Most of us dream of retiring at some point in our working life to do the things we want. Some want to retire before they reach 50 while others even earlier.

In reality, most of us would have to slog till the official retirement age of 62 or later. Simply because of "money no enough" - to borrow the phrase from Jack Neo's movie title. Survey after survey have revealed that many Singaporeans either do not plan for retirement (financially or otherwise) or do not have enough savings to sustain their retired life.

Though they may not have planned for their retirement, many are fully aware that they will be in big trouble if their savings run out prematurely. Getting back into workforce at an advanced age is near impossible.

However for the better off and highly paid executives, I suspect there could be another reason why it can be difficult for them to retire. Giving up a fat salary is difficult. This is despite the fact that they can well survive on their passive income.

Let's take a hypothetical power couple:

Husband : $300k pa
Wife: $150k pa
Passive income : $150k pa

Yearly expense : $130k pa

Yes, they can survive on their passive income, but by retiring, they are in fact forgoing $450k pa. A very painful decision to make.

I believe many couples in their 50s are in this situation.