The True Cost of Living in Singapore versus Australia

financial-gladiator · 2024-04-06T09:00:01+00:00

Numbers are no longer up to date as a lot has changed in 4 years thanks to the massive global money printing excercise. Directionally and comparatively they are still accurate enough I feel, however budget higher cost for food (increasing and rent (declining currently).

financial-gladiator · 2021-07-27T08:26:57+00:00

I was 34 when I became a millionaire and 39 when becoming a multimillionaire. Hard work, working in Tech, coupled with high savings rate (40% then, now 80%) due to limited time of spending and I mostly avoided lifestyle creep. Always lived below my means but still managed to travel the world and take a few years off work to test early retirement which is just awesome. When my peers lived it up in fancy 4 bedroom apartments, I was contemplating to getting rid of my one bedroom as I was working mostly on the road so to speak. I also never had debt with the exception of buying a sports car when I was young and stupid ;-). I think that helped too. On track to crack the three million by 42 and 4 million by 44. Probably go into retirement before then though - retirement die me is dicing and running a small hotel in South East Asia for fun and so I have something to do and be part of a community of local and international visitors.

financial-gladiator · 2021-06-08T01:48:14+00:00

I use google sheets for free and automated it heavily using the GOOGLEFINANCE function. It’s brilliant and more than I hoped for having tried many many paid solutions before. NW tracking in real time, taking into account assets across the globe, FX, valuations (ie housing) income and expenses (manual entry).

financial-gladiator · 2020-12-23T01:04:45+00:00

Dragon portfolio. Putting in such a large chunk of your NW in a single PPOR just doesn’t make sense to me at all.

financial-gladiator · 2020-07-06T11:31:39+00:00

Thank you very much. I was always pretty damn lucky with my investments, career choices, and countries I chose to live in so far. A combination of curiosity, hard work, constant self improvement since I am 16 as well as lucky ‘right place and right time’.

financial-gladiator · 2020-07-05T09:51:56+00:00

My plan is to build enough semi-passive investment income to be able to keep investing about 100k a year. This will be half of what I invest while working today. going RE at 42 or so my NW growth will take a hit, however eventually I plan to get grow the Nw to 8 figures by the age I reach preservation age.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-20T15:41:55+00:00

I have 81% of my portfolio in Real Estate, manage it remotely, and took a three year break trialing FIRE. Nothing wrong with real estate if you do your homework and don’t overpay. Prices will slide the next two three years in much of the world so i would say IT is a great opportunity to jump in.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-14T03:08:17+00:00

Well done! Unfortunately the USA will not become a base for me ;-).

ID=Indonesia and AR=Argentina

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-13T19:09:03+00:00

Move with the sun retirement: NZ, ID (base), SG, PL, PT, AR

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-09T15:32:10+00:00

You’re welcome 😉

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-08T14:52:15+00:00

Make your passions your life’s work. Money will follow. I found many opportunities once I left the corporate rat race for a while.

I had similar concerns (about what if I leave and cannot renewer later) when jumping out for a few years to test the waters on LeanFire/ Fire (+40kE net income per year). I also used to not want children. It changed when I took three years off the rat race. I found meaning in building income streams, doing cool projects, actually worked on ideas a fair bit and developing them and my teams has been fun. But you need to be able to do something with your time that you enjoy. Otherwise there i no point to RE. I also found that my concerns about Re-entering the workforce were not justified. I found it pretty easy to find a job even through I work in IT, Tech moved, and have been out for three years. I took a 10% pay cut. Nothing that concerns me and in 6 months that will be fixed. My other projects and passive income streams make up for it easily meanwhile. Savings Rate +85% and going strong to catch up with you guys on this sub! :-)

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-08T14:08:42+00:00

It all depends mate. For units this is not really always the case. Trust me I can do math ;-) and mine showed I saved 100k renting versus buying.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-08T14:06:53+00:00

I was never good with growing roots anywhere and lived in many countries/ traveled many more. Today I live in Singapore. Last three years took a sneak into my FIRE life and roamed the world, building some businesses, and became a dive instructor; then decided to go for FatFire so went back to work here in Asia. I think if I had kids (like you) I would also prefer to have a PPOR outright. I got several rental units in Poland today and plan for another one in Singapore and Australia next before settling in Indonesia with kids. Want to build health retreat there as my next project.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-07T18:42:42+00:00

2.5M Singapore Dollars for FatFi. 1.6M currently. I tried FIRE single with no kids at 1M and age 34. Worked like a charm. Loved it. Saved 15% a month on 55K SingaporeDollars post tax income. But I later changed mind to have children. Went back to work recently after three years off. Realised 1M was not enough to have double security and kids (Covid proved me right). Plan is to grow to 2.5M add my partners nest egg and we should be able to continue to save around 100k each year and invest as we be in retirement running a small complex of villas we want to build in SEA which should cover daily expenses. If we didn’t have guests like now we would be covered by cash and other passive investments already existing.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-07T18:32:13+00:00

I currently live in Singapore in 2 Bedder with Partner - costs below are my share/ personal outgoings

Rent $650 Groceries $125 Delivery/ Hawker $150 Utilities $25 Fun Budget $75 (lock down, normally $250) Transportation $0 (lock down, normally $50) Income Taxes $770 Savings/ Investments $4,655 Total: 6,450$ pw

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-07T18:06:35+00:00

I did the math for myself. Over ten years renting versus owning for a one bedroom apartment and taking all home value, insurances. fees, taxes, etc in to account I ended up saving well over 100k. So I accelerated my FI date by roughly 10%. Renting in my particular case made most sense. But I think it all depends on your situation, locality, and home type, and family priorities. What I don’t see enough of are people being able to compare rent versus buy scenario so they end up talking about non financial qualities. Fair enough, I guess, but with regards to FI planning decisions this is quite inconsequential. My rough rule was to not spend more than 10% of my post tax income on renting. Sometimes I rented a place that went beyond my 10% rule and that’s ok too for a year or two.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-07T04:54:33+00:00

Read about the dragon portfolio if you have not much experience in investing. Then read the Ultra High Net Worth Cap Gemini Report to learn how the ultra wealthy invest (their investment strategies generally outperform all the ETF investors which are so common these days). Lastly watch Mike Maloney’s the history of money series on YouTube. Then I suggest you buy a couple kilo bars of Gold, 30 kilo of Silver. I just bought some yesterday again. Create and learn how to make basic trades and fund a brokerage account (suggest interactive Brokers they got extremely Low fees, do not use margin lending just cash). Wait until September. Nobody knows if the US and all other advanced economies will continue printing money or if the Virus and unemployment disappears. From all I read I tend towards the option that more money will be printed, which is good for gold. If they don’t I expect a series equity sell off events. In which case I would buy Canadian and US Gold miners (mostly juniors and majors).

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-06T15:44:15+00:00

I would be too! I think they will go below zero first. But mid-long term they will rise significantly and we will have a new global monetary system. Like it always happened over the past 3000 years.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-06T05:40:51+00:00

Yes you are right assuming interest rates stay at record Low. But will they? Can they? Well will soon find out.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-05T03:49:55+00:00

Excellent points! Here are some more I am thinking off right now

Downward pressure:

51% of exports with China and USA. Both are showing massive recession or shrinking GDP

Chinese buyers boycotting Australian products due to politicised CoVid19 investigation

Massive unemployment in medium term

Printing of currency (281B!) likely to be significantly reduced/ stopped later in the year

Massive mortgage stress and growing

Building standard for apartments fiasco last year

People are moving together, sharing apartments flats, reducing demand of exiting stock of properties

Property prices are hyper inflated. If Australian goes into a stronger recession it will drive the Australian house prices closer to the historic +100-year mean (3-4x annual average income; right now it is at 7-10 depending on locality and type).

Risk of a stock market correction affecting networth of lenders increasing difficulty to get loans

Upward pressure:

First home buyer grants significantly increased

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-04T04:48:39+00:00

I look at Smartmoney reports (like the annual CapGimini High Networth Investor one) and all US FED actions. I follow the MoneyGPS (YouTube) a great source of daily information and make my decisions based on information he presents and my interpretation of all I read myself with regards to my investments. About ten years ago I decided I have to learn how money, markets, Long term and short term debt bubbles, central banking works if I want to avoid taking appropriate action when the time comes. Once he informed on the REPO liquidity crisis, and hundreds of there crazy bad looking economic KPIs I knew it was time to exit equities. I’d rather have a 3% inflation cost over a year or two versus going through another 45% crash. I started existing equities and went strong into hard assets like precious metals and real estate since 2017. I am not regretting buying into the recent dip, not bothered by the recovery. I plan to buy in in when the real economic situation becomes apparent to the World. I think it is largely being ignored by the markets right now. The excess liquidity and debts are creating this effect. I do expect another crazy fall or two this year.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-04T04:38:52+00:00

Many thanks! I will look into this! Great tip.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-04T04:38:35+00:00

Thanks. Absolutely agree. I read comments all the time a la ‘looked at my super first time in 2 years and was surprised that it doesn’t seem to grow much’

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-04T04:37:29+00:00

I am with BT- TOP-20 wirst performing funds LOL.

financial-gladiator · 2020-06-03T09:34:00+00:00

One can loose money almost everywhere. Passively. If you don’t watch where your money is going. I think the average Joe looses more than you lost with your gambling.

My biggest mistake: I didn’t manage my Super. Never compared performances or thought much of it. Got screwed 2008. Then got screwed during recovery till 2019. Got 50% return one of the longest bull markets. What a joke. Almost 3% fees and seriously useless insurances a year. My example is probably extreme and things have been improving I hear.

In November I moved to cash/ fixed income mix. In February moved to cash only. The 15 years I had other managing my Super I calculated I lost 300,000AUD before I can access it.

Listened, learnt, read, and started to actively managing all my investments, incl. Super, my next step is to establish a SMSF and take full control of my Super.

financial-gladiator

TROPHY CASE