Whats your net worth

Hard to believe your numbers. Can share how you grow your cash to $1.18m? Your $150k pa income started at what age? You see, even if your mother feeds you and gives you pocket money, and you save every single cent of your pay, it will take 10 years of saving your full pay to achieve your net worth now.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I'm 35, male, no house, no car and thus no outstanding liabilities

Cash in bank: SGD1.18m
CPF-OA: SGD160k
CPF-SA: SGD63k

Annual salary: SGD150k

Living in 3 room HDB with mum... is this okay for my age?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hard to believe your numbers. Can share how you grow your cash to $1.18m? Your $150k pa income started at what age? You see, even if your mother feeds you and gives you pocket money, and you save every single cent of your pay, it will take 10 years of saving your full pay to achieve your net worth now.

What's there to be sceptical about? Maybe he's just liquidated his successful investments/assets like property? Maybe he inherited some cash? Won the lottery?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Yes and no. Once you reached it you will know what I mean.

Yes - if the money dropped from the sky (like striking TOTO) then yes, you will be smiling and feeling light headed, and generous. Yes, you will have this feeling with money coming your way that you dont have to work hard for.

No - if you worked hard (blood and sweat) for every cent, you will not be smiling. You will think to yourself, wah, this money I have, I nearly sold my soul, my health, my youth to get it. You will be very aware how hard it was to accumulate the wealth but how easy to lose it, and thus developed a little paranoia about losing it.

And if you built up this wealth throughout your life and now in your 50s, like myself, you will not feel rich because you dont always have the money in cash as they could be spread over the various commitments you made - your house, your car, your shares, your children's education fund etc.... Basically your lifestyle has been the same for many years, and you dont feel any different when your net worth grow to $4m or more.

For us, we will be thinking if we have $10m, we will go to bed smiling, but I think the $10m guy may not be smiling if he had built it up through his hard work.

What a sad state of affairs, that even $4M is not enough. In fact, if I have accummulated $4M through sheer hard work, I would probably be happier than if I have achieved it through striking lottery. Perhaps you will feel better if you can make the money work for you, i.e. put in income-generating assets so that the passive income generated can cover your expenses.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I'm 35, male, no house, no car and thus no outstanding liabilities

Cash in bank: SGD1.18m
CPF-OA: SGD160k
CPF-SA: SGD63k

Annual salary: SGD150k

Living in 3 room HDB with mum... is this okay for my age?

You should provide a better life for your mum.

My hard work for the past 20 years have paid off. I am now a millionaire. I am now able to devote my time in managing my stocks full time. I am now like a business man who work for myself. My income is sufficient to replace my previous work and the good thing is I am not a slave to some lousy back stabbing boss.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My hard work for the past 20 years have paid off. I am now a millionaire. I am now able to devote my time in managing my stocks full time. I am now like a business man who work for myself. My income is sufficient to replace my previous work and the good thing is I am not a slave to some lousy back stabbing boss.

So many people are quitting their full time job and go into full time trading. If everyone is making money regularly from trading, who is losing?

Good one.

As you rightly pointed out that it is a zero sum game, I guess the losers would be those that are still working their day jobs while trading on the side.

One my friends who went into full time day trading on his own lamented that unlike salary earned, the gains he made each day, week or month cannot be "saved" as he could lose it all in the next trades. There is just so much uncertainty.

So I scared already, only buy stocks for their dividends.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So many people are quitting their full time job and go into full time trading. If everyone is making money regularly from trading, who is losing?

Making a living from stocks require big capital. You can't just depend on trading gains, you could fall into the trap of taking too much risk in your trading so as to make up lost income from your previous salaried work. You should just look at dividend income to replace your lost salary. For instance, if you were making $100k pa, you must have a dividend stocks portfolio making up of global blue chips that give you 5% pa, so your investment capital for this must be $2m. You can then set up another fund for trading, say about $500k. This fund is more risky as you will be trading on it.

I sold my landed property and DOWNGRADED to a 3 bedroom condo and then set up my own investment fund worth $3m. The dividend stocks portfolio provide sufficient income for my family. My wife's salary is saved. We have no debt.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Good one.

As you rightly pointed out that it is a zero sum game, I guess the losers would be those that are still working their day jobs while trading on the side.

One my friends who went into full time day trading on his own lamented that unlike salary earned, the gains he made each day, week or month cannot be "saved" as he could lose it all in the next trades. There is just so much uncertainty.

So I scared already, only buy stocks for their dividends.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It's more than ok. How did you accumulate so much with a rather modest income?

Well, from investment in shares... Also working for 10 years already.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You should provide a better life for your mum.

Define better life?