How much are you earning per annum?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Fine tuned it;

25yrs old , 23yrs old (spouse)

Combined income (spouse and I) for FY2013 (as per IRAS), S$188K (with bonus, commission) plus S$24K (allowance of approx S$2K/mth to cover entertainment, petrol, cashcard etc)


can anyone advise if this is a good start ?

There are people of your age group who are already millionaires. You should save as much as possible for your retirement. Don't waste money on condos or cars. If you can save $100k pa over 40 years, then you will have $4m to retire on.

Husband and wife, 45 & 43, combined income $180k pa. Lives in a condo, paid up. Owns a car, paid up. Annual spendings $130k pa. Annual savings $50k pa. We are your typical average middle income family.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

42, $5k pm. Wife, 45, $6k pm. Currently living in a HDB exec unit, paid up. Looking to upgrade to a condo as prices have gone down. Aiming to sell our flat at $900k and buying the condo at $1.1m. We should have no problem servicing a $200k mortgage over 10 years. We take public transport so we save at least $2k pm from not owning a car.

Sounds like a good plan. Just curious, 1.1m condo means you plan to downsize? I don't think 1.1m can get a condo that is similar size to hdb exec flat.

Singaporean couple in late 30s, 2 young kids, live in 5rm hdb, driving a 5yr-old 1.6L car. Both hdb and car paid up.
Combined annual income around 250k
Can save 50% as we don't spend on branded goods often once we had kids.
Generally, we are ok, though there is always worry about future retirement as well as medical costs and our children's education costs. That's the stress we face mostly. But life is good regardless if we put things in perspective; we have 2 wonderful kids, we are still healthy, we have good friends and family relationships. Nothing to complain about. Just have to be financially prudent and plan ahead, and don't depend on others.
As we approach our 40s, the prospects of retrenchment gets more real. So we try to minimize luxury expenses to save up while we are young and earning good income. We work our a$$ off too, but always eat healthy and exercise.
Our goal is to ensure we don't become financial burden to our kids when we grow old
Upgrading to a condo is in the plan, not for luxury living, but more of a way to have a property to earn rental when we grow old. Will want to keep the hdb as long as we can as it was bought at very low price, so rental returns are good.

Many of the posts here look very exaggerated, but I do believe there are many high earners in SG. I have neighbors driving Porsches, Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguars, all parked in our hdb MCP. So cannot imagine those who live in condo, even richer.
I don't envy or have sour grapes, but I do like to hear how they made it if they are willing to share, so we can all prosper!

24 yrs old.

Not a fresh grad. Just been offered a job S$63Kp.a + variable bonus (not too sure how much)

We have worked for 30 years and hence decided to retire last year. So we sold our landed property and downgraded to a smaller 3 bedroom condo. We use the sales proceeds of the landed to pay off the outstanding mortgage and to buy the condo paid in full. After these transactions we have $1m in cash. Together with our cash savings we invested $1.5m and get $75k pa in investment dividends. Since we are debt free, our spendings is $60k pa. We love our life now as we have time to exercise in the condo gym and swimming pool.

The many posts I read here remind me of my own "wealth journey", except that now people are attaining millionaire net worth at younger ages.

This attests that our country and economy are progressing over the years.

Ford example, our net worth (incl. our property (HDB)) only hit $1m when we were in our mid to late 30s. Now people are this figure in their late 20s to early 30s.

So although I think we did relatively well to grow our net worth to what it is today ($5m+ in our mid 50s), I know this will be surpassed easily by the newer generation.

It is for this reason, I felt prices of things (inflation) can only go up. We aim to continue working for as long as we can before we start to draw down on our savings. In the meantime we have been building up investments that will provide us some passive income to supplement our savings. We expect our expenses to be reduced in our retirement years, but we would like to continue to live our current lifestyle - live in our current condo, have a car, maid, annual holidays overseas, and dining in restaurants once a week.

We estimated that we would need $100k pa to sustain that lifestyle. Our passive income income currently is $80k pa. We give ourselves another 3 - 5 years to achieve $100k pa in passive income.

You have achieved financial independence. This is a big achievement.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

We have worked for 30 years and hence decided to retire last year. So we sold our landed property and downgraded to a smaller 3 bedroom condo. We use the sales proceeds of the landed to pay off the outstanding mortgage and to buy the condo paid in full. After these transactions we have $1m in cash. Together with our cash savings we invested $1.5m and get $75k pa in investment dividends. Since we are debt free, our spendings is $60k pa. We love our life now as we have time to exercise in the condo gym and swimming pool.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Singaporean couple in late 30s, 2 young kids, live in 5rm hdb, driving a 5yr-old 1.6L car. Both hdb and car paid up.
Combined annual income around 250k
Can save 50% as we don't spend on branded goods often once we had kids.
Generally, we are ok, though there is always worry about future retirement as well as medical costs and our children's education costs. That's the stress we face mostly. But life is good regardless if we put things in perspective; we have 2 wonderful kids, we are still healthy, we have good friends and family relationships. Nothing to complain about. Just have to be financially prudent and plan ahead, and don't depend on others.
As we approach our 40s, the prospects of retrenchment gets more real. So we try to minimize luxury expenses to save up while we are young and earning good income. We work our a$$ off too, but always eat healthy and exercise.
Our goal is to ensure we don't become financial burden to our kids when we grow old
Upgrading to a condo is in the plan, not for luxury living, but more of a way to have a property to earn rental when we grow old. Will want to keep the hdb as long as we can as it was bought at very low price, so rental returns are good.

Many of the posts here look very exaggerated, but I do believe there are many high earners in SG. I have neighbors driving Porsches, Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguars, all parked in our hdb MCP. So cannot imagine those who live in condo, even richer.
I don't envy or have sour grapes, but I do like to hear how they made it if they are willing to share, so we can all prosper!

Your combined pay is quite decent. Buying a condo for rental is not a good idea as there is oversupply and prices are falling. Your condo may not be able to be rented out due to the oversupply. HDB prices are also falling. So it is best you sell your HDB flat now at its peak price and buy the condo which has gone down. You can sell your flat at $800k and buy a condo at $900k. And pay off the $100k in cash or CPF.

How much is your savings now? What's your combined net worth?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Singaporean couple in late 30s, 2 young kids, live in 5rm hdb, driving a 5yr-old 1.6L car. Both hdb and car paid up.
Combined annual income around 250k
Can save 50% as we don't spend on branded goods often once we had kids.
Generally, we are ok, though there is always worry about future retirement as well as medical costs and our children's education costs. That's the stress we face mostly. But life is good regardless if we put things in perspective; we have 2 wonderful kids, we are still healthy, we have good friends and family relationships. Nothing to complain about. Just have to be financially prudent and plan ahead, and don't depend on others.
As we approach our 40s, the prospects of retrenchment gets more real. So we try to minimize luxury expenses to save up while we are young and earning good income. We work our a$$ off too, but always eat healthy and exercise.
Our goal is to ensure we don't become financial burden to our kids when we grow old
Upgrading to a condo is in the plan, not for luxury living, but more of a way to have a property to earn rental when we grow old. Will want to keep the hdb as long as we can as it was bought at very low price, so rental returns are good.

Many of the posts here look very exaggerated, but I do believe there are many high earners in SG. I have neighbors driving Porsches, Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguars, all parked in our hdb MCP. So cannot imagine those who live in condo, even richer.
I don't envy or have sour grapes, but I do like to hear how they made it if they are willing to share, so we can all prosper!

My situation is v similar to yours. Late 30s as well, 2 youg kids as well, live in 5-rm hdb flat as well, driving a 6-yr 2.4L MPV. Both HDB and car paid up too.

Combined annual income around 750k and networth 4.3m.
Can save around 65% as we keep a frugal lifestyle.
Our goal is to achieve financial freedom asap and ensure we don't become financial burden to our kids when we grow old.
Welcome any comments to how to grow our wealth even faster..