2017.

Given that, it’s clear that DBS is less reliant on its loan book to generate profits and instead, as well as know, has been seeing strong growth in its wealth management business.

That’s in stark contrast to UOB, which JPMorgan also stated in the same note has “lagged” its peers in wealth management.

Despite all this, it’s important to remember that the bullish optimism on DBS can indeed go too far.

Everyone seems to own the stock in Singapore (as do I) but we also should be cognisant of position sizing in any one individual name.

As JPMorgan went on to say, DBS shares could indeed “re-rate” (i.e. sell off) if the stock becomes unjustifiably expensive. That point hasn’t come yet but it could well do at any time in the next few years.

Everyone will have different risk tolerance levels but the general rule of thumb is to not have more than 5% of your portfolio in any one single stock.

If you do have significantly more, just be aware that a sharp sell-off in any of your top positions can have an outsized impact on your portfolio so, as always, risk management is key when investing.

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