Your combined income is high, a lot higher than Spore's median household income. You must have graduated from a good Uni. Which one?

Why do you rent out your condo and live in a HDB flat? Is your rental income 3x the rent you are paying?

Combined income of $180k pa is high? It is higher than the median household income, but I would not say that $180k pa combined income is high.

If you divide it by 2, each is earning $90K pa. Assuming bonus of 2 months, the monthly pay works out to be $6k pm.

$6k pm for a 40 yr old is not that great.

Only counted included basic pay x 12, as bonus is, well, a bonus. So yup, not great at all for someone my age..
Which is why I seek other aves to make money, not just from work income.

Higher then median, but not high as someone kindly pointed out. Graduated from local uni.

Rental income is in fact > 3 X what I pay to rent the flat I live in.

If you have accumulated 5m by now, this means on average, you would have saved $167k per year, or $14k per month. I don't know how much you earn to achieve this level of savings, but I think it can be done if you are earning $20k to $25k per month consistently from graduation to now. $20k is a lot by today's standards, but it was even more by 1980s standard assuming you started working in the 80s. I can understand why people are sceptical to be honest. It is different if you are a businessman of course.

may i know how much of your $5.2m wealth is from investment returns? i read somewhere that an investment return of 10-11% per year (on average in the long run) is already considered very good.

using excel, i calculated that you would need to save $46k a year consistently and consistently achieve 11% per year in order to accumulate $5.2m after 25 years.

if a more modest return of 4% is assumed, you would need to save $125k a year.

When we retired at 55, my wife and I had saved a total of $2m in our CPF. We were both senior people in a Stat Board all our lives.

I have been reading some post of that seem to indicate that you can accumulate wealth of $3.5m by age 50 and it seems some younger people are questioning this.

I think the bigger question to those older and enjoying your retirement is - Can the young job entrant into Singapore still hold the same dreams to accumulate such wealth and what has changed since then and now ?

My own experience, it has become a lot more tougher these day. Why ? Let me state 5 points from my own view

1. There was clear investment and growth opportunities previously. Less so now.

I believe there were certain clear market and investment directions (eg Singapore property market, commodities boom , Singapore/Asia/China blue chip equities). These days, the market is so globalised that such opportunities for arbitrage is not easily found.

2. There was a lot of room for self improvement previously
In terms of education, looking at those above 50, you will find the %tage of those holding of degrees/tertiary eduation (around only 20%-35%) compared to fresh entrants to job market (60-70%) now.

Ideas like go to university and get a degree doesnt work anymore. We need more innovation and new breakthrough business ideas. And that seriously doesnt come from university books, course or self help books. (And those trading classes as well).

3. Cost of living has gone increasing higher compare salaries (though higher than before)

Singapore was 60 place is the most expensive city to live in 2000. Now we have an ongoing debate if we are the most expensive place to live in.
Jumping 60 places in 15 years shows how expensive things has become.
University grad/fresh job entrants take longer time to pay down their liabilities , home, and reach financial freedom.


4. Our expectation of a leader has changed
I think the pioneer generation selected a leader, and since it was about survival, expectations were also rather basic. Now leaders are selected to address not only our basic needs, but also to be "politically correct". The modern leaders does not tell and/or scold . They are "counselling" and democratic leaders.

Imagine if you are running a race . Previously, it was a do or die, and try to win a race. Now, your leader tells you to slow down so that others can catch up , or run together. In an extremely competitive game or environment, we need equally competitive team players to win.

5. The rich -poor gap divide is so obvious in land scarce Singapore
A key issue with being so land scarce is that the rich has to play in the same playground as the poor. This creates a hunger /desire in people to succeed in life.. but when they dont, it also creates a major depression block. In Singapore , most of us are employees as opposed to business owners. From that perspective, I can perfectly understand why we can be the most happiest people in the work yet the most unhappiest employees.

It is obvious that one cannot attain a net worth of $5.2m just based on savings from salary incomes, even after 30 years of continuous employment. I am referring to ordinary folks without the benefit of an inheritance. As you rightly pointed out, to reach there, one would have had to earn $20k - 25k per month consistently for that many years. That is not possible, as anyone just entering the job market cannot expect to earn that kind of salary.

So how did we do it? Looking back, our net worth of $5.2m came about from the four main sources (in order of contribution)

1. Property. No, no. We were not property investors. Here I am referring to the various homes that we progressively upgraded to. Like most everyone, we began with the HDB, then upgrading to a small private property and now a bigger condo. Each time we locked in considerable gains. For eg. Our current home was bought during the subprime crisis and it has since appreciated by $800k!

2. Savings. Our disciplined saving throughout our working life has laid the foundation for the growth in our net worth. In the initial years of our married life, our annual saving amount was laughable compared to what we are saving today, but saved we did. Then in our mid 30s, as we established our careers and family, the savings grew to a more respectable $50k annually. That was also the time we went into stock investments - we mainly bought blue chips regularly with the annual bonuses and have never sold. Now we are able to save $300k pa with the help of passive incomes.

3. Shares. As mentioned above, our journey into shares started with small but regular buys. We bought blue chips mainly both for their stability and dividends. We never sold. Like many other investors then, we benefitted from the many splits, bonus shares that were issued along the way. SIA, Semb Marine, ComfortDelgro, SPH etc.. all splitted, gave bonus shares and even one off substantial cash payouts! Of course along the way we have seen our share value mirrored the wild swings in economic cycles. The first major one we went through in 1997/8 was frightening, but after that, we are not as bothered. Partly because we believe the cycles are cycles, secondly, we have other sources of savings, our home is fully paid and passive income.

4. Passive income. At our last tally, we have the following passive income streams:
a. Dividends from share - $40k pa
b. interest from CPF - $30k pa
c. Rental income (gross) - $35k pa

39, 37
Combined employment income plus bonus for 2013 = 740k pa
Combined savings= $1.7m (and adding around $300K per year not counting the returns from investments)
CPF OA / MA / SA = $383,000
Live in a 5-room HDB (paid up, worth around $800K)
half-share in 2 condos (partner with relative) = equity stake around $700K
1 Japanese second-hand car (paid up)
Combined networth at end 2013 = $4.3m

Feels contented but still have young kids to support so can't stop working till at least 55 in my opinion.