SINGAPORE: A multi-millionaire running several businesses said that most Singaporeans are poor but trying to act rich.

In an anonymous post to popular confessions page SGWhispers, the man wrote, “Amongst my circle of friends, we secretly judge and laugh at the poor trying to act like one of us”.

He listed five ways he saw “peasants trying to fit in” with rich people like himself. One of the examples the man cited was food where “rich people don’t eat at atas restaurants. Basically if you earn less than $360k a year and are able to dine in the particular establishment, the real rich don’t dine there”. He added: “The poor spend $300 per pax on dinner and flexes on Instagram. The rich spend thousands and call it a Tuesday night”.

When it came to properties, he said that some rich stayed in HDB flats and added that he considered it the smart thing to do as “you will receive subsidies + vouchers and you can blend in with the masses. Stay in a landed and everyone will know you are rich and want to be your friend. The rich value privacy and anonymity so we can be exclusive in our friendships. HDBs ironically provide the most privacy”, he wrote.

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Concluding his post, the man added: “So yea, it’s quite pathetic to see peasants trying to fit in and make friends with us. We rather make friends with a genuine poor person than one trying to act like they belong”.

The comments section was filled with sarcastic messages from netizens. Here’s what they said:

Last year, a man in his late 30s who was married with one child wrote in a Facebook post that he was frustrated because he failed to plan his financial journey.

The man, who referred to himself as being in the middle class, earned “30k a month, and my wife is around 15k a month”.

He added: “We are staying in a humble resale HDB flat in Punggol, with no maid. We basically save more then we spent, but I just cant help thinking why I am not rich at all”.
The man went on to explain how his friend, who bought a Built-To-Order flat, managed to sell it and make a profit of $200,000, allowing him to buy an Executive Condominium (EC). He added that his friend and wife now own a condominium each, but he still resides in an HDB flat.

In his post, he added: “I am so dumb not to just use 1 owner, and 1 essential occupier for the HDB, now i can[‘]t use just 1 person name to buy a condo to avoid ABSD.

3) It is so troublesome, to have to sell my hdb first then to buy the condo, if not the 17% ABSD will take a serious toll of my saving. Let said a district 9-10 condo at 3m, the ABSD will already be $510k!”.
The man added that, according to him, it would be best to buy a BTO at first. “Also hope that middle class like us are allowed to buy an EC. There should be no restriction on income”, he added. /TISG

 

Self-proclaimed “middle class” man earning $30K/month says ‘I just can’t help thinking why I am not rich at all’