How much are you earning per annum?

Hi all,

Are there any Malaysians in this forum? Need your advice. We are a couple in our mid 50s and we are planning to retire next year. We have decided to retire in a Malaysian city or town. Our children are grown ups and independent. When we retire, we will rent out our HDB flat (cleared the mortgage) for about S$2,500 per month and we currently get S$1,500 per month from dividends. So, our passive income will be S$4,000 per month or RM10,000 per month (RM120,000 per year).

Can you please advise which city or town in Malaysia can we retire comfortably? We budget RM2,000 per month for rent (can be a studio condo unit) and the rest will be for food, utilities, transport, entertainment and some savings. Please don't suggest JB due to our personal safety concerns.

Appreciate your advice. Thank you very much.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Late 40s married couple. Our total income is quite decent, $210k pa. But we are also big spenders, $170k pa. We only save $40k pa.

Our big expenditure items are:

1. Condo mortgage. Condo worth $1.5m, loan remaining $500k.
2. Big luxury German sedan. Loan remaining $120k.
3. Domestic helper.
4. Kids' spendings, including costly enrichment, piano, tuition classes.
5. Parents' (both sides) allowances.
6. Holidays, twice a year.
7. Insurance.

Our expenses will go down by the time we retire at 65, by then we would have cleared the mortgage, sold the car, no more helper, kids grown up. We should only need money for food, utilities, condo fees, public transport and short holidays.

How do we get enough money for retirement? We will use money from our savings and we will downgrade from our condo to a one room condo unit. We will also get money from CPF.

mid 40s. income about 240k pa. very low spending. no car. no debt. household expense around 50k pa. can save more than 150k pa after tax and CPF. invest most into stock market and am getting around 20k pa in dividends (market value of shares approx 560k)

still not sure if there is enough for retirement???

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi all,

Are there any Malaysians in this forum? Need your advice. We are a couple in our mid 50s and we are planning to retire next year. We have decided to retire in a Malaysian city or town. Our children are grown ups and independent. When we retire, we will rent out our HDB flat (cleared the mortgage) for about S$2,500 per month and we currently get S$1,500 per month from dividends. So, our passive income will be S$4,000 per month or RM10,000 per month (RM120,000 per year).

Can you please advise which city or town in Malaysia can we retire comfortably? We budget RM2,000 per month for rent (can be a studio condo unit) and the rest will be for food, utilities, transport, entertainment and some savings. Please don't suggest JB due to our personal safety concerns.

Appreciate your advice. Thank you very much.

I'm an ex-Malaysian. Nevertheless, I still make trips back to my hometown etc. I definitely wouldn't recommend JB. My aunt just got robbed when pumping petrol at the Esso along Jalan Tebrau.

To be frank, from where I come from (Sarawak), RM2,000 a month is a lot. Over there you can rent an entire bungalow for lesser than that. Anyway, I doubt you want to live in Sarawak although the cost of living is definitely lower than West Malaysia.

Anyway, for RM2K you can even consider renting in KLCC area - if you want a shopping life. A quick browse on propertyguru Malaysia reveals those service apartment at only RM1.7K. With additional RM8K, you can live a very comfortable life. All I can say is, your budget allows you to stay practically in any state in Malaysia. You can even go on a state-by-state visit. 1 month in Penang, 1 month in KL, 1 month in Selangor etc. After all that travelling, you can always decide which is the best

Thanks for the useful tips. Appreciate the affirmation to avoid JB.
KLCC area is nice, I will definitely explore this besides the Bukit Bintang shopping belt.
Just curious, what's your retirement plan? Are you going to retire in Sarawak?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I'm an ex-Malaysian. Nevertheless, I still make trips back to my hometown etc. I definitely wouldn't recommend JB. My aunt just got robbed when pumping petrol at the Esso along Jalan Tebrau.

To be frank, from where I come from (Sarawak), RM2,000 a month is a lot. Over there you can rent an entire bungalow for lesser than that. Anyway, I doubt you want to live in Sarawak although the cost of living is definitely lower than West Malaysia.

Anyway, for RM2K you can even consider renting in KLCC area - if you want a shopping life. A quick browse on propertyguru Malaysia reveals those service apartment at only RM1.7K. With additional RM8K, you can live a very comfortable life. All I can say is, your budget allows you to stay practically in any state in Malaysia. You can even go on a state-by-state visit. 1 month in Penang, 1 month in KL, 1 month in Selangor etc. After all that travelling, you can always decide which is the best

Originally Posted by Unregistered

mid 40s. income about 240k pa. very low spending. no car. no debt. household expense around 50k pa. can save more than 150k pa after tax and CPF. invest most into stock market and am getting around 20k pa in dividends (market value of shares approx 560k)

still not sure if there is enough for retirement???

You do save a lot. Do you have a wife and kids? Are you staying in a hdb flat or condo? What's your current net worth?

I'm sure by the time you are 65, your savings would increase by $3m.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

50, semi retired. Debt free. Work from home, managing a $1m investment portfolio. Earn $60k pa from managing investments. Wife, 44, still working, earns $90k pa. We manage our expenses well, we do not employ a maid and stopped owning a car (one of our biggest expenses was owning a car), we spend only $80k pa. Our condo, which is paid up, is worth $1.4m.

When I am fully retired at 60, I will sell our condo and downgrade to a small studio condo. The balance of cash will be added to my investment portfolio. I estimate that by the time I am fully retired at 60, I will have at least $2.5m of investments and I am able to generate passive income of $125k pa. When we reach 65, our CPF retirement payout will start and that will give us about $30k pa. Our kids may give us a total allowance of $10k pa. So in total, our passive income is $165k pa. We should have a comfortable retirement and we can spend any extra money to travel the world. We always wanted to go for round the world cruise trip that lasts for months.

May I ask how much do you expect your kids to contribute? In relation to what they earn? I'm currently contributing 25% of my salary to my parent, and another 25% for clearing off debt from bad investment decisions, and I'm struggling quite a bit. Don't think I would be able to start a family as long as I am supporting my parent. Just wondered what is the norm?

I am quite surprised (actually shocked) that at this day and age, people are still expecting their children to support them financially. We should move away from the mentality of depending on our children for financial support.

In our parents' generation, most of them have lower education, earn lower wages and thus have lower savings. They have no choice but to depend on their children to support them in their old age. And we (our current generation) ended up supporting our parents and our own families. It is tough, having to handle housing loans, car loan, running a family and yet having to take care our aged parents.

I am thus very determined to be financially independent when I retire and not to be a burden to my children. I think they will find it even tougher going forward, having to compete with all the cheap labour flooding the job market world wide.

I have been saving and investing since I got my first pay check, a good 30 years ago. I am now enjoying the compounding effect of my investment returns and can see my networth increasing steadily. With a few more years of working and reinvesting my returns, I am confident that not only will we not be dependent on our children, we could also leave behind quite a decent bequest to them.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

May I ask how much do you expect your kids to contribute? In relation to what they earn? I'm currently contributing 25% of my salary to my parent, and another 25% for clearing off debt from bad investment decisions, and I'm struggling quite a bit. Don't think I would be able to start a family as long as I am supporting my parent. Just wondered what is the norm?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I am quite surprised (actually shocked) that at this day and age, people are still expecting their children to support them financially. We should move away from the mentality of depending on our children for financial support.

In our parents' generation, most of them have lower education, earn lower wages and thus have lower savings. They have no choice but to depend on their children to support them in their old age. And we (our current generation) ended up supporting our parents and our own families. It is tough, having to handle housing loans, car loan, running a family and yet having to take care our aged parents.

I am thus very determined to be financially independent when I retire and not to be a burden to my children. I think they will find it even tougher going forward, having to compete with all the cheap labour flooding the job market world wide.

I have been saving and investing since I got my first pay check, a good 30 years ago. I am now enjoying the compounding effect of my investment returns and can see my networth increasing steadily. With a few more years of working and reinvesting my returns, I am confident that not only will we not be dependent on our children, we could also leave behind quite a decent bequest to them.

Very well said and a decent post.
We are also taking the same approach, having experienced the stress of taking care of my parents (medically and financially) since I was 13 yrs old and >30 years later, this situation has not changed much if not worse. For me, life is tough to be in the sandwich generation so I would not want my children to experience the same.
Hence, besides educating and preparing ourselves on achieving financial independence as early as possible, we also take responsibility in leading a healthy lifestyle as we would not want my children to worry about our health too.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

May I ask how much do you expect your kids to contribute? In relation to what they earn? I'm currently contributing 25% of my salary to my parent, and another 25% for clearing off debt from bad investment decisions, and I'm struggling quite a bit. Don't think I would be able to start a family as long as I am supporting my parent. Just wondered what is the norm?

It depends, if I plan to leave my kids with a lot if wealth, should give me at least 30%. Since the day they were born I think I have spent more than $1m on them. So they must give back. That us why we have the parents maintenance bill.

51, 52, live in a 4 room hdb flat, now worth $500k, paid up. $80k pa combined salaries.
cash and cpf, $300k.

when we reach 65, we will get $1500 per month each from cpf life.
when we reach 60, we will sell our 4 room flat and buy the hdb studio flat for the elderly.
will use the cash balance for retirement, will spend $1500 per month from the cash.
so, in total we will have $4500 to spend for our retirement.