Originally Posted by Mr Middle

I felt compelled to add in some comments (not advise) when I read your post. If not for the fact that we are living in high cost Singapore, I would find your musings amusing. On a more serious note, You have taken a very important and commendable first step in saving 50% of your income, and from a $3K income at that! As a diligent and conscious saver myself, my wife and I are now (after 20++ years of working) able to save more than 65% of our income every month. It was not always like when we first started as newly weds with housing loan to pay. We were always thrifty, but how much can one stretch a combined income of $3.3K then? But the habits of saving stayed with us through the years and now it is second nature.

The second important thing we did beyond just savings was to invest the money. In other words, make the money work for you. Easier said than done of course. We were lucky that the vast majority of the shares we bought constantly (and never sold) throughout the 20++ years paid handsome dividends, grew in value and quantity. Also we were lucky that property prices were at saner levels years back and we could afford another one for investment.

Someone asked me in this forum if the $3M we accummulated so far was sufficient or would we be striving to make it $10M or more. I am not blindly chasing $$$, but I am also concerned about the rising inflation rate. I thought the $3M would be sufficient to generate a passive income stream to sustain our retirement comfortably, but I was horrified to find that it was not so. Under the current climate, the inflation rate is higher than our ROI from our investment. A back-of-the-envelope calculation based on current scenario showed that the $3M would be dwindled down in 25 years. And if we retire at 55, it means we would be beggers at 80! And this was based on not having any major medical expenses!