SINGAPORE: A man wrote anonymously on a popular Facebook page about a “tiny achievement,” sharing that he has S$70,000 in liquid assets and S$130,000 in his three CPF accounts.
In the same post, however, he also wondered how others close to his age could accumulate much more funds.
In a post on the NUSWhispers Facebook page, the man explained that he is 30 years old and has been working for three years. He also wrote that his liquid assets are in cash, stocks, and others and that he has been saving diligently since he graduated.
Since the man has no one to share this achievement with, he decided to post about it on social media.
However glad he is of how far he has gotten in his savings, he added that the amount is “not much” compared to his peers who aim for “FIRE” or “Financial Independence Retire Early”.
The FIRE movement, which became popular among millennials in the 2010s, has inspired many to obtain as much wealth as early as possible so they can stop working and enjoy life while they’re still fairly young.
He added that some post author’s friends already have more than S$100,000 in liquid assets.
Nevertheless, he acknowledged that he is still happy that scrimping in the last few years “set me on track to somebody with average savings for my age group.”
However, he also wondered how people who are not much older than him can have so much more money saved up.
“I look at people aged 35yo+ with easily >300k liquid assets and always wonder how I am going to achieve if 3 years of being single saved only 70k,” he wrote.
Some Facebook users commenting on his post congratulated him on his achievements and encouraged him to focus on his goals and keep on going. One commenter reminded him that there’s no need to compare himself or his achievements with others.
Another helped the post author do the math and writing: “35 years old, probably worked for 10 years. 300k divided by 120 months is 2.5k monthly savings. Not impossible if one doesn’t anyhow spend.”
A Facebook user told him that he could also write to financial groups to get advice on how to grow his money. However, another commenter offered another perspective:
“What’s the point of hoarding all these cash/assets? Sure enough, we all need our emergency fund, but what’s next – hit the magical number 100k to be on par or ahead of your peers?
Money is just a number/piece of paper. It’s useless until you translate it into goods and services to enhance your life.” /TISG