I make about SGD 700K p.a. My wife works part time to pass her time now that all our kids are in Uni. She brings home around SGD 3-7k monthly.
While I would love to work as long as I can, the reality is that I will most likely be forced into early retirement soon. It gets lonely as most of my peers & friends have either already retired or have been made redundant. If I do get made redundant, my payout will be about SGD 900k net of tax. On top of this I get a pension for the years of service rendered. This would be about SGD 1.6 mln gross of tax. I will lose a substantial amount of the above should I resign instead. That being said, I would not be badly off as I still have about SGD 1.3-1.4 mln in cash, stocks and
CPF. My portfolio would have been bigger but I made huge losses in the stock market before. I wasn't able monitor them closely as I should. I was always on the road for work.
Most of you in this forum will probaly be envious of my status but I don't find myself lucky at all. The truth is I am now living in an empty nest. I live in a big house but I normally only use the study room and the bedroom. Except for my maid, no one is in. My wife goes on holidays with her friends pretty often and she travels a fair bit for her new "part time" job. She gave up climbing the corporate ladder in banking to take care of my kids, while I chose to climb that ladder instead. As our kids are no longer teens, she sees this as her second chance at a professional career once more.
My kids are in top unis overseas and their future careers are more or less cast in stone. Through years of "hot housing" on my part, they have done very well academically and also excelled in both sports + arts (ie. they're not geeks). Unfortunately for me, they see themselves as "World Citizens" as they've lived a quasi "diplomat" type lifestyle in different countries growing up while I was born literally in a Malay kampung during the race riots and was raised in the
HDB heartlands. Singapore will always be my hom but my kids will most likely hone their careers in London, Tokyo, HK, New York etc. Sigh!!!!
My advice to many of you here, don't get too hung up with how much you earn or how much you will have for retirement. Even if you have money and time, retirement will be a pain if....
a) You don't have your family or kids around.
(Having friends help but in the end family matters most)
b) You dont have your health
. (Many colleagues I know, actually pass away a few years into their retirement)
c) You've lost your purpose
(My kids were always my priority. I read to them, taught them maths, physics, anything I am familar with. We discussed politics, foreign affairs, religion and I even coached them in sports,..rugby, martial arts, shooting, running, climbing. My life really revolved around my kids afterwhich it will revolve around my job. So, I really dont know "What's next?")
In hindsight, as I read what I wrote above, I must admit that I have been the prodigal son. I left home straight after graduation, travelling all over, seduced with the thrill of cutting deals and managing huge capital investments. To
Mom and Dad, should you stumble onto this forum, I am sorry. I should have returned home more often. I now know how you must have felt.