How much are you earning per annum?

Total couple income, $180k pa.
Condo bought in 2006 for $500k, fully paid up. Now worth $800k.
Car, 5 years old, fully paid up.
Debt free.

Lives a simple life, we don't smoke, don't drink, don't gamble, don't waste money.
We eat simple food and only go to restaurants once a week.
We save $100k pa. Now our cash savings is $1m. We don't believe in investing as money can easily be lost. Stocks and properties can crash any time.

We estimate that we can save $3m by the time we hit 60.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Total couple income, $180k pa.
Condo bought in 2006 for $500k, fully paid up. Now worth $800k.
Car, 5 years old, fully paid up.
Debt free.

Lives a simple life, we don't smoke, don't drink, don't gamble, don't waste money.
We eat simple food and only go to restaurants once a week.
We save $100k pa. Now our cash savings is $1m. We don't believe in investing as money can easily be lost. Stocks and properties can crash any time.

We estimate that we can save $3m by the time we hit 60.

Then will you buy when the prices crash?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Then will you buy when the prices crash?

When stocks and properties crash, COE will also crash.

I will buy a second Jap car, brand new. If COE drop to $5k, I may only need to pay $50k in cash for a brand new Jap car, which my family can use for the next 10 years.

Your mental model of not investing your savings is outmoded but at the time refreshing. Let me elaborate.

In generations past, people do not quite understand, and thus do not fully trust banks. So what most did with their money was to keep them at home. You must have heard of jokes about keeping money under pillows and beds. There may be some truths in it, but the point is they don't trust other people with their money, never mind that their savings were losing value by the day. Nowadays, because of the very meager interest rates, keeping money in the banks is akin to hiding the money under pillows/beds. The end effect is the same. Your money is losing value by the day. Your mental mode of not investing your money is thus outmoded, because that's what our elders did generations ago.

So what is refreshing about not investing your money? In this day and age, everyone who has some amount of money would have had a hand in some investments be they shares, properties, unit trusts or structured deposits. The main objective of the investment is to grow their savings, albeit through undertaking a higher level of risk than keeping the money in the bank. The refreshing part about your thinking is this - if through your disciplined saving, you could accumulate an adequate amount of money (you stated $3m) to fund your retirement, then you are indeed right that you don't in fact need to take that extra risk to grow your savings.

An analogy I can think of is this. A very rich man was once reported to have said he does not need to buy insurance because his wealth is sufficient to handle any eventuality. You can see that the statement was both logical and illogical at the same time. You would have expected that a rich person would want to insure his wealth, but he was in a way also correct to say he does need the insurance.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Total couple income, $180k pa.
Condo bought in 2006 for $500k, fully paid up. Now worth $800k.
Car, 5 years old, fully paid up.
Debt free.

Lives a simple life, we don't smoke, don't drink, don't gamble, don't waste money.
We eat simple food and only go to restaurants once a week.
We save $100k pa. Now our cash savings is $1m. We don't believe in investing as money can easily be lost. Stocks and properties can crash any time.

We estimate that we can save $3m by the time we hit 60.

We are both in our late 40s, used to be high flying corporate executives (i.e. corporate slaves). We got fed up with the long hours, travel and the neglect of our dear daughters. Hence after ammasing sufficient wealth, we decided to semi retire. Our D10 condo and car are paid up. I am now working part time, managing our wealth and able to generate $120k of dividend and trading income from stocks. My wife work part time as a free lance consultant, working from home, earning $80k pa. Since we are debt free, our expenses are not that high, only $70k pa. We have also set aside $1m of education fund for our daughters, if they need to study overseas.

We now have much more time to nurture our daughters into beautiful angels, not only in their intelligence but also in character. They are now not only in top schools but topping their class in the best class. They are also humble and kind. They thank us for the sacrifice we have made and even told us that they enjoy every moment they are with us.

Money is not everything, we could actually earn millions more if we continued at our previous jobs but it will be at the expense of our family. We are already millionaires by the way, so it does not really matter if we don't make the additional millions. We are very happy today.

You both did the right thing. Money we can always find but once a moment passes is gone. You will not regret it. I believe your daughters will grow up to become truly beautiful ladies who will appreciate both your sacrifices and I am sure they will love you both dearly forever. Congratulations for making the right decision. You both are a one in a million kind of parents.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

We are both in our late 40s, used to be high flying corporate executives (i.e. corporate slaves). We got fed up with the long hours, travel and the neglect of our dear daughters. Hence after ammasing sufficient wealth, we decided to semi retire. Our D10 condo and car are paid up. I am now working part time, managing our wealth and able to generate $120k of dividend and trading income from stocks. My wife work part time as a free lance consultant, working from home, earning $80k pa. Since we are debt free, our expenses are not that high, only $70k pa. We have also set aside $1m of education fund for our daughters, if they need to study overseas.

We now have much more time to nurture our daughters into beautiful angels, not only in their intelligence but also in character. They are now not only in top schools but topping their class in the best class. They are also humble and kind. They thank us for the sacrifice we have made and even told us that they enjoy every moment they are with us.

Money is not everything, we could actually earn millions more if we continued at our previous jobs but it will be at the expense of our family. We are already millionaires by the way, so it does not really matter if we don't make the additional millions. We are very happy today.

My wife, 42, earns $108k. I, 44, earns $100k. We both work hard and saved a lot. We started with a 5 room HDB flat but eventually upgraded to a condo, which we have not much loan left. We are debt free and each of us has a net worth of more than US$1m. We will continue to save and perhaps invest in blue chips stocks and grow our money. We will retire at 75 or when our net worth reaches $10m, whichever is earlier. When we die, we hope to leave 50% of our wealth to our only son and 50% to charity.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

We are both in our late 40s, used to be high flying corporate executives (i.e. corporate slaves). We got fed up with the long hours, travel and the neglect of our dear daughters. Hence after ammasing sufficient wealth, we decided to semi retire. Our D10 condo and car are paid up. I am now working part time, managing our wealth and able to generate $120k of dividend and trading income from stocks. My wife work part time as a free lance consultant, working from home, earning $80k pa. Since we are debt free, our expenses are not that high, only $70k pa. We have also set aside $1m of education fund for our daughters, if they need to study overseas.

We now have much more time to nurture our daughters into beautiful angels, not only in their intelligence but also in character. They are now not only in top schools but topping their class in the best class. They are also humble and kind. They thank us for the sacrifice we have made and even told us that they enjoy every moment they are with us.

Money is not everything, we could actually earn millions more if we continued at our previous jobs but it will be at the expense of our family. We are already millionaires by the way, so it does not really matter if we don't make the additional millions. We are very happy today.

I'm a bit older than you and my kids are just out of University. When I had sufficient income, my wife (who also had a high paying job) was happy to stay home with the kids. The problem with giving up in your 40s is that it is where you peak in earnings capability. Having my wife at home was sufficient to give the kids a good home environment and they eventually went to top overseas universities. By me continuing in my job, we were able to afford their $180K per year school fees from my income alone and didn't even have to dip into our savings. Also as I moved into senior management, I traveled less and spend most of my time in board and committee meetings in Singapore. If I gave up like you, we would have half of our wealth as most of our current wealth was saved in the last 5-10 years despite my wife not working.

So I think it is a BAD idea to give up in your 40s, where those are the best years of your career. It's not difficult to raise children properly, while having a job. You also have to give them some independence otherwise they will rebel against you when they are in their late teens. It's also good to give them a model of parents who (at least one) is working hard. Over-pampering them will lead to needy kids who are not very independent and this will cause them to suffer over their lifetimes.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you are living a simple life now it will be easier to downgrade to HDB, when the time comes.

My wife and I have our own cars. Once we tried living with one car, we simply could not adjust. With only one car, I have to fetch her to her workplace and then send our children to school. It was very taxing on me as my work schedule not very flexible and also at times I had to be in office very early. So they had to wake up very early to take public transport or taxi. We were all tired and stressed each day. So after 2 months, we went back to having 2 cars.

Likewise for the maid, we tried not having a maid after our children reached secondary school level. We had food delivery for dinners, and we took turns to clean the house every evening. Again it was terrible as we were always tired out when we reached home at night from work! Our clothes were not ironed for that period without a maid, and most weekends were spent cleaning up the house. We promptly got ourselves a maid.

Living in a condo has uplifted our quality of life - privacy, facilities and exclusiveness. We upgraded from HDB, so we know what life would be like if we downgrade back to HDB. Adjusting from HDB to condo living was the easy part. Going the other way around would be a pain, I am sure.

Hey, I can relate totally with you about the 2 cars and maid. Life was a real pain with 1 car. However, we will only have one car when we retire. As for maids, I ended up with 2 maids, after my aged grandma moved in with us as she is in a wheelchair and 1 maid couldn't cope.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I enjoy reading this forum and thanks to all who share your personal finances.

I have a question which I hope you can share.

My wife and I are both career people and we both earn our salary and bonuses. My annual income is slightly more than my wife's. However, I bear 70% of the household expenses and commitments. As such, my savings are lesser than my wife. Am I doing the right thing? Should I share the household expenses equally? 50:50 ? What is you practice in your household?

Please share. Thanks.

From the time we married, we have a joint account and I had insisted that both of us just share one account. Now almost 20 years later, our wealth is indistinguishable between hers and mine and the expenses are just from our joint account. Sometimes if I buy some gadget, I notice that she will go and buy a handbag, but that's fine. We are generally both thrifty and I think this way, the couple is closer. You need to have a certain amount of trust to do it this way, but isn't that what marriage is about? When we were younger, my wife had a secret account that she put some money into so she could spend without me knowing, but the spouse will always find out eventually and I did even though I never discussed it with her. She had some income from royalties that she put into there. Eventually though, she closed it on her own.

If one spouse is a spendthrift and the other is thrifty, then it's best to keep the accounts separate.