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Autarky Protocol

shipped

A financial model for planning a future business and a home of my own.

Why it exists

I did not want to assume the only path open to me was being a junior-to-mid-level employee. I built Autarky Protocol to find out whether a different version of the next decade is financially viable, and what it takes to get there.

Features

Structure the company properly

Models how a Singapore private company is taxed: the startup exemptions a new company qualifies for, and the difference between paying yourself in tax-exempt dividends versus a director's fee.

Track four capital streams separately

CPF OA, CPFIS equity, private cash, and SRS are projected independently. They have to be: CPF locks in at the property purchase and cannot cover living expenses afterwards. A single aggregate number gives the wrong answer.

Model the property as a financed purchase

Two independent gates: a cash anchor for the 5% floor, stamp duty, and renovation; a CPF OA anchor for the 20% draw. Both must clear on their own. Checking total wealth against total price misses how MAS LTV rules split the two pools.

Monte Carlo and sensitivity

1,500 runs with Box-Muller sampling: survival probability, p10/p50/p90 bands on a chart. The tornado analysis ranks the inputs that swing the anchor deficit most: cash return, monthly investment, property price, CPF contribution.

Find the earliest viable transition

The gate fires when company distributions cover mortgage plus living costs and both anchor gates are funded. No earlier.

Why I built it

This project is the most personal one here. It started as a question I kept circling: is there a version of the next decade where I am not just an employee, but someone who owns a company and a place to live on terms I set. I wanted to find out whether the numbers work, not just whether the idea feels possible. So I modelled it: the tax, the cash flows, the years of compounding. Either it adds up or it does not.

What I worked on

The model runs in a single HTML file, opened straight from the filesystem with no server, no build step, no network. The inputs are real personal financial data, so the whole thing stays air-gapped. There is also a CLI path for scripting, but the browser UI is the primary surface: sliders for every input, two-way sync with number fields, named save slots in localStorage.

CPF OA, CPFIS equity, private cash, and SRS are projected independently from the same starting point. They have to stay separate because CPF locks in at the property purchase and cannot cover living expenses afterwards. One aggregate number produces the wrong answer.

The property is modelled as a financed purchase, not an all-cash lump sum. Two gates: a cash gate for the 5% floor, buyer’s stamp duty at the IRAS 2026 schedule, and renovation; a CPF gate for the 20% OA draw. Each is checked on its own. Checking total wealth against total price is the wrong test. MAS LTV rules keep the two pools separate.

The Monte Carlo runs 1,500 scenarios with Box-Muller sampling, producing a survival probability and p10/p50/p90 bands. The tornado analysis ranks the inputs that shift the anchor deficit most: cash return, monthly investment, property price, CPF contribution, CPFIS return.

The transition gate fires at the earliest age where company distributions cover mortgage plus living costs and both anchor gates are funded. No earlier.

$ npm run simulate-autarky

AUTARKY PROTOCOL — TRANSITION MODEL         (figures: placeholder)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

§1  ASSUMPTIONS
    Age 30 → 35  ·  S$525,000 property  ·  bank loan @ 3.5% / 25yr
    Monthly invest S$2,500  ·  CPF OA S$1,200/mo  ·  living S$3,500/mo

§2  PROPERTY FINANCING
    Purchase price          S$  525,000
    Buyer's stamp duty      S$   10,350
    Cash down (5%)          S$   26,250   → cash anchor component
    CPF OA down (20%)       S$  105,000   → CPF anchor
    Loan amount             S$  393,750
    Monthly repayment       S$    2,009

§3  COMPANY DISTRIBUTIONS
    Chargeable income       S$  180,000
    Tax (SUTE)              S$   18,275
    Monthly dividend        S$   13,477

§4  YEAR-BY-YEAR
    Age  Cash FV    CPF OA    Cash gate  CPF gate  Runway
    31   S$ 232k   S$  86k       ✗          ✗      12 mo
    33   S$ 398k   S$ 119k       ✗          ✓      28 mo
    34   S$ 532k   S$ 141k       ✓          ✓      45 mo  ← gate

§5  ANCHOR SUMMARY (at age 35)
    Cash stream    S$ 617k  vs  S$ 117k  required   FUNDED  ✓
    CPF OA         S$ 158k  vs  S$ 105k  required   FUNDED  ✓

§6  INCOME TRANSITION GATE
    Triggered at age 34
    Distributions S$13,477/mo  ≥  living + mortgage S$5,509/mo
    Both anchors secured  →  transition viable