A retirement-readiness checklist for Malaysians at 60.

Most of the people who reach us through a son or daughter arrive at the first appointment with a single brown envelope, two old EPF letters, and the kind of polite worry that comes from not quite knowing what is in the envelope. The checklist below is the one we send out by SMS the day before a discovery call. It is short and deliberately uneven — some items take two minutes, others take two evenings.

Twelve documents to gather before the first meeting

1. IC, both sides. Yours and your spouse's if they are involved.
2. The last EPF statement you can find, whatever year it bears.
3. i-Akaun login details — written down, not memorised. If you have forgotten them, do not panic. We will reset together.
4. Any KWAP correspondence from a civil-service posting, however brief that posting was.
5. The last three years of household utility bills — TNB, Indah Water, Astro and your fixed-line telco.
6. Mobile telco statements for both spouses for the last 12 months.
7. Credit-card statements for the last six months, for every card in your name.
8. Insurance policy schedules — life, motor, fire, medical. The schedule page only; we don't need the booklet.
9. Bank account list, even rough. Branch, account number, joint or sole. Many clients have a "dormant" account they have forgotten about; that is exactly the kind of thing we sweep for.
10. The last LHDN tax-filing summary, if you've filed in the past three years.
11. Any will currently in force, including drafts.
12. One page of notes in your own handwriting describing what worries you. We work from this more than from anything else.

Two short conversations to have

The "if I weren't here" conversation

A fifteen-minute talk with the adult child or sibling who would be your executor. Not a will-writing exercise — just naming a person and telling them the safe-deposit box is at the AmBank Bukit Bintang branch. We help write the one-pager that follows.

The "what does the future look like" conversation

Half an hour with your spouse, walking through three things: where you would like to live in the next five years, what monthly income figure feels comfortable, and whether you want to continue light work. The financial decisions we help you make later read very differently with these three things on the table.

Almost nobody comes ready. Almost everybody leaves the first meeting with a much shorter homework list than they expected. That is precisely the point of a forty-five-minute discovery call.

What you do not need to bring

• Original certificates of any kind. Photographs taken with a phone are enough for the first meeting.
• A breakdown of your monthly spending. We rarely need it for the early conversations; the bills tell their own story.
• Anything financial about your adult children. Their money is their money.

How the desk uses your checklist

A senior advisor reads through the homework you send the day before. We mark the lines we want to ask about, flag anything that looks like a quick recovery, and arrange the desk so you can sit where the light is good. The folder labelled with your name is on the table before you arrive.

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