If you rely solely on your retirement benefits, your retirement will be ruined within 10 years.
Wake up your dormant pension and let money flow like a salary even after retirement.

The three-tier structure of retirement, national, and housing pension
The Complete Edition of the "Lifetime Salary System" with Alternative Investments

The majority of South Korean workers in their 30s and 50s still live with all their assets tied up in a single property.
The average retirement age is only 51.2 years, but life expectancy is approaching 100.
In an era where housing prices are stagnant and the national pension fund is expected to be depleted, what is more important than 'how to increase assets' is 'how to ensure that money continues to come in even after retirement.'
“The One-Stop Pension Retirement Rich” is a book that started from this awareness of the problem.
Based on the popular online series "Get Rich in Retirement with a One-Time Pension," which reporters at the Korea Economic Daily have been publishing since 2024, this book systematically covers how to design an uninterrupted cash flow even after retirement by adding alternative investments to retirement, national, and housing pensions.

This book presents specific methods for creating a life where your monthly salary doesn't stop even after retirement, focusing on three pillars: retirement pension, national pension, and housing pension.
In the retirement pension section, we show how many workers can turn their neglected DC and IRP accounts into "post-retirement salary accounts."
We've outlined the process of maximizing tax benefits and creating long-term compounding structures through ETFs and TDFs (default options), with practical examples.
The National Pension section provides a quick overview of useful systems, including extension of subscription period, arrears, installment and survivor pensions, and childbirth credits. The Housing Pension section explains the specific procedures for receiving money like a salary without having to sell your home.

We also cover alternative investment strategies that generate steady cash flow, such as REITs, covered call ETFs, foreign bonds, and tax-saving insurance products.
The core of this book is not simply asset allocation, but rather a proposal for a "four-tier pension portfolio" structure that extends economic life by restructuring the tax, investment, and profit structures.
We've simplified the complex financial system so that even beginners can understand and implement it.

The six reporters from the Korea Economic Daily who wrote this book are all experts with extensive experience covering pensions, finance, ETFs, welfare, and policy.
Under the awareness that "assets are meaningless once the salary stops after retirement," we combined our respective fields of expertise to write a "post-retirement survival strategy book" that is essential for Korean workers today.
Throughout the book, they end the era of 'real estate speculation' and present a blueprint for a new retirement asset that adds alternative investments to retirement pensions, national pensions, and housing pensions.

"One-Stop Pension Retirement Wealth" is not just a simple introduction to financial management.
This book contains the most realistic and concrete solutions for sustaining life in old age in Korea, which has entered a super-aging society.
We make it possible to live a life where money comes in even after retirement through practical strategies that save on taxes, grow your pension account, and turn real estate into cash flow.
This book contains the method of completing a 'sudden pension' rather than a 'get-rich-quick' by combining welfare, time, system, and strategy.

To ensure a happy retirement, you need a thorough financial plan starting now.
Even if you leave your job, you need to create cash flow that will cover your living expenses after retirement.
When the real estate market fluctuates, we need to escape the "house poor" situation where everything falls apart and plan for a solid retirement based on diverse assets.
We must not leave our retirement pension account, which is gradually accumulating every month, unattended.
Starting in April 2024, the Korea Economic Daily will publish a weekly online premium content series titled "One-Stop Pension Retirement Wealth," which will cover asset management strategies using various financial products, including stocks, bonds, deposits, derivatives, and real estate.
Among them are various financial strategies, such as how to increase the return on retirement accounts with exchange-traded funds (ETFs), how to generate cash flow like a salary with monthly dividend funds, how to utilize various tax-saving measures to avoid the tax bomb, how to maximize national pension benefits, and how to utilize housing pensions.
--- From the "Preface"

Experts unanimously agree that to boost pension account returns, we need to move beyond a management approach focused solely on principal and interest protection. ETFs have lower fees and are easier to trade than traditional funds.
For those in their 20s and 30s, it is recommended to maintain a pension account with 70% of the assets in risky assets such as stock ETFs and 30% in principal-guaranteed products such as savings, deposits, and bonds.
A good strategy is to divide your investments into three categories: an ETF that invests in the U.S. Nasdaq index, which has been steadily rising over the past 10 years; an ETF that invests in emerging markets with high growth expectations, such as Vietnam and India; and an ETF that invests in the domestic stock market.
Pension accounts cannot invest in highly volatile products using derivatives such as inverse and leveraged products.
From your 40s to 50s, it is important to increase the proportion of safe assets and create a structure that can generate cash flow through a balanced portfolio.
In your 50s, we recommend a strategy of lowering the proportion of risky assets to 30% and increasing the proportion of safe assets to 60%.
--- 「Part 1, Chapter 1.
From "Wake Up Your Sleeping Retirement Pension Account"

Just because they're called "products for lazy investors" doesn't mean TDFs have low returns. TDFs pursue both stability and high returns by diversifying investments across global stocks and funds.
According to the Korea Financial Investment Association, the two-year average return (as of the end of May 2025) of 265 TDF products launched in Korea was 19.81%, 19.33 percentage points higher than that of domestic equity funds (0.48%). Since their launch in Korea in April 2016, TDFs have consistently delivered significantly higher returns than principal-and-interest-protected products every year, except for 2022 (-14.8%).
The average annual return from 2018 to 2024 is 8.1%.
--- 「Part 1, Chapter 5.
From “TDF, a pension investment that takes care of everything for you without worrying about management”

To summarize, the retirement income tax rate is 70% for the 1st to 10th year of pension receipt, and the retirement income tax rate is 60% for the 11th year and thereafter.
This means that to maximize tax savings, you should set the pension amount as low as possible before the 10th year of receiving the pension, and increase the pension amount from the 11th year onwards.
The pension receipt year is determined not by the date of receipt, but by whether or not the pension was actually received.
This means that if you receive a pension, even if it is a small amount, after 1 to 10 years, you are considered to have passed the pension payment period.
--- 「Part 1, Chapter 9.
From "Retirement Tax Saving Strategies to Avoid the Tax Bomb"

So, how can we maximize the subscription period for this cost-effective national pension?
The first thing to consider is ‘random sign-up’.
The National Pension Voluntary Subscription is a system that allows people who are 18 years of age or older and under 60 years of age residing in Korea but cannot become subscribers due to lack of income to subscribe at their own discretion.
(Omitted) As of June 2025, the pension insurance premium through voluntary subscription to the National Pension Service can be paid from a minimum of 90,000 won per month to a maximum of 555,300 won per month.
According to the 2025 projected monthly pension table published by the National Pension Service, if you pay 90,000 won per year for the minimum subscription period of 10 years, you can receive 205,980 won per month after starting to receive pension.
On the other hand, even if you pay the maximum amount of 555,300 won for 10 years, the monthly amount received will only be 466,420 won.
Insurance premiums have increased by more than six times, but pension payments have only increased by about two times.
If you only look at the cost-effectiveness, it seems like paying 90,000 won is a good deal.
However, as mentioned earlier, even if you pay the maximum national pension premium, the amount you will receive is 1.6 times more than the amount you paid, making the national pension a high-yield retirement preparation tool.
Considering that the return on private pensions, such as individual pensions, is 1x, this is a much more generous benefit. If your circumstances allow, increasing the contribution amount as much as possible to secure the maximum pension income can lead to a stable retirement.
--- 「Part 2, Chapter 1.
From “National Pension, Why the Subscription Period is ‘Rogue’”

Thanks to the military service arrears, this worker's monthly pension will increase from 286,680 won to 346,920 won starting at age 65.
Assuming you receive national pension for 20 years, you will receive 14,457,600 won more than if you did not pay military service arrears.
This is equivalent to receiving 2.2 times the amount of insurance premium (6.48 million won) paid in arrears for a two-year service period.
In addition to the deferred payment, you can extend the subscription period by more than two years by adding credit, so the old-age security effect of military service is quite significant.
--- 「Part 2, Chapter 8.
From "How to Call National Pension in the Military"

Covered call ETFs are ideal for retirees who need monthly living expenses rather than capital gains.
This is because the structure is such that you give up future stock price increases and receive a high level of dividends now.
Recently, covered call strategies have evolved to allow investors to enjoy some of the stock price increases.
However, experts advise that the product structure should be carefully examined, as covered call ETFs themselves are not principal-guaranteed products, and excessively high distribution rates can ultimately lead to a risk of reducing the principal and reducing the distribution.
--- 「Part 3, Chapter 4.
From "If you want to earn living expenses every month, covered call ETF"

To complement these limitations of the national pension, the government established a ‘three-tier pension structure.’
In addition to the National Pension (1st tier) that guarantees basic living, you can prepare for a stable and comfortable retirement life through the Retirement Pension (2nd tier) and Private Pension (3rd tier).
Unlike retirement pensions, which are mandatory for all employees, individual pensions can be subscribed to at one's own discretion.
--- 「Part 3, Chapter 9.
From “Complete your retirement preparation with private pension insurance”

The reason why the amount of housing pension benefits does not affect health insurance premiums, unlike the national pension, is because the national pension is ‘income’, whereas the housing pension is a type of ‘loan’.
There may be quite a few readers who are confused here. Although the word “pension” is included in the name of the system, the housing pension is actually a loan secured by a house.
However, it is expressed as a pension because the subscriber does not have to pay it back during his or her lifetime, and as long as he or she continues to live in the house, he or she can receive cash of several hundred thousand to several million won every month until both the subscriber and spouse pass away.
--- 「Part 4, Chapter 3.
From “Will Housing Pension Also Be Hit by the Health Insurance Premium Bomb?”

The monthly benefit amount received by subscribing to the housing pension is fixed at the time of subscription.
Even if house prices rise later, the amount of housing pension received will not increase.
Therefore, the more the housing pension price rises, the more disadvantageous it becomes.
If we compare domestic prices 20 years ago with current prices, everyone would agree that there is a significant difference.
Likewise, it is highly likely that prices will be higher in 20 years than they are now, although there may be some difference in degree.
This means that even if the amount of housing pension you will receive in 20 years is the same as the amount of housing pension you will receive next month, the actual value taking into account inflation will be lower.
So, should I not sign up for a housing pension? Of course not.
Depending on the subscriber's choice, the housing pension can be paid in large amounts at the beginning and in small amounts later, or it can be paid in small amounts at the beginning but with an increasing monthly amount over time to prepare for the decline in the value of money due to inflation.

--- 「Part 4, Chapter 8.
From “How to Use Housing Pension to Get Less at First, More Later”