I am worried about my future
 

I am 27 years old, currently working for 3.5 years and my salary is 3k (I know it is considered low). Just completed my part time degree in Mechanical Engineering (non-local), 2nd upper. Engaged but currently still living with parents and doesn’t own a car; cash 25k.

Reading through this forum I realized that I am probably one of the poorest man in Singapore and I think it will be a really tough time for me to fork out the money for my wedding and hdb in the near future (in 1-2 yrs time).

I hope the experts and experienced people here able to give me some advice of what I can do to improve this situation. Investment? :confused:

When you read the posts about wealth and incomes, they are based on their present situation. Many are sharing about their wealth or income when they think they have achieved something.

I am sure many of them started off from a low (or even zero) base just like you. This was the case for me. Whatever I saved from my NS allowances were all used up to pay for my uni fees. In fact I had to give tuition all the 4 years of uni to help top up for the fees and for daily expenses. At my graduation, I had less $100 in my POSB. Well that was 30 years ago!

When my cohort joined the workforce 30 years ago, our pay was $1800 pm for those with good honours. I couldn't even qualify to apply for a credit card then, not to mention buying car or a house. But slog on we did. For myself I continued to upgrade myself while working. I now have 2 masters degrees while some of my brainier classmates obtained their PhDs.

The low salaries also did not stop any of us from having girlfriends, falling in love and eventually getting married, settling down and having children. Yes, HDBs were a lot cheaper then, but they were spartan and we had to spend $100k typically to do them up into presentable and liveable homes.

Fast forward to today, 30 years later, my older son has just started work, while my younger daughter is a sophomore in a local uni. Financially we are comfortable. We lived in a condo, have another for rental income, 2 cars and over $5m in networth. Our current household income is $550k (including $120k passive income).

Did I think all this was possible when I first graduated? No way. Did I have a vision and determination to achieve this? YES.

My advise to you is - continue to work hard, upgrade your skills, take on greater responsibilities at work (promotion and higher pay will follow). On the financial side - spend within your means, invest, and be patience with your investment. You have a lot of time on your side. Believe me, time is a precious commodity too. At my age, I frequently wish for more time to do the things I want to do. Each day I go off to work at 7:30am only to come back home around 8pm. With dinner, shower and other personal admin stuff, I have very little time left for my family and myself.

Thanks so much for your advice. I will work towards that goal too, ultimately i just want to support my family finanancially and provide them a decent life or retirement. My parents were in their 60s now and i am yet to able to let them enjoy retirement.

Thanks again! =)

honestly, i do not think 3k at 27 for a guy is low by any standards. it is at best average.

fresh uni male grads also get around 3k when enter the workforce at around this age. and remember most probably have little savings out of uni and a study loan to repay.

My 3k salary is before i got my degree. I asked my manager for a promotion/increment after but they say the company do not have such practice... So currently i am looking for opportunities

1. there are 2 main types of posters here. The successful one and the lying one. so, the forum paints a very skewed view of the working population.

2. live within ur means. if you can't afford a 4/5 rm, then go for 3 rm. Forget that car, dine out less, etc. u wont be able to afford a luxurious life with a 3k income, but u wont starve either.

3. continue to upgrade urself. take on / ask for more responsibilities even if your boss dont compensate u for it. dont work for the sake of working. Build a career.

I am 32 yo. I began my career 8 years ago at $2.6k per month, <$40k per annum. I know that was considered low too.

At present, I get >$8k per month, >$160k per annum. I know this is nothing to scream about - many others earn much more than I do - but I think it is decent and I am thankful.

I started with a low base salary, but put in my best nonetheless. My hard work quickly paid off. I was blessed with many superb and supportive bosses who were generous with their leadership, guidance, and recognition. The promotions came faster, and the annual increments and bonuses came to be of greater amounts, than I had ever anticipated in the early days of my career.

Even as my wages increased, I kept my expenses within reasonable limits and patiently grew my savings and investments. Over the past five years (since I began tracking my income and spending), I managed to save 75% of my annual take-home pay (excluding CPF). I currently save 80% of my annual take-home pay, have >$250k in stocks (earning >$1.2k in dividends on average each month), $200k in CPF, $45k in ILP, and own a condo ($1.2mn, with 40% paid off). I don't own a car, nor do I ever intend to. Again, while I know that all these pale in comparison with many others, I am also keenly aware that I have been very blessed.

Having said that, I think we (myself included) should caution against falling into the 'comparison trap'. What matters, I believe, is not so much where we began, what we have, or how we compare to the rest, but what we do next to make the best of that.

You are right. thanks for your advice.
i probably have to put more effort and work my way up

$25k probably cannot buy flat but can do cheap simple wedding, then live with parents first if ur future wife dun mind

for wedding, have fewer tables, do lunch instead of dinner, do buffet instead of set, do at restaurant instead of high class hotel, dun do wedding shoot, just go malaysia fot honeymoon, or better still do staycation in sg

You probably would be better off looking for a new job so you can bank on your new degree plus working experience to get a decent jump in salary.
Staying at the same job won't get you anywhere since its unlikely you'll get an increment or promotion just because you completed/got a new degree while in the job. Promotion or increment comes primarily from job performance, not paper qualification

This is what I think is what you can consider since I believe your objective is to quickly raise your income (and thus your savings) to get ready for marriage and buying your own home. Go send out the resume and you might be surprised :)

Best of luck!!

I'd delay the wedding if i were you. Probably not so smart to dump your entire savings into a dog and pony show. If she loves you she will understand. Wait till you're 30, at least..

Poorest? I know some jobless people your age.. they're in even deeper sh!t , so calm down and dont be too greedy.

relax man... work hard and plan well. Look ahead, speak to people who are just a couple of years ahead of you. Or up to 10years older than you. Where are they now, how did they do it? I honestly wouldn't take too much of a guidance from people who are of a different generation - our parent's generation. Simply because they had one of the best years to grow up in Singapore.

During their time, incomes grew tremendously and most most importantly housing values increased significantly. HDB x10, landed houes x30 to 50. I know for sure cause my dad bought his bungalow STRAIGHT OFF out of uni in a govn job. The value of that house is now worth 40x.

So basically alot of the previous generation's wealth was built on tremendous property price appreciation. Mostly because Singapore has done well as a whole. Will we see the 10x property price appreciation. Unlikely no, I can't even imagine my present HDB appreciating x2, because our incomes are clearly not increasing as much to compensate for such increase in property values.

So basically, model yourself after people who are at most in their early 40s. They would give a better perspective on how they built their wealth.

Basically, our generation has it harder but it's still doable.
1. Plan your career well. Known what industry/job you are aiming for
2. Save as much as you can. Invest your spare amount in good investment with lower and regular returns. Don't need to go for the fast and high returns
3. Marry the right woman, if you want to get married soon, just do a simple wedding with dinner in a nice restaurant with good food. Don't spend too much on hotel banquet expenses. But this will be hard to convince your wife and your parent's in law.
4. Don't buy car if you can afford to for now. You can get a decent car in future when you and your wife have higher combined income of 10k.
5. Buy HDB BTO flats. Now got additional housing grants to take advantage of. Also fiance and fiancee scheme i believe just need to do downpayment of 10%.

Being from the "older" (pre-'65) generation, I beg to differ on your assertions that our generation had it easier.

However there is one big factor which I thought was important. And that is, in our time, only 5-10% of each cohort was a graduate. This meant that graduates were sought after and we were able to earn relatively better wages than non-grads, and had more promotional opportunities. Today, I think up to 40% of each cohort are graduates! Job opportunities are not as great and wages are suppressed by available foreign talents.

Other than that, there are "old timers" (and there are many of them) who are struggling now as they near retirement! They didnt have the best years as you may think.

When i made that statement, i do not mean any disrespect to you guys. Your generation had it good not just if you were in Singapore, but it was the case in almost all developed countries or developing-developed countries.

One key difference for your generation was education. Education made all the difference between a good life and mediocre life. And that's why many people from your generation value education and force their kids (our generation) to study well, believing it made all the difference. Well we all know now that it only makes abit of difference. As you rightly put, everyone has education now, many are uni grads. So the key difference now in our generation is connections, family background. This unfortunately is nothing something one can just work hard for. It's either you have it or not.

One key wealth building method which your generation could do is use the house appreciation value to draw equity loans against it and buy more properties. These was very much more possible during the years before ABSD or SSD or property loan curbs existed. Those who did it well can have 3-4 properties under their name fully paid up and now enjoying the fruits of their labor.

I'm not complaining or what. I'm just stating the differences. TS has a very valid reason to be worried as his children and my children will have it EVEN tougher in future. But then, how do we deal with this then? I believe it's about CONTENTMENT. Being contented with little and working hard and being happy with not much. Materialism affects the poor just as much as it affects the poor. It's definitely a much harder ladder to financial freedom to climb than our parents generation but we can only look forward.

Yes certainly, if we compare to the previous generation, those who bough properties in the past, we will definitely lose out (by a lot)

But this is a fact that we cannot change, what we can do is to save and earn as much as possible without giving up certain level of comfort.

I have some problem as well, especially on housing issue. I am 27 as well, just started work last year and I also prepare to get married before 30 years old. On top of that, I have some limitation which deters me from purchasing HDB but only left me a choice to purchase condo.

Not sure whether I am able to achieve that but I have a set of plan and set a budget in google excel sheet to monitor my progress and my expected goal in achieving the goals that I have.

As some of the people mention, we cannot determine our success or failure at the beginning of the race, because we are just starting and there are unlimited opportunities ahead (be it good or bad, lies in our decision)

You make it sound like all in the older generation are wealthy and own multiple properties. This cannot be further from the truth!

I think at most, less than 1% of the older generation can be considered wealthy with networth exceeding $2M (including their homes)? You can see around you especially in HDB void decks many retirees sitting idly and many uncles and aunties still working at low level jobs in their lates 60s. These people dont have much savings!

Those who became wealthy through property investments took great risk! No one knows how the market would turn out. The poster who said the father bought a bungalow which grew multifold in value could have gone sour had the government acquired the land for MRT line for example or gone bankrupt had the economy turned south and he could not keep up with the loan repayment.

This, by the way, happened to many hapless property investors in 1997/98, 2008/09 financial crisis. They had to sell at great loss or were made bankrupt.

Those who really made good are the educated ones who had stable jobs, hold senior positions and good incomes (eg $200K - $500k pa) and invested well. These are the people who had holding power and even accumulate more investments during poor economic climate. But like in every generation, there are not many of such people. Then there are the power couples - where both husband and wife are high flyers. Imagine if each earns $200k to $500k pa, then their combined income is anything from $400k to $1m pa.

We are not a power couple, but suffice to say that our annual savings exceed $300k. So can you imagine what the power couples could be saving!

I didnt say all, but those who have property like HDB, condos, landed and etc. This is certainly true, if u look at the valuation. However, along the way with their children or unexpected spending or as you say economy crisis, some has lost their property and money for retirement. Which is why we can see older folks continue to work despite their old age.

But u cannot deny the fact that 30 years, 40 years ago the price of a HDB is around few thousand dollars, and now, it become more than few hundred thousand. But this kind of growth will hardly been seen in the current generation.

saving 300k per year is really really a lot. You are belong to the high tier income earner. Not many people can earn 8k per month, not to say over 10K per month. I certainly can image those power savers. But your illustration of your personal example cannot be applied to most people in Singapore.

I am 30 this year, earning $3.8k in a engineering firm. Reading the posts in this forum makes me feel like the lowest strata of the society. Seems like every other person here is earning $100K & above, with many income range in the $200K-$300K bracket! i used to thought only doctors & lawyers can earn this level of income... but seems like many are professionals & positions can reap this level of payoffs too

You will likely regret if you stay as an engineer all your life. If you are an engineer, you will definitely still be working and reporting to a much younger boss even until you're are a 55 years old man. You will not have enough to retire. If you are a high flyer in finance, or a top doctor or top lawyer, you can retire or semi retire in your 40s. I know of such high flyers who are enjoying the relaxed retired good life in their late 40s. They are definitely not engineers working in an engineering firm.

I am in my early 30s, earning 3.5K in a IT mnc. Any advise on how to make the first leap towards a higher income? I'm not very ambitious, would be very happy if my salary level can reach 5-6K per mth.
Any specific advice would be greatly appreciated. The previous posts are usually quite general, like I'm earning 10k per mth or I have a networth of 2 million. How do people usually achieve their first milestone, in terms of financial success?

I have also worked for around 3+ years but mostly on service sector. At 27 with a degree in business, I currently took a little pay cut to work as a marketer earning 2.3k. I have applied like close to 200 job advertisements but doesn't seems to get an interview chance while my friend who has less experience landed a manager job while he has not receive his degree cert yet.

Is it because your degree is private and the organisation does not recognise it?

There are a lot of people earning $100k, and a sizeable number earning more than $200k/300k. But a lot or sizeable does not mean most people. At least you have age on your side.

how did u manage to get 200K in CPF?

reno cost for the properties play a part in your ROI as well. so do up your house wisely with the funds you have. interior design singapore @ Homewerg

Interior Design Singapore

Don't worry bro.

look at me first. 30 years old

I was played around like a rag dog and humiliated in my first job after nus.
bullied and trashed out of the company due to company politics. I slipped into depression soon after. I didn't manage to come out of it, and matters got worst and worst. i begin to look down on myself and berate myself for letting my generation down. i even laugh at myself sometimes outside, some people immediately "siam" me for fear i am a mad person.

I have been swinging in and out of depression for the past 2 years, savings gone.
i lost a further 2 jobs, both contract roles, but i FARKED it up, shouted at my superior and refuse to cooperate due to my depression.

I feel I am worthless.

My whole family is broken, my father strayed outside. my mother is very weak due to frequent anger. I am myself depressed staying at home for the past 1 year.

Only 2 family members are doing okay. my sister and brother
My sister is still studying, she should be considered fine.
My brother is a banker in a top us bank, making more than 60k per year. he is considered fine.

I was earning the same at your age, with only a degree(part time). Now at late 30, earning around 150k PA, switched jobs few times since then, every job gained new skill, knowledge and experience. I am never a good performer at any company.

Young man, don't worry, work hard and do your best, learn as much you can, look for company who need people with multiple skills and relevant experiences.

Wedding dinner is BS. Make it simple, not all your guests willing to pay big red packet.

i think in life, most important is willing to work hard and learn, have the right attitude..there is no limit to the amount/salary you can earn....

i feel you are not those who cannot take stress and want an easy life but still crave for those $5k and above salaries...seen so many such in company...pretty useless...

bad economy now, so not easy to get job

totally agree, I also havent found any job since graduated this month. some of my uni friends found their jobs before graduated (they have at least second upper), the rest of us are still fighting for going interview as our results sucks (last class/pass degree).

The world is so unfair.

Just be prudent and plan wisely. Continue to work hard. I am 28 years old with masters degree. Earning 4K plus. With bonus will be 6K plus. Nothing to shout at but I am happy.

Everyone have their own life. Wedding itself I think of it as celebration but remember not to spend too much which cause you in debt. You must manage it with your fiancée so that you won't exceed your Budget. Once you got your Budget out and plan out well, celebrate with a carefree attitude.

I would suggest you jump ship because based on your qualification you can get a better annual package, however there is always a risk in every jump which is the uncertainty of what's coming up next, the environment, the staff and etc.

I am around your age, this year 28. I am happy with my salary and also I try to earn some passive income like bank interest (ard $150 per month) and dividends (ard $20 per month). So there are many ways you can boost your income, like some rent out properties or investment in shares to get dividends and etc. So do not stress yourself too much

I remember getting married at 32, when our combined income was 4.7 k, or 2.35 k per person.

It was tough, yes.

Now, 11 years later, our combined income is 18.8 k or 9.4k per person.

So, don't fret.

What happened in the 11 years? We both made sure we were learning as much in our jobs as possible, such that we picked up skills and were of value. My wife did it by staying with the same company. I did it by changing companies a couple of times - but each time it was for more responsibilities, which can happen only if you try and learn and do more than what your current job demands. Build your reputation and the jobs will come to you.

Cheers.

I was earning close to 4K per month (including bonus) at age 28. 4 years down the road, my monthly salary is close to 9.4k (including bonus). In between, made a few job change which brings me to management level. Married early at age 28 and wonder does marriage brings me luck? :)

Indeed marriage brings luck to some while others are cursed by their wives...literally and not literally..i've seen close friends, after married, every meal and every expenditure needs to be accounted for to the wife, which brings me to wonder why they get married in the first place...living a life like never lived before..

Marriage and finance are unavoidably intertwined. No matter how deep the love is, the foundation must be strong. And one of the cornerstones of a strong foundation of a good marriage is money - like it or not.

The ROM reported that a large of percentage of divorces in Singapore was due to financial issues, mostly the lack of money.

Building up your family finances early in married life is key to having a blissful life later in your marriage when the "love" element has lost its magic or is not as strong.

My wife and I have been married for close to 30 years and thankfully money has never been a worry for us except in 1998. It was the Asian financial crisis and we had just upgraded to a condo and taken on a huge loan as well as emptied our CPF money into the home. It was stressful times where we were worried about jobs and deciding on the schools for our young children. There were quarrels but we held on and now 18 years later, our children have started work, our loans all paid up and things are looking up for us. We are still working although we could retire and just live off our passive income.

If the wife is concerned about money, assure her. She needs financial security for herself and her children. I would rather have such a wife than one who is a spendthrift! You may not realize this, but once you are able to show/convince your wife that you can take of her and the family financially, she will be more relaxed and loving.

Thanks for sharing this. I do agree, especially the last paragraph.

Why would you think this is unfair?

Your friends have good grades which is an indication of diligence or capability. Employers naturally feel more assured that they will perform if they are hired. May not be realized in future, but there is a higher chance.

You have lousy grades, that's why you have to fight for interviews to convince employers you have other redeeming qualities other than grades.

If you feel this is unfair, then you are getting off on the wrong foot in life. There will many many more things later in life that you will feel unfair about. Why is my colleague getting more than me? Why am I not getting my promotion? Why do I have end up with the girl next door? Why am I not striking Toto even after soending so much?

Sorry to tell u but u are supposedly old enough to know that the world will never be fair.