Amazing Salary in Singapore

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Although above is obviously a lame sarcasam, it brings to mind a whole group of people in the SAF/SPF who are paid way above 10k very early if you include bonus.

For SAF officers most are already drawing 150k+/- as a Captain including bonus and all sorts of allowance, the amounts get exponentially higher as you go Major, LTC or SLTC etc. Almost every officer is earning >10k before 30 years old if you count by total package.

If u include bonus, must as well u include CPF. The fact remains is that 10k monthly pay is not common.

High pay always come with a price. Dont need to talk about ibanking as you know the hours people burn in the industry.

I am reaching 30 but my salary is 5k, excluding bonuses.

However I have a balanced life, time for myself and also good health.

I think at a certain point money is never going to make you happy. If I have 10K, I will want 15K, so on and so forth..it is an endless pursuit.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

High pay always come with a price. Dont need to talk about ibanking as you know the hours people burn in the industry.

I am reaching 30 but my salary is 5k, excluding bonuses.

However I have a balanced life, time for myself and also good health.

I think at a certain point money is never going to make you happy. If I have 10K, I will want 15K, so on and so forth..it is an endless pursuit.

Agree. I am 34 and my basic salary is 8k, with somewhat a decent work-life balance for myself.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Someone actually bothered to extract the data from Singstat and plot out the income distribution percentile by age group for 2016.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1z...1vWF9COTA/view

I posted this earlier and if you look at the wage band for ages of 35 - 39, almost 16% are drawing 10k and above. It tops up to more than 20% for the 40 - 45 age range for males before steadily declining.

So while the median is 4k, > 10k is not exactly uncommon at certain ages.

Personally, my gross monthly salary was around 5 ~ 6k by mid 30s and rising to >30 by end 30s. I was lucky; a door closed on me which lead to new doors opening and my salary jumped significantly within 3 years.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Someone actually bothered to extract the data from Singstat and plot out the income distribution percentile by age group for 2016.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1z...1vWF9COTA/view

I posted this earlier and if you look at the wage band for ages of 35 - 39, almost 16% are drawing 10k and above. It tops up to more than 20% for the 40 - 45 age range for males before steadily declining.

So while the median is 4k, > 10k is not exactly uncommon at certain ages.

Personally, my gross monthly salary was around 5 ~ 6K by mid 30s and rising to >10K by end 30s. I was lucky; a door closed on me which lead to new doors opening and my salary jumped significantly within 3 years.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If u include bonus, must as well u include CPF. The fact remains is that 10k monthly pay is not common.

Depends on what you mean by common and who you compare with. If you include entire work force which includes all the PSLE/N/O/NITEC and the older people then yes they are quite rare.

If you compare with only degree or at least diploma, then although they are not majority, earning above 10k is a significant minority that most of us will likely know at least a few in our social circle. For e.g. in my co. (uk engineering mnc) ~30% of the staff are ranked in salary ranges > 10k. Previous co. was GLC proportion maybe lower, but I would say at least 15-20% of them are paid >10k. In banking this proportion is even higher as you only need VP or even some AVP can go >10k and there are more AVP/VPs in banks then Managers & Associates.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Depends on what you mean by common and who you compare with. If you include entire work force which includes all the PSLE/N/O/NITEC and the older people then yes they are quite rare.

If you compare with only degree or at least diploma, then although they are not majority, earning above 10k is a significant minority that most of us will likely know at least a few in our social circle. For e.g. in my co. (uk engineering mnc) ~30% of the staff are ranked in salary ranges > 10k. Previous co. was GLC proportion maybe lower, but I would say at least 15-20% of them are paid >10k. In banking this proportion is even higher as you only need VP or even some AVP can go >10k and there are more AVP/VPs in banks then Managers & Associates.

In your company, how long does it take for a staff to reach 10k?

To reach 10k base in my company will take a very long time.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Summary Table: Income

Median gross monthly income in SG is only 4232.

https://www.singstat.gov.sg/statisti...-income-tables

Singstat has a whole other bunch of income statistics. Long story short, 10k per month gross is hardly "everyone"

I just want to breakdown a bit further the statistics.
First of all, the calculations in this summary is based on (12 months basic + all bonus) / 12 which means if consider AWS + 2 months average salary, you should be earning 12.5k/month in this summary table. For easy calculations, we can used above $12k/month

Age 25 to 29 around 3.1k which means 620/45,200 = 1.4% at each age earns above $10k/month
Age 30 to 34 around 16.5k which means 3,300/47,400 = 7.0% at each age earns above $10k/month
Age 35 to 39 around 34.5k which means 6,900/50,060 = 13.8% at each age earns above $10k/month

Age 25 to 29 around 1.6k which means 320/45,200 = 0.7% at each age earns above $12k/month
Age 30 to 34 around 10.0k which means 2,000/47,400 = 4.2% at each age earns above $12k/month
Age 35 to 39 around 21.8k which means 4,360/50,060 = 8.7% at each age earns above $12k/month

How much you earn is only half the story. The other equally important half is how much you can save each month/year from your salary.

While we chase after higher and higher salaries, dont forget to see how much of the income you can retain (save) each month, each year.

If you can save $60K each year out of an annual income of $120K, you are already doing better than someone saving $50k out of $200K annual income.

This was how we did as a couple in our savings history :

Starting off as a married couple (30 yo) to 40 yo : Annual household savings - $50K average (~28% of salary)
40 yo to 45 yo -- $75K ave (~37% of salary)
45 yo to 50 yo -- $130k ave (~43% of salary)
50 to 55 yo -- $330k ave (90% of salary)
55 to now -- $450k ave (98% of salary)

The higher savings came from the following combination of factors:

1. Tapering off of financial commitments (home loan, car loan, children's education...
2. Salary increases (promotion, better bonuses, increased benefits, etc.)
3. Passive income increases from investment


The earlier you are able to save 100% of your earned income, the closer you are to financial independence! We are already too late. Nobody told us about investing for passive income. Then we only know how to save but not invest.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I just want to breakdown a bit further the statistics.
First of all, the calculations in this summary is based on (12 months basic + all bonus) / 12 which means if consider AWS + 2 months average salary, you should be earning 12.5k/month in this summary table. For easy calculations, we can used above $12k/month

Age 25 to 29 around 3.1k which means 620/45,200 = 1.4% at each age earns above $10k/month
Age 30 to 34 around 16.5k which means 3,300/47,400 = 7.0% at each age earns above $10k/month
Age 35 to 39 around 34.5k which means 6,900/50,060 = 13.8% at each age earns above $10k/month

Age 25 to 29 around 1.6k which means 320/45,200 = 0.7% at each age earns above $12k/month
Age 30 to 34 around 10.0k which means 2,000/47,400 = 4.2% at each age earns above $12k/month
Age 35 to 39 around 21.8k which means 4,360/50,060 = 8.7% at each age earns above $12k/month

"MONTHLY" salary is just that - your basic per month, plus maybe any allowances..

No point taking your ANNUAL salary and dividing it by 12.

So just refer to your MONTHLY or ANNUAL salary to avoid confusion.