Five Cents Ten Cents

Tweak. by digitalpimp

MM Lee’s comments about retirement has highlighted about the changing paradigm of retirement, in that it is increasingly becoming less of an automatic ritual upon reaching a pre-defined age and more of a lifestyle choice.

Traditionally, retirement is an age where one is able to stop working, collect a pension and to take time to smell the roses and to take care of grandchildren. My parents count themselves fortunate in that they were school teachers their entire careers and stayed in the pension scheme (and taking pay cuts in the last few years of their working life) even as it was slowly phased out by the CPF scheme.

However, the Civil Service has all but abolished the pension scheme except for a few select schemes e.g. Administrative service and some specialised services. Majority of public sector and statutory board employees are on the CPF scheme, as are virtually all the private sector and GLC or TLC organisations.

Thus, the concept of choosing not to work becomes one of income versus lifestyle needs than an age per se.

Continue reading Working Beyond Retirement Age in Singapore

This post is somewhat chilling and may literally scare some readers who may not be mature enough to read it. You have been warned Read on to learn more about thinking about your own TEOWAWKI…

Continue reading The End of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI)

The more I read about lifestyle design and think about how it applies to retirement, the more I realise that my paradigm on what constitutes retirement has fundamentally changed.

Previously, I used to think like what many of us did, that retirement was an age and it was not to work. But increasingly, my own research and reading of books such as Tim Ferriss’ “The Five Hour Workweek” and thinking about the day-to-day trends we see in Singapore has led me to re-evaluate what it means to retire when I advance another 20 years in life from today.

Continue reading Lifestyle Design and Retirement

Buckhead home from flickr by The Gifted Photographer

I just made a significant mortgage loan payment using my CPF ordinary account which currently stands at $0.15 as at today. My special and medisave accounts are reasonably funded as there’s not many avenues for me to tap on those funds nor would I want to as they are meant for retirement and medical needs in the future.

Looking back, my net-worth is at a relatively low stage compared to two years ago mainly because I have used my savings to top-up. My current new home is funded using proceeds from sale of my old home plus my CPF ordinary account and cash savings accumulated since paying off my previous home’s mortgage.

Technically, my mortgage can be completely paid up today if I want to but I decided to keep some of it (below $100,000) and build up a stronger cash on hand position for more flexibility in investment decisions I may make in the short-term (next 2 years or so).

Continue reading Counting Your Net Assets and Making Your Life Count

Photo by Alan Cleaver

If you dig a little deeper into your own intrinsic motivations for being financially free, it has its roots in trying to be happy.

We live in Singapore Inc. which is a place that worships money. Money makes Singapore go round and we need it to put food on the table, to pay our bills and to sustain our lifestyles. Yet, more and more studies show that while money and happiness are correlated, our day-to-day satisfaction with life go beyond money if we have managed to meet our basic needs.

Continue reading Growing Happiness Using Money?