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How much money does it take to be considered 'financially comfortable' in Singapore?

TLDR: Most Singaporean could retire before 40, living life 'comfortably' not luxuriously, however most of us do not retire early as we are always chasing after the next shiny things, the next better lifestyle. Is that worth it? Your life, your choice.
Story time
Being 'financially comfortable' looks differently for different people because of their lifestyle expectation. If you want to live the "high life", buying LV bags and champagne from $LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton(LVMHF.US)$; Flying $SIA(C6L.SG)$ first class to Europe every month. Then the financial burden will be way bigger than those who just want to get by. I grew up in a low income household so I do know that in Singapore, we can get by with a household of 3 with income of $1k a month, so long sh*t don't hit the fence.
To understand how each of us can be 'financially comfortable' what we need to do is to work out our budget, and with that we then can work backwards to understand how much money we need invested to achieve FIRE (Financially Independent, Retired Early). I will be working on what I think is a "good" lifestyle in my country of Singapore.
Running the numbers
With that I made a simple spreadsheet on the rough expenses needed for a family of 2, and it comes up to close to $2k a month or $1k a month per pax in expenses. This expenses should give us a fairly comfortable lifestyle, not luxurious but comfortable. The expenses can actually be lowered significantly too such as by renting using HDB's public housing scheme (only $50 a month) and such, but we won't be going there as we want to know how much do we need to live comfortably.
How much money does it take to be considered 'financially comfortable' in Singapore?
This spreadsheet helps us to calculate how much capital we need invested to ensure our passive income covers our monthly expenses. As well as how long do we have to work to get to FIRE.
The 2 biggest and most important expenses in most budget would be to have a roof over our head and food in our tummy. Most Singaporean would love to have a 4-room apartment and by buying one in a less central area would cost way lesser, mortgage is only $700 a month via the BTO route.
The next biggest expenses is food. The amazing thing about Singapore is that cheap cooked food is readily available within walking distance at coffeeshop like $Kimly(1D0.SG)$ or $Koufu(VL6.SG)$. At these location, you can have your fill with just $3-5 a day. If you like to cook, supermarkets such as $Sheng Siong(OV8.SG)$ are stocked with affordable food products.
Are we over-spending?
Operating Expenses (a.k.a. OpEx) of running the home is the next more expensive cost. While we can't run away from taxes and home insurance, we can reduce the cost of the rest. One such cost we could reduce is the telemetry cost (Home internet and mobile phone plan).
Like do you really need the 2GBPS broadband plan from $Singtel(Z74.SG)$? Most household will do fine with the 500MBPS plan from M1 that cost $29.90 a month.
Do you really need the $95 a month mobile plan from $StarHub(CC3.SG)$? Most of us can get by with the $10 a month plan from GOMO (by Singtel) or Giga (by Starhub) which gives you 20GB of data and 500 mins of call.
Owning a car in Singapore is kind of a status symbol. It is not a neccessity for most Singaporean. The cheapest car from $TOYOTA MOTOR CORP(TOYOF.US)$ cost $130k and the OpEx for driving cost about $1500 a month. Since Singapore's public transport system is world class, and our country so tiny, there is really no need for a car. If you really need a car to travel around, you can always use $Grab Holdings(GRAB.US)$ to travel around. Since we are "retired", we can just use the public transport to save money.
How much is needed to reach FIRE?
With the calculated monthly expenses of $2k for a family of 2, both of us just need $600k which is $300k per person invested in a safe Singapore index fund $FTSE Singapore Straits Time Index(.STI.SG)$, $STI ETF(ES3.SG)$ and we can be happily retired. This index although very much hated upon by financial influencer as its share price is always flat, but they forget that it gives us a 4% dividend rate.
Therefore, it is not really difficult for most Singaporean to reach FIRE, given that the median income is $4,680. In about 12 years, we can already clock $600k after deducting expenses, taxes and CPF (Singapore's mandatory retirement plan)*. So if we started working at the age of 22, we could retire at the age of 34, but most people in Singapore won't reach FIRE because they always want a better and better lifestyle. So the question is, "is the next shiny thing worth it?" Your life, your choice.
Note
*We can reduce the number of year to reach $600k, if we invest yearly instead of buying in only when we have $600k.
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  • MonkeyGee : you know why the hell we American's can retire early?  That because we spend have our time feeding uncle sam.  government scam is the highest in US.  Our property tax is  a salary,  than there is sales tax, tax on tax, income tax, car tax, gas tax, tolls tax and soon air tax.

  • MonkeyGee : and the government propaganda is that Singapore, japan, HK cost of living is higher than US.  That is not true for those who have been out of the country to see first hand.

  • MonkeyGee : I have been wanting to relocate to Singapore or Malaysia.  any recommendations on locations?

  • 101504731 : depends on your savings and any other income after u retired

  • doctorpot1OP MonkeyGee: Luckily in Singapore, the public transport system is great so we can do without the car hahaha undefinedundefined the car tax here is crazy too, it cost more than $100k just to own a car for 10years (not including the cost of the car). So that saves us a lot of money.

  • 101504731 : I'm a Singaporean but I choose to retire in Thailand

  • Teck Wang Pang PaPa : I like your story, you reminded me of my x colleague I enjoyed sitting with during lunch break.

  • doctorpot1OP MonkeyGee: For Singapore, the cost is quite pricey. Malaysia cost of living will be a lot cheaper, Indonesia too. It is like 3 to 5 times cheaper than Singapore. I have seen many retiring in Bali. I know of a youtuber Aquatic Ape who do remote work for a few hours a week, earning USD, and then enjoy his semi retired life.

  • doctorpot1OP 101504731: yea that's why need 600k in investment that pays dividends so that every month will get 2k payout. then when hit 65 still got CPF somemore hahahaha

  • doctorpot1OP 101504731: Nice undefined I heard they are giving a lot of perks to retire there now, like can own land there already.

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crawled out of poverty, working towards FIRE!! (financial independence, retired early)
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