EPF to offset your housing loan

Seems like all my 3 wishes on Budget 2008 did not come true. ~sigh, no choice lar...but there's one thing which caught my attention, which is, to withdraw EPF for housing loan installment. hmm, sounds interesting...

For those that have no idea what i'm talking about, it's something that had been annouced on Budget 2008. We can now withdraw our EPF to offset our housing loan. The EPF monthly withdrawal will directly credited into our personal account.

So if your monthly housing loan is RM1K, you can withdraw RM1K to pay off your loan. haha..u wish!! just joking only!! :p You can only withdraw 30% of your EPF contribution (from u & from ur employer).

Let's say your monthly salary is RM2000, you contribute RM 220 (11%) and your employer, RM 240 (12%), total contribution = RM 460, 30% of RM460 = RM 138. So you can withdraw this RM 138 to offset your housing loan.

hmm, if we can do something like this, then i'm quite interested...say for eg, this month i want to withdraw, (probably need to renew car roadtax, insurance and etc) this money is very helpful, but after this month, you probably don't need it anymore, so might as well keep it in EPF so that you can have more $$ when you retired. sounds good hor.. but i think won't be that flexible la..

Interested? hehe...