Retirement: how much is enough?

[sgd]

3-4 room potential rental income that's true.

2 room is the minimum for yourself and partner or room mate. Also easier to clean and maintain assuming being elderly.

My grandmother before she retired she taught mandarin at a popular girls school so she gave tuition for many years in her retirement also to keep herself busy and her mind active she earned maybe less than $500 a month giving private tuition lessons to only a small handful of students. That and a small amount of money inherited from my grandfather in a savings account spending only on the interest of a few hundred dollars earned each year. Other than that she had no cpf at all but also can get by. I never heard her say anything about cpf nor did we ever see any mail correspondence from cpf office.

She was very independent didn't want to inconvenience anyone so she lived by herself for almost 20 years in a 2 room HDB unit that is also more than enough for an elderly lady to clean and maintain by herself. She was hardly ever sick as she kept active and eating less. She was 88 years old when she passed on.

[kichialo]

how much for retirement?

actually a lot of things we don't really need other than a roof over your head, shirt on your back, food .. each meal how many dishes everyday can eat? Eat too much will get sian or get sick - gout, diabeties, high blood.

You see some of the poor malay families, 7 mouths to feed but household income 800 a month or less maybe with government subsidy all in under $1.3k also can get by, you see some of the aged already retired but no savings also can get by.

I think a 2 room unit with 300k will be enough, 500k will be more than enough but must have hospitalization insurance.


All this news about living longer is just the government bull trying to brainwash people so that they can make the case to justify holding back cpf longer by increasing the ceiling higher and higher.

Agree. Naturally humans are generally living longer because there hasn't been a global world war for 60 years. But lifestyle is getting more stressful, the food we eat getting less healthy, onset of diseases getting earlier.

[Contrarian]

> If i need 60k per year. i will need $x and dump all into shares of a few good companies giving
> inflation proof dividend of 7.5%. Not difficult to get such shares during a recession. $x = 60k/0.075
> = $800,000. After i die, if i have children, this 800,000 amount will be pass on to them or if not
> donated to charity.

1. I will give my HDB flat to my kids, hopefully it will enbloc as it will be too old to maintain.
2. And setup stock accounts for kids to fund their education expenses. Teach them investment knowledge
3. The savings now generating good dividend and capital gains. Hopefully find a few more SIA Engineering ...

[Jared Seah]

sgd,

If I can become like your grandmother and live till 88, I'll be very blessed indeed!

All I need for retirement is:

Can eat, can walk, can talk.
No pain, no sickness, no worries.
Mind still alert and lucid.

I think I am a bit greedy. OK, I'll give up sex at age 80?

Now who wants to live forever?

[sgd]

haha .. at 80 mind is willing but flesh could be weak by then but there is cialis ... so fear not

The recipe for long life from my observation is control of eating, too much rich food usually does not lead to long life.

for me I think live till nearly 70 enough already. Any older enjoyment and pleasure becomes meaningless and food also becomes tasteless

[Temperament]

Actually as one aged(65 onwards), one need less and less things of this world. You don't have to show you are well off or anything....., it really doesn't matter anymore. The only thing you have to think or worry about is when, where and how you are going to die. i wish i can die in my sleep like my youngest aunt and eldest brother. It doesn't matter at what age. i think how you are going to die the most important. The Chinese always say, " the woo ah ne ho see mei? Ai choo woo." i can only hope.
My mum just past away in the Changi Hospital(4 day stay) with a "little suffering" at the age of 93. She was unable to recognise most of her children anymore since last year. i think she just give up the will to live anymore.
Shalom.

[touzi]

Some of you might have caught this a couple of weeks back, when the Swedish PM suggested that people should consider working till 75 years old.
-----------------------

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt wants people to consider working until age 75 and employers to be open to hiring those over 55, he said in an interview Tuesday.
The conservative, who heads a centre-right coalition, said Sweden's generous welfare state and pension system would not be sustainable with an ageing population unless people worked longer.
In an interview with the Dagens Nyheter daily which sparked a strong reaction from labour unions, he said attitudes needed to change and employers needed to start viewing those over 50 differently.
"To hire someone who is 55 who says 'yes, I plan to work until I'm 75' -- that's 20 years, that's a very long and interesting employment relationship compared to a person who at that age plans to start winding down in five or six years," the prime minister said.
Sweden has a flexible retirement age, where workers can begin drawing on their pension at 61 or keep working until 67. Of Swedes over 65 years old, 7.8 percent were employed in 2010, says Statistics Sweden.
Reinfeldt was speaking on the eve of a Stockholm meeting with the leaders of Britain and the Nordic and Baltic countries on encouraging the elderly to stay in the workforce and women to start their own businesses.
Reinfeldt said that, with rising life expectancies, something has to give.
"If people think that we can live longer and shorten our working lives, then pensions are going to be lower. The question is, are people ready for that?," he asked.
Reinfeldt said people should be prepared to have a career change when their profession becomes too physically difficult or too stressful.
"The left wing believes that when your job gets too difficult, you should go off on early retirement or get some type of social benefits. But I think that when work gets too tough I should do something else," he said.
"We have to start asking ourselves, 'How are we going to do that? How do we change careers in the prime of our lives? And how do we make it possible to work until we're older, maybe even much older?'"
One option was to make it easier for older people to go back to school for job retraining.
Reinfeldt's comments prompted a slew of reactions on Tuesday, with the influential Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) arguing that it was not feasible for its members to work to age 75.
"It is totally impossible right now, the average retirement age today is around 64," LO economist Mats Morin told Dagens Nyheter's online site.
He added however that if working conditions improved, employees could stay healthier and work longer in future.

[wsreader]

quote :"...Actually as one aged(65 onwards), one need less and less things of this world...."

But somehow, the numbers worked out by financial planners are always a 6 digit figure. If the financial planners are correct, a lot of people cannot afford to retire.


Edited: KopiKat, yes I have meant to say 7 digit, it is my early sign of brain function deterioration. Did we met the same financial planners or what

[KopiKat]

quote :"...Actually as one aged(65 onwards), one need less and less things of this world...."

But somehow, the numbers worked out by financial planners are always a 6 digit figure. If the financial planners are correct, a lot of people cannot afford to retire.

The smallest 6-Digit figure is $100,000. So, ya, your financial planners are correct. Or do you mean 7-Digit figure? The ones I'd ever met uses $Mil like nobody business!

[Temperament]

quote :"...Actually as one aged(65 onwards), one need less and less things of this world...."

But somehow, the numbers worked out by financial planners are always a 6 digit figure. If the financial planners are correct, a lot of people cannot afford to retire.

The smallest 6-Digit figure is $100,000. So, ya, your financial planners are correct. Or do you mean 7-Digit figure? The ones I'd ever met uses $Mil like nobody business!

i think it doesn't really matter whether 6 or 7 digits. Of course the best is you don't have to lower your life style if you don't want to. i still mean after age 65 you should be easily satisfied with things of this world. And start thinking of next world if you are blessed to live till now. You may be a non-believer in the past. i know many of my comtemporary have gone much, much earlier.
Cheers! & Shalom!