How much savings do you have?

My profile is something like you except my wife is a housewife.
Also work in banking industry total compensation is 400k as head of risk management, lives in hdb too, owns two condo studio unit bought in 2010 currently rented out, currently in +ve carry. Takes mrt to work but owns a 2009 edition toyota wish for my wife to fetch kids. 200k savings every year
I am in process of investing a london apartment with 50% downpayment.
Expenditure to go up once my kids go uni in 10 years time, but expecting the condos will be fully paid to fund their education

Originally Posted by Unregistered

everything in my last posting is true.

My HDB is in Bishan, bought in year 2000 for around $4xxK, resale. At the time my wife and I have started work for only 2 years and had to borrow $20K from our parents for the down payment. Combined salary then was slightly lower than $8k which was the cap.

Through aggressive savings along the way, and fortunate to be both working in the financial sector and with salary increases, got to where we are. Every cent earned was blood and tears.

Having said that, we don't think of ourselves as "real" millionaires, we take the mrt to work (car is red-plated, only drive on weekends), go to neighbouring countries for holiday, eat at foodcourt / hawker centre, etc. We are just your normal HDB heartlanders who want to earn a decent living and hope for a better life for the next generation.

We do count ourselves fortunate to be in a fairly comfortable financial position, and take effort to give back through donations and other means (but not to the extent of selling my flat and donating the whole sum).

A lot of what we achieved it through the lessons thought in the book, The Millionaire Next Door, where we strive to be frugal but not miserly.

It's up to readers here whether they choose to believe what I said. If you think our situation is good, I can tell you there are many financial services folks who earn much more than me and are equally (or more) nondescript.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My profile is something like you except my wife is a housewife.
Also work in banking industry total compensation is 400k as head of risk management, lives in hdb too, owns two condo studio unit bought in 2010 currently rented out, currently in +ve carry. Takes mrt to work but owns a 2009 edition toyota wish for my wife to fetch kids. 200k savings every year
I am in process of investing a london apartment with 50% downpayment.
Expenditure to go up once my kids go uni in 10 years time, but expecting the condos will be fully paid to fund their education

Hi, I used to be like you, working in high finance, but in FO. I also stayed in a HDB flat, in fact our first flat and still living in it. After years of big salary and bonuses, I managed to clear my HDB mortgage loan and accumulated a sizable amount of savings. I am now retired and earning passive income from my investments. I have also set aside enough for my kids' university education, if they don't get scholarships. I'm now 50, how old are you?

It's actually quite amazing for you to save $200k when you have total comp of $400k as a sole breadwinner. Our past savings is around $250-300K but off a higher base ($740K) so I must say you are very disciplined. Keep it up!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My profile is something like you except my wife is a housewife.
Also work in banking industry total compensation is 400k as head of risk management, lives in hdb too, owns two condo studio unit bought in 2010 currently rented out, currently in +ve carry. Takes mrt to work but owns a 2009 edition toyota wish for my wife to fetch kids. 200k savings every year
I am in process of investing a london apartment with 50% downpayment.
Expenditure to go up once my kids go uni in 10 years time, but expecting the condos will be fully paid to fund their education

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi, I used to be like you, working in high finance, but in FO. I also stayed in a HDB flat, in fact our first flat and still living in it. After years of big salary and bonuses, I managed to clear my HDB mortgage loan and accumulated a sizable amount of savings. I am now retired and earning passive income from my investments. I have also set aside enough for my kids' university education, if they don't get scholarships. I'm now 50, how old are you?

I am 42, hoping to ride on this current wave of increased regulations/sanctions/risk in banking to survive in my role for another 8 years or so before office politics, political struggle or organisation reorg put me to redundancy hopefully with a golden handshake

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It's actually quite amazing for you to save $200k when you have total comp of $400k as a sole breadwinner. Our past savings is around $250-300K but off a higher base ($740K) so I must say you are very disciplined. Keep it up!

Yes it takes alot of discipline and delayed gratification.
50k will go to paying income tax, 10k for other insurance, left 140k to feed 3 kids, 1 wife and a domestic helper

50K to pay income tax seems like a lot given you have 3 kids and will be eligible for child reliefs and other reliefs. 10k for insurance seems reasonable, 12k a month for household expenses also is reasonable. What about mortgage instalments? You have fully paid up your residence and investment properties?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Yes it takes alot of discipline and delayed gratification.
50k will go to paying income tax, 10k for other insurance, left 140k to feed 3 kids, 1 wife and a domestic helper

As a low income family, we do not save much. We stay in a small flat and take public transport. We can only save $10,000 per year. How can we survive? Can any clever people here advise us?

Can you tell us more about your situation like is yours a young family? How many people in your household, your income versus your expenses? Are you the sole bread winner?

$10k pa savings is quite commendable if your income is low and you have a big family. And it is also quite typical for young family just starting out to either not save anything or just a small amount each year.

I recalled the first few years after we were married, we couldn't save much because our salaries were low and we had housing loan to pay. It was like that for nearly 10 years of our married life because although our salaries went up, we had car loans and then the babies came along.

As our family matured, our savings then grew - from $0 pa to $10k pa, to $50k pa etc...

So if yours is a young family, be patient, the situation will get better. It also helps (a lot) if both husband and wife work. For many years we were able to depend on just one salary, that means that we were saving the salary of the other person yearly. Now we can save much more as the loans got paid off.

With higher savings we also dared invest in shares which gave us additional income through dividends

Originally Posted by Unregistered

As a low income family, we do not save much. We stay in a small flat and take public transport. We can only save $10,000 per year. How can we survive? Can any clever people here advise us?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

As a low income family, we do not save much. We stay in a small flat and take public transport. We can only save $10,000 per year. How can we survive? Can any clever people here advise us?

Low income refers to people who can barely make ends meet, by being able to save $10K a year you are already luckier than most people.

Even though $10K a year is not a huge amount but if you invest in government-linked companies i.e. stock market (singtel, singpost, sph, sembcorp), 4-6% return each year is very realistic, just don't be greedy and gamble in penny stocks, those are for experienced traders who can afford to lose.

And never keep all your money in the bank or in fixed deposit, set aside an emergency amount and invest the rest.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

As a low income family, we do not save much. We stay in a small flat and take public transport. We can only save $10,000 per year. How can we survive? Can any clever people here advise us?

I understand how you feel. We are in the same predicament. My wife and I earn a combined income of $150k pa. We have a $1m condo mortgage, car loan, car maintenance, road tax, petrol costs, personal loans, household expenses, holidays expenses, children's tuition fees, piano and ballet lessons fees, etc. After deducting all these, we can only save $10k pa. Life is tough. We just persevere.