Depressed
 

I am 34 female NUS general degree holder. been working since 2003 in fields not related to degree. i am only getting 3600 a month. been applying for jobs but no reply. no skills set at all.

How much is your hubby earning? Any kids?

no husband, no kids, no stable bf. have aging parents

Life still have to go on. By all means continue to strive for the better step by step. I am worse off than you. 42 male NUS general degree earning only 2700 monthly. Got a wife and 1 kid to support. But I manage to get by with careful planning and basic needs met.

fresh grads start with 3.6k now. i started 1.9k in 2003. when you start low, its hard to increase. every year increment is $30 cos i worked in nus, stat boards

Try civil service jobs?

Should explore outside.

tried. been sending every week. only 1 called me. at the interview he told me he can only offer me a temp position at 11 bucks an hour for 6 months to test me. apart from that noone calls me. as i have no skills, i only apply for admin, secretary jobs.

Not true. Salary increment will be based on the value you bring to the organisation. If you have no skills, it will be hard to get an increment. You are getting 3.6k now for "admin, secretary" jobs? That is already very good.

Haven't you heard unemployment is 3 percent, recruiters should be begging for workers.

You need to buy a lee kuan yew video from popular and listen to his humble peaceful speeches before bedtime.

3.6k is not bad. Many in the hawker stalls are earning 1k, taxi drivers 2k. Enough to buy a prada or kate spade bag and walk around and have face. Can also eat char kway teow and drink bubble tea daily. Can apply for a library card to read books and even buy giordano t shirt.

Singapore is the best!!!!! So spacious, people are so smart and interesting and make small talk all the time!

You can find rich man take care of you. Many hawker uncles tell me they earn five figures and taxi drivers earn 5k! Or just hook up with a raffles place man, well dressed, earns 4k each month, and also has a nus degree.

Your job is stable. You can increase your income by doing other things such as tuition.
Do you plan to get married?

Is your wife working as well? How much does she earn?

I'm sorry to hear that. It just goes to show that your first degree regardless local or foreign is only your ticket into your first few of jobs. You have about 3-4 years to settle into a specialty/skill set before it becomes difficult to move around too much.

Another possible way is to take up some general role in an SME and maybe you will be tasked to take on other roles?

All the best...

what is a "general degree"? life must be tough for you....

Be it female or male, being in your 30s-40s and not earning a "high-pay" is definitely scary. Not doubt about that. However, lets try to understand why companies and would not want to hire us, not willing to increase or give us a high pay.

Most importantly, we must understand that the knowledge we have learnt from our degrees are long outdated and not valuable anymore. We can be from the best unis or the private unis but whatever it is, most things we learn from unis are theories from the past or from the present at that time and not about the future trends. This is one of the reasons why companies love to hire younger talent.

Not to worry people. Once you understand this, always remember and it is very important to have this mindset. Let's upgrade. Let's learn new skills. We have experience which is a valuable thing that young talents do not have, all we need to do is start learning again and with effort we will be better than the young talents because we have both experience and the knowledge of the present and future trends.

The most important thing in a workforce is your value to the company. The company or other companies sees your value when they know you are still a relevant asset. How to become constantly relevant, be willing to change. Be willing to learn. To always stay ahead of people with knowledge and understand new trends for the industries you are in.
This is very important.

My advice for people in this age group is go for industry-based professional certificates. 2 reasons, firstly, you learn the latest development and trends in the industry and secondly, you gain more contacts from different companies in the same field. If your company dont see your value, these contacts may see your value in their company.

The worst thing is to feel that I'm not young anymore, I cannot learn, I cannot be as good as the new young talents. This is the worst thinking. Get rid of that mentality if you have. Lets stay ahead of the in terms in of the industry. Make some sacrifices, spend them upgrading yourself so that no one can overtake you and at the same time be able to relate with the young talents. It doesnt matter how much you earn now, dont let it demoralise you. Its never too late to pick yourself and to show how worth you are worth to a company. When you can show your company your worth, this is when they will increase your pay or companies start poaching you.

Sorry about the long text but I hope it helps.

It is a science degree. used to earn higher in civil service but backside itchy went to do sales job in private sector. On hindsight it was a bad bad mistake. But no point crying over spilled milk. Yes life is tought esp with the increasing costs but got a roof over my head and 3 meals daily....

Yes she is working in entry level civil service but call me conservative or chauvinistic if you want.I feel the husband shld be the only one to shoulder the financial burden of the household not the wife. Whatever wife earns is only a added bonus. To me household income is salary of husband...that's all,period...

Nowadays both husband and wife earn. Nothing wrong with the wife earning and helping out. After all, this is better than she splurging her income on expensive branded bags, expensive shoes and dining at high class restaurants. May I know how much is your household expenses per month?

Household expenses approx $2000.

Impressive. Assuming your wife earns $3000 pm, your HH income is $5700 pm. Your savings is $3700 pm or $44.4k pa. This is a lot. Over 20 years, your savings will be $888k in total. You will be a millionaire retiree couple in 20 years time.

Yes we r on track but $888k in 20 years time is nothing to shout about. Many of my sec school classmates in legal and medical fields are earning this amount on an annual basis. Though I tell myself to be contented but cannot help but look over my shoulder occasionally especially during annual class gatherings where people will size my up and ask how I am doing. I get dejected always after such functions but recover quickly enough for the rest of the year. In fact I deliberately missed this year gathering so that I dun have to sink into the occasional depressive state. I am much happier now.

TO, u guys are like that coz you never invested hard in your career and planned ahead. You might have started low but with adequate planning, you had chances to make those changes to better industries.

Don't compare with others who are more successful than you. Look at those with less. Count your blessings. Be happy that you have a home, a wife and a child. Don't take these for granted. Stop going to all these reunions, they are just events for egoistic people to boast.

Happiness is not about how much you have. Those with fortune may not be happy as they always worry about losing their wealth, they may have rocky marriages and their children have strained relationship with them due to years of parental neglect.

Invest your time in nurturing loving relationship with your family. This is more meaningful and lasting.

I agree with you. As to people worse off than me, honestly I have yet to meet one. Everyone i meet be it colleagues,friends or people on the street seem to be doing very well financially. Just have to look at the number of top notch brand new cars on the road of which some costs easily more than $200-300k each. Under new ruling,they would have to fork out at least $100k to 150k cash without making a dent in their pockets.This is something personally I will struggle to do..perhaps if you have stories of worse off people than me you can share so that I may feel a bit better and learn to be contented and not compare anymore.

When I said that you should look at people with less, you have to look beyond your social circles and to look beyond our shores. We are fortunate to be here. If you look around the world, we are very, very lucky in comparison. Count your many blessings and you will find contentment.

Since you save $44k pa, and since you want to own a car, why not just wait for 3 years and then buy your new car with your savings, paid in full cash. You don't have to buy those $200-300k cars. Just buy a new car which is less than $100k. There are many good new cars in the market selling at less than $100k.

No disrespect to you but it is easy to say look beyond our shores. I guess u r doing very well financially and you may not understand what it means to live in relative poverty. But I will heed your advice to be thankful and content. Not to compare with others and continue to live simply in this island state of prosperity and abundance.

Cheers.

No lah.i am not looking for car. I certainly not at level where I can own car. Heard from many forums that minimum income must be $10k take home in order to own a 5 yr old jap car. so in meantime I am not even dreaming....

I am 35 yr old
to the original poster - shall we meet?

Singapore is a depressing place to live in. I have lived in the east and west, never seen a worse place spiritually to live in than singapore.

Just went to sg recently and it was so crowded, you have to contort and twist your body just to walk around. Tiring to even walk around. Also,there are so many psycho crazy people around. There are so many people yet no one seems to acknowledge each other or make small talk. Some folks are incredibly rude. People don'tstrike me as competent. Can't stand listening to the people speak,be it english or chinese, people sound dreary and aggressive. I see errors everywhere. I think i pass by at least tens of thousands of people daily and just 4 days in sg i got death stares from psychos on train, had to walk past some guys who suddenly started talking to themselves, etc. The place has a bad unfriendly vibe.

I was born in the 80s and i could have a walk leisurely then, people though less advanced stillmadesmall talk andsmiled. There were only 2.5 million people. Now, 3 decades later, there are 5.5 million approaching 7 million.

After three days of doing nothing, just walking around in cramped crowded small spaces everywhere and talking to robots with blank dreary stares, i felt more tired than three years of work here. The spaces are so small and you never know whuch crazy person will suddenly attack you. The english spoken is horrible, the chinese spoken is horrible and people are just so curt and dreary with no persobalities.

I am sitting in a cafe now, i can make small talk and smile at anyone. We can say hi and exchange a few words. In sg, all i got was passive aggressiveness or the polite people will deliver standard lines like robots 'yes sir' 'thank you'...i know they don't even mean it.man it is such a crowded (no 1 in the world) horrible cold place to live in spiritually. Even hk is much better.

I can sit in a cafe in london,sydney, auckland, ny,kl, shenzhen,tokyo and say hi and smile to the personnext to me and exchange a few words. Sometimes it leads to friendships.

I tried doing that in sg and people either look at me like i am a rapist or i got passive aggressive curt replies like yes thanks with empty stares and then they looked down and avoided me.

Lol.

You are absolutely right!!Nowadays I no longer even ask strangers even if I am lost occasionally on the streets. For sure I would dare not approach a female cos most of the time I am given that kind of look if u know what i mean. I mean no harm but local females tend to be like that. There are friendly ones of course...I was just asking myself if I look like Korean hunk then maybe they are be much friendlier lah. Lol...

You wanna give me some tips on how to increase my income or something like that??

I am 27 this year and got 2.3 after working 5 years plus..have been applying to gov jobs but to no avail..till date sent 150 applications which only 1 replied. My gf is earning 1k+ more than me now..isnt it more depressing?

Why not you work harder? Do a part time job? Many part time jobs available such as tuition, sales, etc.

Yup, true..was also looking at part time jobs. I am just wondering why there isn't any reply to my applications despite having the requirements met and my gf has not received her cert yet and she has got into government sector..perhaps luck counts too

NUS General degree = no skill?. Come on.. Fresh grads in my firm can get more than 3.6k. We pay 4k SGD per month to our fresh grads. They are all "skilless". 99% of them can get a higher paying job in 2 years or convert to perm staff. It all boils down to likability. If you are good looking, you have a good choice of getting a pay raise for doing the same thing. A female senior hired a mr singapore, handsome muscular and young, joined some man hunt 2 years ago. But he was the unlucky guy who got fired. He was being very negative and never talk to people and especially his lady boss. If only he built a good relationship that time, he don't have to be a sale guy now. Moral of the story, get along well with your customers, colleagues, bosses... They will teach you skills or give you business.

Serious what were you doing for the past 12 years? You work in NUS or you got a NUS degree?
CEO's secretary can easily earn above 10,000.

The best advice to you is doll up yourself, be nice and get a hubby before 39. Now that election is over, at least 200,000 China people are imigrating this year. Just imagine many 18,young, skinny and open minded cmm attracting our best men?

This is a social crisis. Now many middle aged Sg woman got a degree and can earn bit of money, then yaya papaya. They get really picky on local guys. Note: local guys only. Local guys now have the option of young and cheerful cmm. Would local guys even give you at 2nd look when you are 40? You failed as a human being. The basic purpose of human is to have social interaction and procreate.

That's why I never hire single woman above 35, except one. she was really ugly. Like ru Hua. If I look at her face for more than 15 secs, I would laugh. And I could understand she's probably single due to looks than character. Now you got a senior manager's advice, you should understand your plight better.

Dun be too smug and arrogant asshole.

Your downfall may come sooner than you expect.

what's a "senior manager" doing here posting smug crap like that. don't be an ass.