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.