How much are you earning per annum?

I am in the same situation as your husband. I earn less than my wife. I earn $3k pm while my wife earn $4k pm. But I do other things like trading and tuition and I earn $1.5k extra. So now I earn $4.5k, more than my wife. But I don't do housework, she does. We don't have a maid.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Society likes to stereotypes people. Society tends to look down on husbands who earns less than the wife. My hubby earns less than me, only $4k pm, whereas I earn $8k pm. I dont mind at all as long we we share our responsibilities at home.

My hubby spends his free time tutoring our children, he helps out with the household chores and is a responsible husband and father. He is careful with his money and good at saving and investing his money. With our combined savings we can now afford to upgrade to a $1m condo. We sold our flat for $600k and paid down using our cash savings. We only need to borrow $200k in mortgages, which is very comfortable for us financially.

49, technician, $5600 pm.
wife, 42, admin officer, $4000 pm.
Bought flat very cheap many years ago, now paid up.
Plan to sell flat for $500k to buy an EC costing $700k.
Our mortgage will only be $100k.
We look forward to living the good life in an EC.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

49, technician, $5600 pm.
wife, 42, admin officer, $4000 pm.
Bought flat very cheap many years ago, now paid up.
Plan to sell flat for $500k to buy an EC costing $700k.
Our mortgage will only be $100k.
We look forward to living the good life in an EC.

There is good life everywhere, even in hdb....if you know where to find.

Middle income couple, $150k pa in total. Bought a resale condo at the bottom of the property cycle in 2003, now finished paying the mortgage. Our old condo is now worth $800k. Our priority now at our age of early fifties is to build up our retirement nest egg. With no more mortgage, we can build up our CPF and cash savings. Our net worth is now $1.2m. We are aiming to grow our net worth to $2.2m before we can retire at 65. Once we reach this target, we will sell our condo and retire in a 3 room HDB flat. We will have enough passive income from our CPF Life as well as dividends from our blue chips stocks. In order to save in retirement, we will stop employing a maid and stop owning a car as there is no longer a need. We estimated that we will spend only $3k pm for food, utilities, public transport and short holidays. Our passive income will be about $6k pm. If our kids gives us allowance, we will have an additional $1k pm in total. So our total income during retirement should be $7k pm.

Have your children graduated? Have they started working? Are they married?

From early 50s to 65 is about 10 years. To grow your savings by another $1mil means saving $100K a year. Are you already achieving this rate of savings? If not, what are your plans to hit the target of $2.2m in 10 years?

Is your job secure ? Can you see yourself working for another 10 years?

If you answer NO to the many of the above questions, you are making way too many assumptions.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Middle income couple, $150k pa in total. Bought a resale condo at the bottom of the property cycle in 2003, now finished paying the mortgage. Our old condo is now worth $800k. Our priority now at our age of early fifties is to build up our retirement nest egg. With no more mortgage, we can build up our CPF and cash savings. Our net worth is now $1.2m. We are aiming to grow our net worth to $2.2m before we can retire at 65. Once we reach this target, we will sell our condo and retire in a 3 room HDB flat. We will have enough passive income from our CPF Life as well as dividends from our blue chips stocks. In order to save in retirement, we will stop employing a maid and stop owning a car as there is no longer a need. We estimated that we will spend only $3k pm for food, utilities, public transport and short holidays. Our passive income will be about $6k pm. If our kids gives us allowance, we will have an additional $1k pm in total. So our total income during retirement should be $7k pm.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I read the comments here and ROFL.

Come on, living in a condo = high social status?

Yes, that used to be the case from 1990s and earlier. In the 90s and earlier, only the rich can afford landed and condos. HDB were the main home for many.

Fast forward to today, with the abundance of suburban shoebox size condos + some resale HDB flats priced at above 500k, you are daft to still deem ALL condos as high status. Only D9/D10 condos are worth the social status. The rest are just mass market condos to entice HDB upgraders.

I have known people with household income of 200k and above staying in 5 room HDB and also people with household income of 120k and below squeezing in shoebox condos.

Would you want to stay in HDB and drive BMW or would you want to stay in condo and take bus/MRT? And no, the reason for not buying a car is not because of convenience but because of budget.

Would you want to stay in HDB and go on 2 weeks holiday or would you want to stay in condo and go MY/Batam/Bintan for a 3D2N holiday?

Would you want to stay in HDB with money in the bank or would you want to stay in a condo with not much money in the bank?

Please open your eyes big and look around. Don't be envious of all people living in mass market condos. Some are really rich, some are just slapping themselves on the face to make themselves look fat.

Do majority people living in 5 room flat earn over 200k per year? That is no. Do majority of the condominium units in Singapore is shoebox? That is no too. There is always the minority in every case. Therefore, you cannot judge something that based of the ''minority''. Therefore, in generally term, to most ''middle'' class and ''working'' class citizens in Singapore, they still feel that condo is still a status symbol, even for mass market condominium.

85% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats. Only 15% of Singaporeans live in landed properties or condos. About 6% live in landed and 9% live in condos.

So, if you live in a condo you are among the top 15% of the population.

No point driving a conti car but still living in a flat. To buy a conti car is so much cheaper than to upgrade from a $500k flat to a $1.5m condo.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

85% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats. Only 15% of Singaporeans live in landed properties or condos. About 6% live in landed and 9% live in condos.

So, if you live in a condo you are among the top 15% of the population.

No point driving a conti car but still living in a flat. To buy a conti car is so much cheaper than to upgrade from a $500k flat to a $1.5m condo.

I will say your opinion should be a general term. Of course some people may argue that there are people who are living in condo, but their income or net worth are not in the top 15%. I agree with them but those people are the minorities among all condo households. Therefore, I will say majority of the people living in private properties are top 15%. Some of them are not, as some of the Hdb dwellers are richer than them, thus, those Hdb dwellers are in the top 15%. But there are the very minority among over 800k hdb households.

By and large, if you own and live in a condo in Singapore, you have made it. This is most important of the 5 Cs.

I don't consider those owning a toyota corolla, vios, suzuki swift, nissan sunny, Hyundai getz, as people who should own a car, the fact that they buy a cheap shows that they are better off taking the public transport. you SAVE more $ for your family and you also clear the roads and prevent less congestion and accidents. (you buy a cheap car because you can barely afford to own a car in the first place)

Those people driving Camry, Cefiro, Accord, Mazda 6 are the people who have the MONEY to own a PROPER car. They deserve to drive comfortably.

The rest of the top tier owning a BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, are the ones who FARKING OWNAGE. OWNAGE THE PAP government COE system. Hands-down OWNAGE. These group of drives bloody own the parking spot downstairs and the roads and all the expressways.