Sometimes I wonder how much can a person save?
Fresh grad with a normal degree tyically gets about $2200 a month.
And let's do simple math to see how much can be saved off this amount:
1. Food ( based on 2 meals a day, assuming dinner is at home ) - $5 x 2 = $10 x 22 days = $220.
2. Transportation ( Assuming MRT and occassional Taxi rides ) - [$3 x 30] + [$10 x 5 (taxi) ] = $140.
3. Shopping ( new clothings, jeans, magazines, gadgets ) - $200.
4. Bills ( Handphone, Internet, Cable TV etc ) - $250.
5. Insurance - $100
6. CPF - $440
7. Allowance to parents - $200
8. Entertainments ( kaorake, movies, clubbing etc ) - $300
9. Misc ( 4D, charity, titbits ) - $50
So after doing simple sums, that person will only be left with $300 take-home pay ( after CFP deduction ). And so potentially $4600 = [ $300 x 12 ] + [$1000 AWS ) can be saved in a year assuming that person save about 1K off this AWS. That person will have about $25000 on his bank account if he diligently save the same amount every passing year including yearly increments.
lets presume that person ( guy ) was already 22 years old when he started work with $2200 as monthly salary, five year later he would have $25K as saving. Should he get married and own a house, renovation and furnitures would definitely wipe his saving clean not mentioning about the amount of money he needs to come out for the wedding dinners and honeymoon.
Morale of the story is that one would defnitely need to be financially educated at a young age so that he would know how to invest those saving of his and turn those $25K saving into at least $50 - 100K. And many people have proven that it can be done with proper guidance and prudence on investment bonds and securities/stocks.
SGMale is amazed at how money can work hard for us even while we are sleeping given a proper investment portfolio, proper training and guidance.
Work smart, don't work hard!
-SGMale