How much are you earning per annum?

Very sensible what you said.

My wife and I have our own cars since the day we married - 25 years ago. She needs one for her work and so do I, so we have 2 cars.

Because we needed 2 cars, we always bought jap cars, good and cheap, while my colleagues were into conti cars. I remembered in 2005, the combined price of our 2 jap cars, (an MPV and a sedan) costed less than my colleague's conti car. While we had no problems with our 2 jap cars, my colleague's conti car gave him quite a bit of problems and cost him a lot of money to maintain.

My wife just got another new jap car to replace her 10 year old car, same trusted brand and model. My son who has started work is also shopping for his own car since we still need our cars.

I tried letting my son drive my car while I took the MRT to work, but it didn't feel the same. It is really difficult to give up the car. I am now not sure even when I retire, I will be able to give up driving. It is like having your freedom taken away.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Many people are getting new cars while COE is still affordable. I remembered COE price alone went to $100k last time for small cars. My salary in 2006 was $60k pa, now 10 years later it is $120k pa. About the same for my wife. In 2006, we bought a $50k plus car, now we can still afford a new $100k plus car which is $50k more expensive ($5k pa more expensive, spread over 10 years) but our combined pay increased by $120k pa.

Nowadays a $100k plus car is cheap and good. No need to buy the expensive brands because the dealers' margins for those brands are huge. Once you drive off from the showroom, the car value drops like a rock.

Better to buy a new cheap, good quality car and save your money to buy high dividend stocks.

It was borne out of necessity that people are building up their own "pension" to sustain their retirement. Gone are the days where there were pensions to take care of people when they retire. Now, only a select group of civil servants have pensions. For the rest of us, we are on our own in our retirement.

Building up a solid investment that can provide sustainable passive income that besides being adequate, and can keep up with inflation takes time and substantial amount of money. It is therefore important to start the process of building up this fund early in your working life. Don't leave it till its too late.

in our case we started building up our investments late. When we started work, there was no Internet and information on investments and retirement were scant. To be honest, we also didn't bother with it. We now regretted not paying attention to this when younger.

But luckily for us, when we bought a bigger property to house our growing family, we didn't sell off our first property. Instead we rented it out to generate some income. A few years later, the estate went enbloc and we got back 2.5 times what we paid. With that, we bought yet another property to rent out.

And over the years, as our salaries grew, we were more able to save and invest.

To cut the long story short, after 30 long years of working, we have now 3 sources of passive incomes - property rental, dividends from stocks and interest from endowments, single premium insurances, bonds and CPF. This year, we are expecting $120k passive income in total. To us, this will be our "pension".

Our advise - start building up your investment now when you still have a lot of time!

Originally Posted by borderlands

It's interesting seniors have great passive income, and it appears the numbers of these seniors are steadily increasing.

how do you spend your time? I have 2 friends aged 63 & 65 who insisted they really do not know how to manage their time and decided to work. I find this very very interesting.

I'm happy for you seniors, who are able to retire in grace and peace.

I'm curious on the retirement because my wife & I are also planning for our retirement, maybe 20 years later, i suppose.

Originally Posted by Hermit

I don't think you wrote out your job description accurately.

"I don't think"

Go, think first and then come back to write your sentence.

Singaporean too complacent with life.
Should put in a shark. McKinsey's way of dealing with the over complacent.
https://www.techinasia.com/singapore...-is-overrated/

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It was borne out of necessity that people are building up their own "pension" to sustain their retirement. Gone are the days where there were pensions to take care of people when they retire. Now, only a select group of civil servants have pensions. For the rest of us, we are on our own in our retirement.

Building up a solid investment that can provide sustainable passive income that besides being adequate, and can keep up with inflation takes time and substantial amount of money. It is therefore important to start the process of building up this fund early in your working life. Don't leave it till its too late.

in our case we started building up our investments late. When we started work, there was no Internet and information on investments and retirement were scant. To be honest, we also didn't bother with it. We now regretted not paying attention to this when younger.

But luckily for us, when we bought a bigger property to house our growing family, we didn't sell off our first property. Instead we rented it out to generate some income. A few years later, the estate went enbloc and we got back 2.5 times what we paid. With that, we bought yet another property to rent out.

And over the years, as our salaries grew, we were more able to save and invest.

To cut the long story short, after 30 long years of working, we have now 3 sources of passive incomes - property rental, dividends from stocks and interest from endowments, single premium insurances, bonds and CPF. This year, we are expecting $120k passive income in total. To us, this will be our "pension".

Our advise - start building up your investment now when you still have a lot of time!

You are lucky!

My dear boy, what an ignorant, naive and stupid question.

Money is key. If you have no money, even if your wife is younger than you, you will also be LL.

Many not-so-rich men have gone to marry younger women from poorer countries only to find that the women are not happy with them and want out of the marriage.

When you have money, you have a lot of options.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

When you are 50, your wife will 55.
When you want, your wife doesn't want.
Don't think about your worth in dollar and cents. Plan how to overcome your problem in 10 years time.

My wife and I are both 50. We are working professionals who have worked hard to accumulate our wealth. We are now generating a passive income of $80k pa. We plan to retire in 5 years time as we no longer need to care for our grown up kids or old folks. By then, we would have accumulate more wealth and hence able to generate a passive income of $130k pa. As we are debt free (car and condo paid up) and we live a middle class lifestyle, our projected expenses would be only $60k pa in 5 years time.

We plan to do these during our retirement:

1. Travel the world, will be away one month per year. Will travel during non peak seasons to take advantage of cheap flights and hotels.

2. Keeping fit with gym exercise and swimming.

3. Learn to cook exotic dishes.

4. Reading, lots of reading.

5. Volunteer in charities.

6. Watching movies, catch up on the many movies we missed due to our busy work schedule.

7. Write a book.

8. Attend AGMs of companies in our stocks portfolio.

9. Give free tuition to poor students.

10. Go bowling, golfing, camping and trekking.


I think our retirement will be full of fun and activities. I don't understand why some people say they don't know what to do with their retirement years. They must be boring people in the first place.

LOL, really clueless.

Reminded me of a guy saying what's the big deal about marathons. He was telling or rather boasting to his friends that he will complete the 42km marathon in 5hrs for sure because he will run for 10km at 10km/hr and walk for 5km at 5km/hr and repeat the cycle till he finish the 42 km. in reality? He dropped out of the race after 21 km.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My wife and I are both 50. We are working professionals who have worked hard to accumulate our wealth. We are now generating a passive income of $80k pa. We plan to retire in 5 years time as we no longer need to care for our grown up kids or old folks. By then, we would have accumulate more wealth and hence able to generate a passive income of $130k pa. As we are debt free (car and condo paid up) and we live a middle class lifestyle, our projected expenses would be only $60k pa in 5 years time.

We plan to do these during our retirement:

1. Travel the world, will be away one month per year. Will travel during non peak seasons to take advantage of cheap flights and hotels.

2. Keeping fit with gym exercise and swimming.

3. Learn to cook exotic dishes.

4. Reading, lots of reading.

5. Volunteer in charities.

6. Watching movies, catch up on the many movies we missed due to our busy work schedule.

7. Write a book.

8. Attend AGMs of companies in our stocks portfolio.

9. Give free tuition to poor students.

10. Go bowling, golfing, camping and trekking.


I think our retirement will be full of fun and activities. I don't understand why some people say they don't know what to do with their retirement years. They must be boring people in the first place.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My dear boy, what an ignorant, naive and stupid question.

Money is key. If you have no money, even if your wife is younger than you, you will also be LL.

Many not-so-rich men have gone to marry younger women from poorer countries only to find that the women are not happy with them and want out of the marriage.

When you have money, you have a lot of options.

Oh I see! Do you suggest we should get a rich wife, age doesn't matter. After you get rich, then get a younger one?

Both are salaried employees, earning $103k and $100k. 46, 44 yo.
Upgraded to a condominium unit some years ago. Condo unit is now worth $1.1m, mortgage outstanding $500k. Our achievement is considered average at best. Many of our friends doing much better.