As a 49 yo grad couple, you're are underpaid. However, your income is considered higher than national average. In terms of assets, you're in the top 20% nationally since 80% of Singaporeans live in public housing flats.
You can retire by 60 if you don't mind retiring in places like KL, JB, Penang.
You have two big Cs for retirement. Condo and
CPF Life.
When you are 60 and your kids are married, you can rent out your whole condo unit. You will get $3000 pm. Convert to RM, you will get RM9000 pm. Definitely more than enough for a retired couple.
Here's your expenses in KL
3 bedroom condo rental RM1500 pm
Food, dining out and utilities RM1500 pm
Car expenses RM500 pm
Entertainment and holidays RM1000 pm
Medical and misc RM500 pm
Total RM5000 pm
Savings RM4000 pm
When you reach 65, your
CPF Life will give you $3600 pm for a retired couple who choose the Enhanced scheme. This gives you an extra RM10,800 pm of income. You can then opt to upgrade to a better home by renting a bungalow with swimming pool at a rent of RM6000 pm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
My wife and I are a low income grad couple. We have two children in secondary schools. We are both 49 years old and only earning $160k pa in total. Our paid up condo is in the OCR and is valued at only $900k. We drive a small non continental car. Life is not so easy. We worry about our finances. We need to think which place to eat out or where to buy food from as we are very cost conscious. We cannot afford to employ a maid. We can only afford holidays in the Asian region such as HK, Korea, China, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia. Only once a year. We can't afford holidays to Europe or America.
Our net worth (including our condo and car) is only $1.5m in total. This is very low when we compare with our friends and relatives.
Are there any grad couples here earning as low as us? How do you survive with the demands and expectations from family and society? How are you preparing for your retirement?
Do we have to work till we are in our 70s? What can we do to prepare for retirement? Please help advise. Thanks.
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