How much are you earning per annum?

Ex corporate executive, 50, now retired due to poor health. Earns passive income of 130k pa from various investments. Condo (now worth 1.5m) and car, both paid up. Family expenses, 90k pa. Now I have a lot of time to spend with my wife (a housewife) and teenage son, I have neglected them all these years due to long working hours and business travel.

We are in our mid 30s, I earn $50k pa while spouse earns $60k pa. We live in a 5 room BTO HDB flat with mortgage of 25 years left. We don't own a car and take the bus to work. Need your advice on how to be rich. Thank you.

Don't pursue money blindly for money's sake. And at mid 30s you still many years ahead to work, save and invest.

Let's say you target to save $30k pa, and you work for the next 30 years, you can save $900k, and if invested to achieve 5% return pa, you would have more than $1m by 65 not counting the property you own.

Have a happy family and worry free life is better than earning lots of money and being stressed out!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

We are in our mid 30s, I earn $50k pa while spouse earns $60k pa. We live in a 5 room BTO HDB flat with mortgage of 25 years left. We don't own a car and take the bus to work. Need your advice on how to be rich. Thank you.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

low middle income, 100k pa combined. 38, 39 yo.
home is a 4 room flat, worth $400k now, loan remaining $250k.
cash and cpf, $200k.
can anyone suggest how we can increase our wealth?
thanks.

Combine pa 200k, both 38 yrs old, 4 rm flat at mature estate fully paid up, cpf and cash around $500k. With 2 young kids and a maid. We eat simply (food court and coffee shop), never spent on expensive travel, only occasional travel to Malaysia on a big MPV.

Just hope to retire here simply at 60(combine pa should reach 300k at least before 60).

We are 53, 55, making 170k combined. We plan to retire early at age 58 instead of 65. When we retire, we will sell our landed home and downgrade to a studio condo. We will renovate it nicely. We estimate after the sale of our landed and purchase of the studio condo, we will have cash of 1.5m. We will buy dividend stocks, to give us 75k pa (5% dividend yield). This is enough to pay for food and other bills. By then we will not own a car and we will travel by MRT. We will get a condo near an MRT station, market and shopping centre. Our spendings will only be 60k pa. When we reach 65, we will get an additional $28k pa from our CPF Life.

I cannot tell if this post was a serious post or not, but if it was, I can only feel pity on the naivety of the poster.

First of all, if you are not already invested substantially in stocks, it would be very difficult to pump in a huge amount in stocks in a short time. I cannot imagine you would pump in $1.5 m into the stock market within a year to start generating that 5% return. More likely you would want to catch the "right" time to enter and spread out your investment. So in short, you will not be getting that $75k pa returns, not for a good many years.

Secondly you would not be putting all your money into high dividends stocks (eg reits), but more likely spreading out your investments in other blue chips (steady but lower dividend income). So the net returns will be less than the 5% you are expecting.

Thirdly, downgrading from your current property is easier said than done. If your children are still staying with you then you will still need a home that is big enough to accommodate your children as well.

Fourthly, the expenses you mentioned are in today's dollars. 10 years down the road, in order to maintain the same purchasing power, you will be chipping away from your principal amounts. From there things will spiral downwards rapidly.

I am saying all this from my own experience. We all plan, but reality is a different matter.

My wife and I have been investing all our lives (30 yrs since we started work). When our investment in stocks hit $1m (based on market value, not our invested outlay) two years back we decided we were sufficiently "exposed". We didnt want to put all our eggs in one basket. We are now getting roughly $50k pa dividends (it differs year by year). To mitigate risk, we then invested in another condo, but smaller one (2 + 1 bedder). Our plan was to eventually downgrade to this smaller one when we retire.

But that is not going to happen until our children get their own homes which we think would be a good 10 - 15 years later. By then we would be 65 or 70 yrs old! So we rented out the second condo to earn $45K rental income.

The total passive income of $95K pa is still below our current yearly expenses of $120K pa. Even taking away the car expenses, maid (if we decide to do away with the car and maid), and income taxes when we retire, the $95K marginally covers our expected retirement expenses.

And when you factor in the effect of inflation into the yearly expenses, you will quickly realise that your yearly expense will outstrip the passive income in a matter of a few years!

Having done our calculations, we quickly realised that it is to our best interest to continue working for as long as we can.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

We are 53, 55, making 170k combined. We plan to retire early at age 58 instead of 65. When we retire, we will sell our landed home and downgrade to a studio condo. We will renovate it nicely. We estimate after the sale of our landed and purchase of the studio condo, we will have cash of 1.5m. We will buy dividend stocks, to give us 75k pa (5% dividend yield). This is enough to pay for food and other bills. By then we will not own a car and we will travel by MRT. We will get a condo near an MRT station, market and shopping centre. Our spendings will only be 60k pa. When we reach 65, we will get an additional $28k pa from our CPF Life.

you think too much. you may just die at 60.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I cannot tell if this post was a serious post or not, but if it was, I can only feel pity on the naivety of the poster.

First of all, if you are not already invested substantially in stocks, it would be very difficult to pump in a huge amount in stocks in a short time. I cannot imagine you would pump in $1.5 m into the stock market within a year to start generating that 5% return. More likely you would want to catch the "right" time to enter and spread out your investment. So in short, you will not be getting that $75k pa returns, not for a good many years.

Secondly you would not be putting all your money into high dividends stocks (eg reits), but more likely spreading out your investments in other blue chips (steady but lower dividend income). So the net returns will be less than the 5% you are expecting.

Thirdly, downgrading from your current property is easier said than done. If your children are still staying with you then you will still need a home that is big enough to accommodate your children as well.

Fourthly, the expenses you mentioned are in today's dollars. 10 years down the road, in order to maintain the same purchasing power, you will be chipping away from your principal amounts. From there things will spiral downwards rapidly.

I am saying all this from my own experience. We all plan, but reality is a different matter.

My wife and I have been investing all our lives (30 yrs since we started work). When our investment in stocks hit $1m (based on market value, not our invested outlay) two years back we decided we were sufficiently "exposed". We didnt want to put all our eggs in one basket. We are now getting roughly $50k pa dividends (it differs year by year). To mitigate risk, we then invested in another condo, but smaller one (2 + 1 bedder). Our plan was to eventually downgrade to this smaller one when we retire.

But that is not going to happen until our children get their own homes which we think would be a good 10 - 15 years later. By then we would be 65 or 70 yrs old! So we rented out the second condo to earn $45K rental income.

The total passive income of $95K pa is still below our current yearly expenses of $120K pa. Even taking away the car expenses, maid (if we decide to do away with the car and maid), and income taxes when we retire, the $95K marginally covers our expected retirement expenses.

And when you factor in the effect of inflation into the yearly expenses, you will quickly realise that your yearly expense will outstrip the passive income in a matter of a few years!

Having done our calculations, we quickly realised that it is to our best interest to continue working for as long as we can.

Lol, I have lived through it, so it is not a matter of thinking too much.

If I was only 40 and saying all that, yes you can accuse me of thinking too much, but as I explained, my plan was adjusted as I lived through each phase of my plan. I was thus advising the naive poster of the pitfalls of just depending on a simple plan.

We all don't know when we will die, that's why we need to plan. Never mind, I don't expect you to understand this.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

you think too much. you may just die at 60.

The guy wants to retire at 58, not at 40. This is just 7 years earlier. I don't see why this is not possible. He has all his plans lay out, I'm sure his kids are grown up and on their own, that is why he wants to move to a studio condo.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Lol, I have lived through it, so it is not a matter of thinking too much.

If I was only 40 and saying all that, yes you can accuse me of thinking too much, but as I explained, my plan was adjusted as I lived through each phase of my plan. I was thus advising the naive poster of the pitfalls of just depending on a simple plan.

We all don't know when we will die, that's why we need to plan. Never mind, I don't expect you to understand this.

sorry to hear about your poor health. taking care of your health is more important than money. good to know that you have been prudent with your money and been investing them, now your passive income can cover your expenses. your passive income will grow as the dividends grow with time. good that you realise that you have been a bad husband and father for neglecting them. it is not too late to reconcile as long as you are still alive and breathing.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Ex corporate executive, 50, now retired due to poor health. Earns passive income of 130k pa from various investments. Condo (now worth 1.5m) and car, both paid up. Family expenses, 90k pa. Now I have a lot of time to spend with my wife (a housewife) and teenage son, I have neglected them all these years due to long working hours and business travel.