Can you tell us more about your situation like is yours a young family? How many people in your household, your income versus your expenses? Are you the sole bread winner?

$10k pa savings is quite commendable if your income is low and you have a big family. And it is also quite typical for young family just starting out to either not save anything or just a small amount each year.

I recalled the first few years after we were married, we couldn't save much because our salaries were low and we had housing loan to pay. It was like that for nearly 10 years of our married life because although our salaries went up, we had car loans and then the babies came along.

As our family matured, our savings then grew - from $0 pa to $10k pa, to $50k pa etc...

So if yours is a young family, be patient, the situation will get better. It also helps (a lot) if both husband and wife work. For many years we were able to depend on just one salary, that means that we were saving the salary of the other person yearly. Now we can save much more as the loans got paid off.

With higher savings we also dared invest in shares which gave us additional income through dividends