This 3-Bucket Framework forms the strategic investment core of what we do here at Arki, adapted from institutional investment frameworks for you, the everyday person on the street. Dive deeper into what it actually is and how you’ll benefit.

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What Is The “3-Bucket Framework”?

Each of our buckets is essentially an allocation of your money according to your life goals and, by extension, the time horizon those goals imply.

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Let’s break it down. For every one of your goals, you will have in mind a deadline for it that falls within one of three time frames: short, medium, or long term.

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Those are our buckets - ARKI Cash, ARKI Income, and ARKI Growth respectively - and also where the money for that goal goes.  

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For example, say one of your life goals is to replace the family car. You work out that it will take around S$70,000, and you want it five years from now. That makes it a medium-term goal, so it belongs in ARKI Income.

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Note: The SGD$70,000 you’ll need is what sizes the allocation – not simply whatever you happen to have spare today.

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A bucket can hold more than one goal. The car in five years and support for your parents’ medical costs in five years share a time frame, so they share a bucket – but they remain separate goals in your plan, each with its own target and its own progress to track. This structure allows both you to match every dollar to its purpose, and us to manage it accordingly.

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For our investment team, it also indicates which assets to craft your investment portfolio with, and the magnitude of risk that is appropriate for each one.

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Without this structure, your short-term spending needs can end up invested alongside long-term wealth, creating pressure to sell at the wrong time when markets fall. At the same time, money that you intended for long-term goals may sit in cash by default and slowly lose purchasing power to inflation.

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Another drawback is that having investments scattered across different allocations without a cohesive, overall plan can also obscure whether you are on track for your financial goals, create inconsistent risk-taking, and make it harder to adapt your holistic wealth plan when life seasons shift, or your goals are met.

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For the financially savvy, it’s basically the institutional liability-matching idea translated for individuals: structuring money growth via investments and assets according to your specific life needs – retirement, education, a wedding, travel, or inheritance – and the time horizon and amount each of them requires. Institutions match cash flows to the day; we work in time frames rather than exact dates, but the discipline is the same.

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Why 3 Buckets?

It’s a very intuitive way to personalise how your money is allocated across your life goals – easy to understand, easy to use, and easy for us, Arki, to deploy according to your needs.

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Firstly, we believe structured discipline trumps timing the market or investing based on human emotion, and that discipline starts with the purpose of your money: when it will be needed, how certain it must be, and how much risk it can reasonably absorb along the way.  

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We then calibrate the allocation across our three buckets within an overall level of risk that is appropriate for you, monitoring and rebalancing when needed across buckets via institutional techniques and disciplines such as strategic asset allocation.

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However, separating money by purpose does not remove investment risk or guarantee returns, but instead helps ensure that risk is taken deliberately: less with cash you may need soon, and more with money that has years to grow.

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And although the time horizons are distinct, the three buckets are not three separate products. They are designed to work together, giving you a cohesive financial framework. This is also different than having your money scattered across multiple investment accounts in different places, accumulating over time without a united purpose.

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With the 3 buckets, as your life and priorities change, whether through a new home, a growing family, a career move, or retirement, we review the allocation with you and rebalance it so that your money continues to reflect the life you are building coherently.

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It’s also what we mean by “institutional-grade”: drawing from the principles and concepts commonly used by the long-term investors behind institutions like pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds. This is mainly seen in our disciplined investment process that’s focused on strategic asset allocation, portfolio diversification, ongoing monitoring and periodic rebalancing.

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We’ve taken this and made it accessible and simple for you.

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To be clear, we’re not talking about putting everyone into the same model portfolio. Rather, it’s giving every dollar a clear role in the plan across three buckets. It’s a concrete expression of our belief that this quality of personalised investment strategy should be available to individuals, not just institutions.

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What Are The 3 Buckets? The Breakdown.

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1. ARKI Cash

Here, you keep money immediately accessible for both everyday needs and emergencies. And while it waits, it aims to earn returns.

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We invest this bucket in more stable and liquid options such as cash-like instruments, money market funds, short-term government bonds, quasi-sovereign agency bonds, and high-quality corporate bonds through bond funds.

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2. ARKI Income

This bucket is for medium-term needs and is designed to generate a steady monthly income to support your lifestyle, both for now and in the future.

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We invest this bucket in a diversified fixed-income portfolio designed to balance income, resilience, and flexibility. It combines short-duration bond funds for stability, Singapore and Asian investment-grade bond funds as a core allocation, and flexible global bond strategies for broader opportunity.

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The underlying exposure may include corporate and government bonds, quasi-sovereign issuers, mortgage- and asset-backed securities, and limited exposure to emerging-market or high-yield debt.

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3. ARKI Growth

Our third bucket is for building wealth long-term and for your far-future goals. The portfolio is designed to grow over years rather than months so that you can really enjoy the effect of compounding.

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We invest this bucket primarily in equity ETFs, built around a core of broad global market exposure covering developed and emerging markets. Alongside it, a smaller portion is allocated to more focused ETFs whose underlying companies show documented growth in their financial filings. Another small tactical allocation picks up sectors and themes the growth screen doesn't reach.

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What This Means For You?

This 3-bucket structure allows you to fulfil your life goals using money set aside for them, without needing to touch money meant for your other goals. At the same time, your life goals and seasons will also shift, and this structure lets you rebalance your money across these buckets as they do.

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It also gives you clarity, rather than a complex, high-flying, jargon-filled wealth plan. You’ll not only know exactly where each dollar is, but you’ll also understand why it’s there, and what it’s working towards – all of it allocated by you.

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Ultimately, you’re growing your money at its most optimised – wealth that’s actively working in sync with your needs and plans, while you focus on the things and people that matter most to you.  

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Disclaimer: Any examples in this article are for illustration only and do not constitute financial advice or recommendation.