How much are you earning per annum?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I guess I am alot luckier. Currently 38 yrs old I earn about $200K pa. My wife who is 2 years younger earns about $150K. We bought a freehold landed property for $2.5M last year. We hope that we can sell it next time and retire with the money from it.

don't be too happy. i was earning more than you at your age but was retrenched at 42. since then couldnt get a full time job, now doing free lance work. wife also had to work. we bring in a total of $6k per month now, barely covers our expenses. we had to sell our landed and now live in a 3 room hdb flat. you and your wife can also be retrenched after 40. make sure you do not have a lot of debt. best is to have no debt.

I am 48 years old, annual salary $40k. My wife is 38 years old, annual salary $30k. We bought our HDB flat direct from HDB at a very cheap price, still paying mortgage. Now it is worth $600k. We plan to retire in Malacca when I reach 65. By then the flat is paid up and we will rent it out for $3.5k per month, so we will get about RM9k per month.

On the contrary, we should be happy for the moment. If there is any lesson to be learnt from your case, are these:

1. Circumstance always changes. So when things are going well, celebrate the moment, be happy, be very happy. Happiness is fleeting and thus priceless. When circumstance presents itself for you to be happy, relish the moment.

2. Retrenched and cannot find full time job. Lesson learnt - ensure you are equipped with marketable skills or are invaluable to your company. Networked!

3. When earning big bucks - live prudently, invest excess money. Then when good times end, no need to take drastic steps like downgrading to 3rm HDB, but still can live in condo and enjoy passive income from investment. Many people are reaping benefits of this kind of prudence and investment.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

don't be too happy. i was earning more than you at your age but Rwas retrenched at 42. since then couldnt get a full time job, now doing free lance work. wife also had to work. we bring in a total of $6k per month now, barely covers our expenses. we had to sell our landed and now live in a 3 room hdb flat. you and your wife can also be retrenched after 40. make sure you do not have a lot of debt. best is to have no debt.

This is very true. Good advice. There are many engineers, IT professionals, property agents, bankers, etc who end up being retrenched and they become taxi drivers and security guards. If you take taxis, just talk to the uncles, and ask their life story. You will be surprised, many of them speaks very well and they were ex company executives, some were CEOs of SMEs.

Do not assume your pay will continue to rise. In fact, always be prepared for retrenchment. Networking, skills upgrading are all BS. Clear your HDB mortgage as fast as possible. If you get retrenched, at least you still have a roof over your head. Then you can drive a taxi and earn $2k a month to survive.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

don't be too happy. i was earning more than you at your age but was retrenched at 42. since then couldnt get a full time job, now doing free lance work. wife also had to work. we bring in a total of $6k per month now, barely covers our expenses. we had to sell our landed and now live in a 3 room hdb flat. you and your wife can also be retrenched after 40. make sure you do not have a lot of debt. best is to have no debt.

Tell the world about your plan, but first show it.

My wife and I are in our 50s and we are retired in KL. We sold our HDB flat for $800k and invested in a stocks portfolio which generates dividends of $50k pa. So our passive income is about RM120k pa. We now live in a nice condo in an upscale area of KL and our spendings is about RM80k pa. We retire in style, thanks to our wonderful HDB flat. We are happy in KL as we have many friends and relatives there. My children in Singapore will visit us once a while when they go holiday in KL. We go for holidays twice a year to Australia and Asian countries. Life is good. Thank you Singapore for the good system and governance. Our faith in investing in our HDB flat has turned out well. Imagine, I was just a blue collared factory worker while my wife was just an office staff. LOL.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My wife and I are in our 50s and we are retired in KL. We sold our HDB flat for $800k and invested in a stocks portfolio which generates dividends of $50k pa. So our passive income is about RM120k pa. We now live in a nice condo in an upscale area of KL and our spendings is about RM80k pa. We retire in style, thanks to our wonderful HDB flat. We are happy in KL as we have many friends and relatives there. My children in Singapore will visit us once a while when they go holiday in KL. We go for holidays twice a year to Australia and Asian countries. Life is good. Thank you Singapore for the good system and governance. Our faith in investing in our HDB flat has turned out well. Imagine, I was just a blue collared factory worker while my wife was just an office staff. LOL.

Just curious. Were you a Malaysian working in Singapore or Singaporean all along?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My wife and I are in our 50s and we are retired in KL. We sold our HDB flat for $800k and invested in a stocks portfolio which generates dividends of $50k pa. So our passive income is about RM120k pa. We now live in a nice condo in an upscale area of KL and our spendings is about RM80k pa. We retire in style, thanks to our wonderful HDB flat. We are happy in KL as we have many friends and relatives there. My children in Singapore will visit us once a while when they go holiday in KL. We go for holidays twice a year to Australia and Asian countries. Life is good. Thank you Singapore for the good system and governance. Our faith in investing in our HDB flat has turned out well. Imagine, I was just a blue collared factory worker while my wife was just an office staff. LOL.

I find the sentence "our faith in investing in our HDB flat has turned out well" funny. Firstly, you do not invest in your HDB as you're staying in them then (unless you rented out your rooms); so that's not called investing. Secondly, you could not afford any other types of housing so you're pretty much stuck with only choosing HDB as your house.

You only care about yourselves and not about other Singaporeans. Have you ever wonder how will the next generation of Singaporeans survive with rising housing cost? In what way is that good for Singapore as a whole? In essence, our government only engineered a system that allows the current (post 1965) generation of Singaporeans to benefit. Only the fittest (aka richest) will survive and still reap the benefits for few more generations to come. Young generations (post 1980) are now finding it hard to survive in the context.

It's just so typical of Singaporeans - selfish. Your "success" story can take place only because you chose to relocate into a city with lower cost of living.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Just curious. Were you a Malaysian working in Singapore or Singaporean all along?

Was a Malaysian, met my Singaporean wife and got married. Later became Singapore citizen. Our kids are all Singaporean.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My wife and I are in our 50s and we are retired in KL. We sold our HDB flat for $800k and invested in a stocks portfolio which generates dividends of $50k pa. So our passive income is about RM120k pa. We now live in a nice condo in an upscale area of KL and our spendings is about RM80k pa. We retire in style, thanks to our wonderful HDB flat. We are happy in KL as we have many friends and relatives there. My children in Singapore will visit us once a while when they go holiday in KL. We go for holidays twice a year to Australia and Asian countries. Life is good. Thank you Singapore for the good system and governance. Our faith in investing in our HDB flat has turned out well. Imagine, I was just a blue collared factory worker while my wife was just an office staff. LOL.

Bravo! You are no ordinary blue collared factory worker, you must be a stock guru. After buying a nice condo in upscale KL, you could still generate $50K dividends pa. with whatever that was left to invest in stock portfolio. And you write a lot better than many white collared worker too. Nice Try!