How to maintain lifestyle in retirement?

Reader says...

My friend each month spends about $2k on tuition for her only child! 😮

4 tuition each cost about $500!! 😱







Money is a scarce resource for the vast majority of us.

What do we do when a resource is scarce?

We try to conserve it.

That is what the government keeps telling us when it comes to the use of water in Singapore.








We should have the same attitude towards money.

Of course, if you are very rich and have money sloshing around, ignore this blog.

I believe that for the rest of us, we can easily strengthen our balance sheet just by reducing unnecessary expenses.






A reader in his 40s who makes more than $8,000 a month told me that he used to save about $500 a month of his take home pay but now he saves $2,000 a month.

What motivated him to save more money was my blog on how we can save 100% of our take home pay.

$2,000 is not 50% of his take home pay but it is already a vast improvement from $500.








Some of the changes he made:

1. He downgraded his car and although not what I would advocate, has a much smaller car loan to service.

2. His family eat out less often and he was very impressed by how much money they could save by not going to restaurants.

3. Extra classes for their two children were reduced to only what they thought were essential.

He also decided not to upgrade to a condominium but will continue to stay in their HDB flat.

Becoming a better saver is the first step towards a financially secure retirement for him and his wife.






What kind of lifestyle we can have in our golden years, to a large extent, depends on the kind of lifestyle we have today.

Don't want to downgrade our lifestyle in retirement?

Don't upgrade our lifestyle too much before our retirement.

Quite simple, really.






Related post:
Saving 100% of our take home pay.