How much are you earning per annum?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Do you mean you do more housework because you earn a lower pay? So if your pay is higher, then you won't help out (assuming no maid)? Do I sense bitterness here... even though you said you are happily married...? I thought housework should be mutually shared regardless of your income.

If I earn more, I'll surely get a maid. Since I earn little, I made it up by being the maid. Isn't this only right?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If I earn more, I'll surely get a maid. Since I earn little, I made it up by being the maid. Isn't this only right?

There are many well to do couples who do not employ maid but happily share the housechores between them. That is true happiness. If you have this mentality of low paid and have to be a house maid, it seems that you are not doing this willingly. Hence, are you happy?

Nothing against you, to each his own, that's all.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

There are many well to do couples who do not employ maid but happily share the housechores between them. That is true happiness. If you have this mentality of low paid and have to be a house maid, it seems that you are not doing this willingly. Hence, are you happy?

Nothing against you, to each his own, that's all.

Chill man, this is a forum to share information. No need for personal attacks.

Do you mind sharing what you work as? I suppose your job is not stressful. I am thinking of switching gear to a less stressful job once I hit 55 in 6 months time. Financially I don't have to work anymore but I would rather work as I don't have a good and sustainable hobby to occupy my time if I should retire.

I think $50k pa would be enough to cover my yearly expenses without need to use any of my passive income which I could use for reinvestment.

Regarding having a maid, I think it is not so straight forward to conclude that you would save money by not having one. I had this same thought initially, that I could save money by not employing a maid. But I was wrong once I did a more detailed tracking of my expenses with and without a maid. My 2 teenagers and my parents are staying with us.

If we just go out for dinner three times a week for 6 of us in a typical coffee shop, that would set us back $200 for that week or $800 a month. Since my wife also works, we order food delivery rest of the time. That easily comes to another $250 per month. So just looking at the money aspects alone, it is cheaper, in our case, to employ a maid. We pay $500 per month for her salary, and another $250 per month on the levy.

But what I thought most important of all was the time we could save from not doing the house cleaning, washing of dishes, clothes and all the other mundane stuff. We now have more time for each other and other pursuits. And we don't dread coming home after a hard days work thinking of all the housework we used to have to do. Now our maid does of these things. Clothes are ironed and kept neatly, the house is cleaned every morning, nice and freshly cooked food ready to be eaten by the time we come back from work each day. This kind of lifestyle is worth more than the money you pay to the maid.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Late 40s couple, happily married for more than 20 years. The only problem is that I'm not so smart and earn only $50k pa. My wife is a grad, she earns $120k pa. We were lucky to buy a cheap BTO flat and managed to upgrade to a condo in 2005, at the bottom of the property cycle. We managed to clear our condo mortgage last year after using our bonuses. Now we have no loan, we also have no more car loan. In order to make up for my low pay, I do more of the house work like washing the toilet, hanging the clothes, ironing the clothes, etc, hence we save money from not having a maid, which we estimate to be costly.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Chill man, this is a forum to share information. No need for personal attacks.

Personally, I welcome such "food for thought" comment to self reflect and to further improve our lives. Again, to each his own, not everyone thinks the same and appreciates I guess.

This discussion on maid is interesting. We used to have a maid when the kids were young. Now they have grown up so there is no longer the need. We share the house work and take turns to cook. It is fun and bond us closer as a family, and also save us lots of money.

43, one income family, wife is a SAHM. My salary, $130k pa.
Humble home, 5 room exec HDB flat, worth $800k, bought cheap many years ago. Paid up.
3 lovely teenage kids, well adjusted.
Total net worth (flat, cash, CPF), $1.1m.
Debt free. Savings, $30k pa.

Retirement plan is to rent out our extra rooms (after kids got married and live on their own). Plus I will get money from CPF Life and use money from savings. It will be a bonus if the kids give us monthly allowance, but we are not expecting it.

Another possibility is to rent out our whole flat and use the rent to finance our retirement in Malaysia (KL, Malacca or Penang). Now our flat can fetch rental of $3k pm or RM8k pm.

I missed those times when buying things I desired or wanted can make me happy. Now, I don't get the same thrill or happiness when I buy things, not even a new car!

I used to be happy when I can afford the things I wanted. When I first started working, I wanted and dreamt of having my own car. Everyday I would pour over the classified ads for cars. I was quite realistic then, knowing that I could only buy a resale car. After working and saving for 2 full years, I finally bought myself a 5 yr old civic. (At that time, COE was non existent). Was happy and proud as can be.

Buying our matrimonial home with my wife brought mixed feelings of joy and worry. Joy because we were finally getting and owning our own home, and worry because of the long term commitment to the loan. We skipped the HDB route because of the long wait for a new flat at that time.

Now that we have changed homes 4 times, and changed cars 8 times, we sort of lost the excitement of buying a new home or a car or anything for that matter. Currently we own 2 condos and 2 cars. When we got the keys to our investment condo, we didn't feel the excitement anymore. Likewise when we replaced our 10 yr old car with a new one, it was like business as usual. No more fussing over it like a boy receiving a new toy.

I now derive more joy watching my net worth grow than spending money. I think I have lost the reason or purpose of saving money. The purpose we save money and make our savings grow is so that we could spend them to give ourselves a better life and to live happier. Somehow, I lost that. I am now quite obsessed with growing my net worth to the extent of living like a miser. My wife scolded me asking "what's the point of having all that millions if you are not ever going to use them!?"

What is wrong with me?

[Hermit]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I missed those times when buying things I desired or wanted can make me happy. Now, I don't get the same thrill or happiness when I buy things, not even a new car!

I used to be happy when I can afford the things I wanted. When I first started working, I wanted and dreamt of having my own car. Everyday I would pour over the classified ads for cars. I was quite realistic then, knowing that I could only buy a resale car. After working and saving for 2 full years, I finally bought myself a 5 yr old civic. (At that time, COE was non existent). Was happy and proud as can be.

Buying our matrimonial home with my wife brought mixed feelings of joy and worry. Joy because we were finally getting and owning our own home, and worry because of the long term commitment to the loan. We skipped the HDB route because of the long wait for a new flat at that time.

Now that we have changed homes 4 times, and changed cars 8 times, we sort of lost the excitement of buying a new home or a car or anything for that matter. Currently we own 2 condos and 2 cars. When we got the keys to our investment condo, we didn't feel the excitement anymore. Likewise when we replaced our 10 yr old car with a new one, it was like business as usual. No more fussing over it like a boy receiving a new toy.

I now derive more joy watching my net worth grow than spending money. I think I have lost the reason or purpose of saving money. The purpose we save money and make our savings grow is so that we could spend them to give ourselves a better life and to live happier. Somehow, I lost that. I am now quite obsessed with growing my net worth to the extent of living like a miser. My wife scolded me asking "what's the point of having all that millions if you are not ever going to use them!?"

What is wrong with me?

It is nothing strange. There is nothing wrong with you. You have reached another stage in your life and just need to re-examine what is meaningful to you. Sometimes our upbringing and early days of struggling can make us forget how to treat ourselves well. We keep thinking we are doing the right thing by being disciplined in our finances. And that habit of being thrifty can permeate into other parts of our life and rob us of the joy of living.

[Hermit]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This discussion on maid is interesting. We used to have a maid when the kids were young. Now they have grown up so there is no longer the need. We share the house work and take turns to cook. It is fun and bond us closer as a family, and also save us lots of money.

Good to hear that, bro. I look forward to the day when I can do without a maid too. Maybe when my kids are older, I will try a part-time maid who comes in once in a while.