Educated guess
 

Very impressive Atascouple...

Let me try to reverse engineer what you do :

Based on your declared net worth of almost 3m after just 8 years of working each... That means combined you save 375k per year since graduation. I assume you spend decently well of about 150k-200k per year. This implies income of 500+ per year or 250+k each since grad on avg! impossible for all govt including AO. For private sector, only traders and IB... But you said IT and science. Which leads to 3 possible scenario : (can be combination)

1) inherited wealth and gifts.

2) very savvy investments. Eg bought aud property cheap and gained on currency and appreciation.

3) one or both of u are entrepreneurs. This one any line also if make it can have 3m by end 32.

Care to comment if i got it right ?

Hello.

We are not scholars but our parents are upper middle class and they were able to fund us through private universities 100%. So, yes essentially we are born with silver spoons. My parents used to work in the finance sector but they are now retired. Her parents are small business owners (no education). So after graduation, we have house to stay, and car to drive. No need to pay rent or buy ourselves. So all of our income goes into our investments. But in terms fo the assets we accumulated, it was 100% through our own means and capital. Jobs wise, we also got them 100% by ourselves without daddy or mummys help.

1) See below
2) Yes we had some very lucky breaks. Truly lucky. Think of it as buying AAPL in Nov 2008 and selling it now. Yes you are also right on the AUS property.
3) We started off as salaried workers and we still are. But the crucial point here is that we work in positions that brought in revenue for the company. Also, we have a sideline that was generating few k a month, managed by my wife's sister.

Thats me above. Forgot post with username

can you tell us more about the sideline? is it an online business?

I envy you. So different from my background.

My father was a drunkard and never home. My mother a seamstress. My brother was in jail.

We lived in a rental HDB flat. No car. No motorbike. No bicycle.

We owed relatives money and always had to hang our heads in shame and I even got slapped by my cousin in front of everyone.

But at least I made it to NUS.

Buy HDB flat for parents. Pay for siblings education.

Considering your hard background, you have done very well to make it to NUS.

I salute you! Keep your head high up. Wish you all the best.

impressive. don't mind can you share what is the % of your assets earned through investments vs earned income?

i'm 35 and my wife isn't working, so far managed to reach a net worth around 2.3m. i hope to be able to reach 3m like you in a few years' time

Ah yes, I missed out 1 more high earning group. Anyone who does sales. So both u and wife doing corporate sales is my guess?

Also, did most of your wealth creation happen on a exponential curve and pay increased and investments rose in last 3 years due to liquidity bubble?

4 million plus worth. that means you n your wife had been earning above 5K a mth after graduation & now you guys are earning in the bracket of abt 20K per mth?

I have friends who are in IT. At age of 37, they can be earning 6K to 12K. Heard of 18K salary in IT. But at your age, I am doubtful you have reach those kinda positions. So how did you guys make it?

I think the wife recently appeared in the papers. The saga involving our SCDF chief? IT sales role la! Where else can make so much

ATAS Couple
 

Hey i think you did fantastic for yourself given your background. Only those who have been through what you have been through would be able to tell so I really can't comment.

Hi, you are not too bad yourself. 2.3m single breadwinner is definetely commendable.
Its hard to say what % earned through investments because at early stages of career, its always near 0%. But one thing is for sure, you can never be rich working for someone else. I don't consider ourselves 'rich'. We cant take holidays whenever we want, we still have to kowtow to boss, we dont fly first class. To be rich in SG these days, you need at least imo, $15-30m.

Of course it happened on an exponential curve. No way in hell can we accumulate those assets from income. Afterall, its only paper value, if property price crash tomorrow, we will also see drop in nw.

Yes sales is the best place to be if you are hungry, driven and hardworking. The money is education-blind and prestige-blind. I know a poly grad who started out as PFC because he was persuasive and good at talking, but education was not his forte. Made 100k+ in his first year. In middle of his 2nd year he was headhunted by foreign bank and promoted straight to assistant manager, by passing almost 2-3 years of exp.

Hi, we worked few years overseas before returning to SG. We no bond mah. So starting at 5k SGD/mth is actually not out of this world by overseas standards.

How did we make it? We work hard, we play politics, we play taichi, we perform, we make our boss like us. In sales, you eat what you kill.

True gems. Thanks for the advice!

u have 320k in cpf and yet u never think of paying off ur hdb loan? u must be damn lucky to accumulate that kind of networth.

even if u max out ur cpf contributions for 25 yrs, u can never hit 900k, unless ur an investment guru which u said ur not.

sleedi sugar
 

how come you have so little when u r from harvard and wife from MIT? U must have done something wrong. Anyway u will need the little money u have now to take care of your future , sure to be, socially awkward kids.

Good Luck You Two!

TEST test test

Male, Single 26 getting married in 3 years

Cash - 25K
CPF - 30K
Equities - 5.1K
Watches - 20K
No loans, car, house. Earning 3 Plus a month in the civil service. Gross income for 2010 was 47K Gross. Projecting a 49K Gross Income for 2011.

Please tell me what kind of position am i in, good, bod or average.

Thanks all who give constructive advice!

For a Singaporean male you are pretty much screwed.

LOL at the watches. You saved 1 year for them/it?

A SG male should earn at least >$5k before thinking of getting married. Might want to consider 3RM HDB

I already bought a 4 room with my Soon to be wife. our income range is almost the same. except her income will be more then mine in the future due to her being in the private sector and holding a Degree from NUS.
The watches, well, i saved a little here and there and when i get bonus, i just go buy them with no regrets.

So, i am pretty much screwed huh.

you are average for your age. but stop buying the watches. keep the cash for when the property market tanks then go buy the best location condo you can afford.

how to afford a condo with such an income? I understand where you are coming from but is it almost impossible to afford a condo, even if market is in the junker. Thanks for the advice though, i will work towards that!

you just said no loan, car, house, now u said u bought a 4 room. ur r really screwed. haha

Thanks for the un-constructive comments. Really helpful, all i needed was some advice to improve my position. Thanks.

What's wrong? Why do you say you're screwed? The median household income in Singapore is only 7k. That means 50% of all households make less than that, some much even lower. You are totally so not screwed.

Don't listen all those mean and critical remarks. For a 26 year old, I think you are doing pretty well. At 26, you already have savings of $25K whereas many people doesn't even have enough savings to tie them through 3 - 6 months without work. Work hard to accumulate your savings and invest them wisely in blue chips company after setting aside a small sum for contingency. When I was 26 (year 2000), I was only earning 2k plus a month and only few thousands of savngs since I had barely worked for a year. So how you manage your finance and grow your income in the coming years are far more important than worrying about how much you have now.

Wow
 

Hey, You guys are scary. I am 31 this year. Single. But monthly income has been about SGC 4.5 - 5.5k/mth for the last few years. But I have only managed to save the following:

Cash: $110K
CPF: $130K (including SA and medisave)
Stocks, Preference Shares, Bonds: $30K
Endowment funds: $40K

I will be hopping on to another job that pays me an annual package of $90K per annum. But I have no idea how you guys can have a net worth of close to SGD 1 million when you are older than me by 5 to 6 years. Are you guys sure you are talking about SGD and not some other currencies?

Would like to hear more from you guys.

Thanks

You are doing pretty good too. If you make more, you will save even more. If you're married and bought property at the right time, you can consider upgrading or buying a second property.

I think you are doing fine. With higher salaries and savings over the next 5 to 6 years, you can probably save another $100 to $200K.

If you want to grow your wealth, you need to up your risk appettite to generate greater returns on your savings. Have you been keeping much of your wealth in the form of cash in the past few years? Holding $110K in cash and only $30K in stock/pref share/bonds is too conservative for your age unless this $110k cash is your warchest in which you are bidding the time to enter the market. Otherwise, it will take you at least another 2 decades to save $1m.


That's just my 2 cents.

cash :1.8m
watches 50k
endowment:500k
CPF: 400k
jap car & EC fully paid

husband & wife (early 30s)

what do you work as? or is the money from inheritance?

for people with above average (but not super high) salaries, you need some luck with investments.

here's how my wife and i did it (we are mid-30s):

SGD 800K in cash and cpf savings over 11+ years of working (this is probably quite achievable for most graduate couples with consistent promotion and increments). i tried to save as much as possible during my earlier working days

SGD 850K realized profit from property investment between 2004 and 2007 (dumped all our cash into property in 2004 with quite a bit of leverage, and selling high in 2007 when prices more than doubled)

SGD 500K realized profit from property investment between 2009 and 2011 (bought and sold 2 condos when the property market started recovering after mid-2009)

right now we own 1 property for own stay, with about 750K in cash on standy for the next crash

1.8m mostly from property investments.
just profited 1m nett from a landed sale and 300k on a CBD condo sale.
i am an engineer with income close to 100k annually
stable job and stable pay will not get you far.
Make the right property call and you will see your returns.
property prices r toppish and i have cashed out my investment properties.
1.8m+400k cpf waiting for the market to crash.

cheers.

[QUOTE=citizen;21587]1.8m mostly from property investments.
just profited 1m nett from a landed sale and 300k on a CBD condo sale.
i am an engineer with income close to 100k annually
stable job and stable pay will not get you far.
Make the right property call and you will see your returns.
property prices r toppish and i have cashed out my investment properties.
1.8m cash+400k cpf waiting for the market to crash.

cheers

thanks for sharing. besides the 1m and 300K profit from property, how did you accumulate the rest? it's still a lot relative to your age and income.

i profited from previous property transactions, job bonuses and stock options

37
Cash 1m
Cpf 250k
Watches 50k
Car 0.15 m ( fully paid)

House 2.25m
Less loan 1.4m
Net 850k
Total worth 2m

Bulk of funds from property profits and unrealized value (est 700k) and salary 400kpa

well, you're definitely not the worst.

I'm male, Single, 28, in IT line, doubt I can afford to marry.

Cash: 5k
CPF: Don't mention
No loans,car,house. earning 42k/annum gross income.

Get into pre-sales, then sales. No point competing with apnn. They completely dominate the low end programming jobs and the high end banking technology and operations jobs.