Quote:
Originally Posted by icy water
just curious, are civil servants (farmers on the peasant MX scheme, not AO) able to lead a decent quality of life with the salary they are getting? decent meaning able to afford hdb, kids, overseas holidays and spare some cash for savings/investment?
and do you think you could be earning more if you took a different path i.e private instead of civil service? possibly happier too? i know it could be hard to imagine or predict but really curious to know how you all think.  |
It depends on what your decent quality of life means:
HDB - definitely can. Just a matter of whether you ballot or resale, 3 room or EC, prime central location, or outlying ulu area. The range can run from $200,000 to $1,000,000.
Kids -
PAP kindergarten or atas montessori, tuition or not....... homebrand diapers or branded diapers?
Holidays - An annual holiday for a family of four is easily more than 10k a pop...... on a civil servant's salary, probably only if you were childless. If you had 2 kids...... maybe you can only do it once every three or four years?
Spare cash - Should probably rank this above holiday, car, and other luxury items.
For young people, civil service is probably unfulfilling to some. Not rewarding enough for ambitious young minds, wanting to "make it big", and "earn big bucks", so they feel they aren't "moving up the ladder" quickly enough. For driven young people like those, probably taking a punt in the private sector is a good thing. Of course, not all will do well, and some will probably be worse off than if they were in govt. service.
At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself what your character, your needs and wants, etc, are more suited for civil service or private sector.