My advice is relevant to those who just started work as well as to millionaires and billionaires. If you womanize, sodomize, you will be in big trouble in your relationship and finances. If you are engaged in gambling, no matter how rich you are, if you continue, your wealth will eventually be wiped off. Smoking and drinking will harm your body, remember health is wealth.

I do agree with you that we should despise those who are retired and spend their time wastefully, engaging in sinful activities like back biting, gambling, drinking, womanising, sodomising, etc. But for those who has retired from professional work and spend their time on charity work, we should celebrate them for their noble deeds. Charities nowadays are lacking of good professionals as volunteers.

The advice given above on Saving is simplistic (almost to the point of constant self denial). It assumes that to Save, all people should live a very simple life, without the little luxuries that make it bearable.

Instead of reducing expenses only, we should think about how to increase our income. For example, a second property. There is nothing sinful or harmful about enjoying little treats and luxuries now and then e.g. eating out once a week. having a glass or two of wine.

My approach (together with spouse) to saving was not to buy a car. Without car expenses, we managed to put together a downpayment for our small freehold condo. Because the condo was relatively small and cheap for our incomes, we managed to recover fast from the cash outlay and save enough cash again buy a second investment property 3 years later and it is now tenanted out.

We still eat out at least twice a week, enjoying the good food all over Singapore. We have a little wine fridge which we fill with reds, whites, dessert wines and beer and we drink in the weekends or after a particularly hard day of work. We go for walks in the neighbourhood (all condos and greenery) at night. We still save, but our lifestyle is very comfortable. Why suffer so much just to save?

A good friend of mine got a wake up call when he saw many of his colleagues from all levels - junior staff, middle and senior managers - got retrenched due to restructuring. He realized he could be next. So, while he is still safe, at least for now, he has taken some action in his life to be prepared. He sold his condo for $1.5m (he bought it at $600k in 2003 and paid off the loan), and use the cash proceeds to buy a 5 room HDB flat for $500k. He then invested the cash balance and some cash savings totalling $1.2m in strong global blue chips which give him annual dividends of $60k pa. He didn't buy a new car after his car COE expired and he now takes the MRT. Being debt free, he and his family only spends $70k pa. He is earning $80k pa and his wife earns $50k pa. Now they save $120k pa.

You unknowingly brought out the benefit of buying / investing in a good property while one is able to. Buying / investing in a property is like forced saving. Every month a fixed amount is automatically deducted from your CPF/salary. Your friend's astute move to get into a condo has paid handsome dividends. I am sure he is way ahead of his peers who went the road of BTO flats.

Actually he was just following the crowd when he bought the condo. He first started with a cheap BTO flat and then he upgraded to a condo when he saw his uni friends upgraded to condos. He did not want to lose face so he upgraded. He said he was lucky to follow the crowd. He was not astute at all. Sometimes following the crowd is good.

Guidelines
 

Can any of you, guide me about stocks? Like is there any recommendation of stocks that I should consider? What is the minimum amount I should fork out for starter. Thanks in advance.

I salute your friend. Instead of complaining and whining about his predicament, he took positive steps. He did not have a big ego and humbled himself to downgrade and go on life without a car. This is the kind of man we should all look up to.

Wife and Me Mid 30s
Combined 160K per annum
HDB with 25 yr mortgage left, Jap car fully paid up.
10K in stocks, almost 2k in monthly insurance payments.
Savings Combined 50K.
2 Toddlers at home and a domestic helper.

You are very lucky to be able own a flat, a car and you can afford a maid.
Your salary is also quite high. How much is your total net worth?

Late 30s married with 3 kids

Cash $540K
Stocks $260K
Insurance cash value $130K
Home value net of loan $1.8M
Others (car, jewelry, etc) $100K

Although luck plays an important part in a person's success, I think we should also acknowledge a person's capability, hardwork and other qualities in their success.

So your statement below made it sound like luck was the only factor for his success.

HDB now worth 700K (outstanding mortgage of 300k/25yr)
Savings + Stocks 60K
Physical Gold ~12k
Insurance 240K

Lucky as you thought i may be, and we consider ourselves very comfortable too, but still it is so hard to save $$, only 50K saved in 6 years, and they are mainly leftover of whatever bonuses that we recieved. Its money in and money out almost every month

40, $1m cash savings

48, Hdb flat worth $600k, paid up.
Cash and CPF, $400k.
Millionaire with net worth of $1m.
Middle manager, $95k pa only.

27 Years Old

Stocks 8K
Cash 1K
CPF 58K

How much savings do you have?
 

29 years old

SGD 75k in Ordinary Account
SGD 13k in Cash Savings

- should have more money in savings account but lost a sum when I decided to back of out marriage (lost money in executive condo downpayment and got to pay bank loan penalty)

- looking to increase cash savings to SGD 40k by next year (based on JP Morgan retirement savings projection, that's the amount I should have by 30 years old)

Monthly mandatory expenses SGD1330 (parents' allowance, school loan, insurance etc.)
Monthly flexible expenses SGD 800-1000

It is good to back out of marriage if the guy was unfaithful to you. well done.
btw, how much do you make per annum?

Do u have other investment? Having just cash is not giving u real returns.

28 going on 29 in a few months.
Single, Male

Fundsupermarket investments: 128k (includes 13k in SRS)
Stock Market Account: 5k
Cash: 29k
CPF OA: 38k
CPF SA: 10k
CPF MA: 12k

How am I doing?

A monk?......perhaps not

Wife:31; hubby 32 with 2 young toddlers
House: HDB flat worth $400k, fully paid with cpf
Combined Cash + stocks $340k
Combined CPF OA & SA:$100k
No car & no maid

Savings could have been more if not for wedding & house reno plus all the baby delivery expenses.

Not bad for such a young couple. I am surprised you can pay off your hdb and yet with 100k. Must be high earners, I guess.

we are just average middle income couple. Combined income $10k per mth. We were lucky to buy a BTO quite cheaply before property prices start to go crazy. So we managed to pay off hdb loan within 2 yrs.

We do see our savings quite stagnant especially after having 2 kids. Enrichment classes, childcare fee, milk powder + diapers chalk up to quite alot of expenses.

Me and my wife(around mid 40s)
Cash:250k
Shares:300k
Bmw z4(fully paid)
Semi Detatched 3.5m (left 450k loan)

Wah you so sharp. how you know I'm a girl? "Bubbles" gave it away? haha.
I earn about 67k a year

Actually based on your CPF amt, it doesn't seem like you have been working very long. Either that or your income isn't very high. But for the amount you have in investment it is pretty impressive. May i ask how you did it? What is yr annual income and how much do you save a month?

How much do you and your spouse save per month before the kids came? The amount of savings you have is quite good.

To be frank, we didnt really keep track how much we can save per month cos since 2010, we had major events that comes in every yr which somehow affect our savings rate. Hopefully we can start saving more this year

2010: wedding
2011: house reno
2012: arrival of baby 1
2013: Arrival of baby 2

Make 100k a year.
Save 60%
Don't pay rent cause I live at home.
Income tax is about 3% because I contribute to SRS

I dont doubt your post on your net worth.
But you are not disclosing how you arrive there completely.

You stated you & spouse 32/31. Between you and your spouse, you have average of max 8-10 yrs working. Meaning to achieve a networth of 800+k in those 8-10 yrs, you had to save approx 100k savings per year.

that around 50k per person. accompanied with the expense of reno, kids.

think you must had some help... or i will have to agree with the others that u r not the average middle income...

By the way, you said u paid your house of 400k with CPF.. Thats 200k CPF per pax with the max contribution at 5k in current CPF context... Somewhere, i think u missed stating a few key points on how u arrived.

I only say my house value is worth around $400k (based on house prices in the area) now, but i nv say i paid $400k. I only paid $230k for the flat when property prices are still low which i did mentioned earlier. So its not surprising to pay in full? Btw, not just salary, your bonus will also go into your cpf contribution.

So far we are glad we dont need any help from anybody cos we will just save whatever we have. Wedding & reno was just $70k, we definitely can absorb it in full. We are the type that dun really care about appearance, clothes torn already also can wear for years. No car, no maid to show off. live within your means & nothing is impossible.

Yep.. And like i said, there is something missing in your post. Ok. Lets do the maths again .

230k for flat.Not sure how much you paid with cash/cpf. but assume 100% CPF. That means 115k per person.

Using max contribution to CPF now is around 34k based on your age and based 5000*17 mths * 20% * 2 (ur share and employer) so that brings to around payment period of 4 yrs if both of u are actively reducing your housing loan... i know there is OA/MA/SA spilt but lazy to do all the maths

Possible ? Yes...cos u have been working around max 8 ~ 10 ys.

Knowing you spent 70k on reno, and figuring around 8-10k delivery expense per kid... plus your +300k savings for 10 yrs.... that works to around 40k non CPF related savings per year since u worked. Of course these savings may not all come from your salary but due capital appreciation of stocks , etc..


Based on this data , I should think u r a good saver/investor since you are achieving a saving rate of above 30% of your current net cash salary.

If u continue this way, you should hit millionaire status or be close to it before 40 as a couple.

Good job !

Employee cpf contribution 20% & employer cpf contribution 16%, total 36%. out of which, around 66% goes to OA. Hmm. You only quoted 20%:)

Its probably those 1 time lump sum bonus that helps alot in building up the savings plus appreciation of stocks & stock dividends. No matter what, as compared to most pple in this forum, our savings are still far off from ideal. There seems to be alot of millionaires here. LOL. Currently we still have 2 more years to complete the hdb 5 yr min occupation period. Hope we can save enuff to pay 2nd property downpayment in 2 years time. Still praying hard for property crash. If dreams come true, we can have extra rental income too

Currently turning 26, working for 3 years savings from 15k becomes 2k (took a break from work for studies for about 6 months). enjoying life these few years, traveled to UK Japan etc, also paid for my degree (part time). too late to start now?

Early 30ies, single local male, started with less than 1K on graduation, saver more than spender
Stock $270k+ at cost
Mutual funds $10K
Other illiquid investments >$100K not sure exact
CPF ord $120-130K
Cash - $20K? not sure exact

Quite an exercise
 

After stumbling on to this site, I tried to tally up what I "amassed" all these years. Thought it would be an easy thing to but it turned out to be quite an "exercise". But I am glad I went through it because at least now I have a baseline for future reference. So for those who are young and have documented properly your assets, good for you, for those who haven't started, it is good to start doing.

The following summarised what we have, starting with the big ticket items first (combined with my missus - our assets intricately intertwined):

1. Primary residence - est. $1.7m
2. Investment property - est. $1.3m
3. Main family car (MPV) - est. $80k
4. Missus' car - est. $50k
5. Life insurances - $500 k (if surrender now - we have been holding these insurances for 30 years)
6. Single premium insurances - $200k (gotta hold till maturity)
7. CPF OA - $800k, MA - $91k, SA - $395k
8. Stocks, bonds and other like investments -$930k
9. SRS - $120k (invested in some long term NTUC products)
10. FDs (war chest for opportunistic investments) - $300k
11. Cash - $110k

Listing them down in detailed form took a few days of digging up records.

That was some digging. Most of us don't really go through the numbers unless and until forced by circumstances such as a divorce or death. In the latter case, someone else will do it ! :D

must be a high earner....CPF hardly touched

Good observation.

For our primary residence we did use quite a fair bit of our CPF over many years (15 - 17 years?)

For our investment property, we did not use our CPF money. This was possible because we had been able to save above $250k pa. for several years.

We have also been enjoying the benefit of compounding returns. Our passive income have been re-invested increasing our stock holdings steadily.

But we know stock and property prices go up and down in cycles, so that's why we left the CPF money untouched (as our fall back funds) to earn on average 3% interest from the gahmen. The money will be available to us once we hit 55. But if we are still working, we will leave the money there to earn the interest with full capital protection by the gahmen.

However, we are game to snap up another property should the price go down south further.