It is obvious that one cannot attain a net worth of $5.2m just based on savings from salary incomes, even after 30 years of continuous employment. I am referring to ordinary folks without the benefit of an inheritance. As you rightly pointed out, to reach there, one would have had to earn $20k - 25k per month consistently for that many years. That is not possible, as anyone just entering the job market cannot expect to earn that kind of salary.

So how did we do it? Looking back, our net worth of $5.2m came about from the four main sources (in order of contribution)

1. Property. No, no. We were not property investors. Here I am referring to the various homes that we progressively upgraded to. Like most everyone, we began with the HDB, then upgrading to a small private property and now a bigger condo. Each time we locked in considerable gains. For eg. Our current home was bought during the subprime crisis and it has since appreciated by $800k!

2. Savings. Our disciplined saving throughout our working life has laid the foundation for the growth in our net worth. In the initial years of our married life, our annual saving amount was laughable compared to what we are saving today, but saved we did. Then in our mid 30s, as we established our careers and family, the savings grew to a more respectable $50k annually. That was also the time we went into stock investments - we mainly bought blue chips regularly with the annual bonuses and have never sold. Now we are able to save $300k pa with the help of passive incomes.

3. Shares. As mentioned above, our journey into shares started with small but regular buys. We bought blue chips mainly both for their stability and dividends. We never sold. Like many other investors then, we benefitted from the many splits, bonus shares that were issued along the way. SIA, Semb Marine, ComfortDelgro, SPH etc.. all splitted, gave bonus shares and even one off substantial cash payouts! Of course along the way we have seen our share value mirrored the wild swings in economic cycles. The first major one we went through in 1997/8 was frightening, but after that, we are not as bothered. Partly because we believe the cycles are cycles, secondly, we have other sources of savings, our home is fully paid and passive income.

4. Passive income. At our last tally, we have the following passive income streams:
a. Dividends from share - $40k pa
b. interest from CPF - $30k pa
c. Rental income (gross) - $35k pa