Its a fine line between greed and wanting a margin of safety.

I can understand people who want to have margin of safety in their lives, for eg. when they pick a stock, they would prefer to buy an undervalued stock as opposed to an overpriced one. For retirement planning, it is also prudent to plan with sufficient margin of safety. The variables that can affect your planning are:

1. Longevity- we really dont know how long we will live, so best to plan for worst case (100?)
2. Inflation - Singapore has ever experienced inflation at 6 to 8 % before, so it can happen again
3. Medical emergencies- this can happen anytime
4. Lifestyle inflation - sometimes we just have to keep up with the times. I used to use a 2G phone but now I cannot do without a smart phone. Correspondingly, my phone bill went up from $14 pm to $40 pm.
5. Unknown unknowns. Retirement is a long term affair. There is a lot of things that can crop up and screw up our best laid plans.

Many things in life we have no control over, but at the very least, we should prepare and build up sufficient funds and safety margins.

Dont be afraid of being accused of being greedy when you are just building a bigger safety margin for yourself and your family.

For eg, I estimated I will need $3,000,000 to sustain 35 years of retirement for two of us. When I plan, I will put in a 100% safety margin and aim for $6,000,000.

Too much!? If it can be done, and if it brings peace of mind for the rest of my life, why not. That little extra $$ wont hurt!