What is Retirement ?

[paullow]

agree that cars are truly expensive in s'pore. ang mo expatriates used to drive bmw and benz in their country. come to singapore, it's not unusual to find an ang mos neck flexed and driving a toyota or mazda. their 1.9m build would be quite a torture to fit into a jap car, but no choice if want to keep their expenses down and still live in s'pore.

for me, i would go for older used cars and pay for them in full and the total transport cost(depreciation, petrol, tax, insurance, repairs) kept to around 5% of my income.

today, even a 1.6 litre altis would need 20kpa, all costs added in. even a 120kpa (ie 10kpm) income person would blow off ard 20% of his income on a entry level family car. add that to his housing expenses, family expenses etc, really, he would not have very much left out of his 10kpm salary. and 10kpa salary would already placed him on quite high up the salary scale in s'pore, maybe top 20% of people.

so with a 10kpm salary, owning an executive condo and an altis, with a family, would not have much savings...in reality. if u add the occasional holidays and eating outs...sometimes pocket can become tight even.

[Temperament]

agree that cars are truly expensive in s'pore. ang mo expatriates used to drive bmw and benz in their country. come to singapore, it's not unusual to find an ang mos neck flexed and driving a toyota or mazda. their 1.9m build would be quite a torture to fit into a jap car, but no choice if want to keep their expenses down and still live in s'pore.

for me, i would go for older used cars and pay for them in full and the total transport cost(depreciation, petrol, tax, insurance, repairs) kept to around 5% of my income.

today, even a 1.6 litre altis would need 20kpa, all costs added in. even a 120kpa (ie 10kpm) income person would blow off ard 20% of his income on a entry level family car. add that to his housing expenses, family expenses etc, really, he would not have very much left out of his 10kpm salary. and 10kpa salary would already placed him on quite high up the salary scale in s'pore, maybe top 20% of people.

so with a 10kpm salary, owning an executive condo and an altis, with a family, would not have much savings...in reality. if u add the occasional holidays and eating outs...sometimes pocket can become tight even.

Ah.... older used car. Quite wise.
My car's workshop technical supervisor advises me to keep my car (brand-new from Borneo M.) if i thinking of buying a used car after the end of my car's 10 years COE. The reasons are quite obvious. My car only clocked about 15KM to 20KM per year. It is really a shame to scrap it.

Can anyone advise if i want to extend for another 5 years of COE, how to calculate "Total expenses" of owning such a car? 5k/month or more? Sorry!
Only have elementary maths.
Thanks.

[zhangwuji]

That's a very good move!

U wasted no time adjusting to the 'new' life.

I hope your family members, esp. yr spouse supports the change.
Besides fixed expenses like housing loan & insurance , car expense is the next biggest expense which I think we can do without in Sg.
But of course if we can afford to own a car, it is considered a 'luxury'.

I am almost fifty and gave up my job more 6 month ago due to erratic company policy. It is almost impossible for me to get back the same type of job consider my present age and also thanks to our government FT policy. Companies are spoiled with choice of unlimited cheap PMET. I find that employers nowadays do not value experienced staff much compared with those years before the floodgate was opened. They instead prefer younger and cheaper executives. I keep wondering why we are hearing employers complaining difficulties in filling up job vacancies in our mainstream media.

After hanging loose for a few month, I took an account of the returns from my stock investment and realised that they are actually more then sufficiently support my living expenses. So seeking re-employment is not a top priority in my mind now.

Another thing I did after being jobless was to sell away my car. Not because I could no longer able to support, but it was just no longer a necessity anymore. In fact it was grossly underutilized. The year mileage was below 10km. The car was fully paid for in cash as I am always "allergied" to taking up loan for luxury items. I invested all the money from the sale of the car in stock which in turn increase my passive income.

Imagine the difference: Whether you use it or not, a car burn more than $10k hole in my pocket every year but money from the car sale fatten my pocket about $4k every year on average!

Even though I don't have to struggling working for money, I am not considering myself rich just yet. I still have a school going child to support. He still in primary school but my wife an I have put aside some money to take care of his uni fees 10 years from now. In the mean time, I try to enjoy life to the fullest without over burning my pocket.

One thing I would like to share is that: We need some money to enjoy life. But it's not as much as we would always think. My living and investing principle is the same: Keep it simple!

Etan, thank you for your comment. I consider myself lucky that I never need to take up any HDB loan. I married in my mid thirties and chose to live with my parents after that. By the time when we need to get our own flat, we already had more than enough money in our CPF to fully financed a 5rm flat. "Rich Dad Poor Dad" made realized that HDB loan is one of the biggest stumbling block against our retirement plan. I hope those young couples planning to settle down soon to consider all other option thoroughly before taking up any loan. You want to be slaved to the bank for 20 -30 years? Note: I hold some bank shares

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car expense is the next biggest expense which I think we can do without in Sg.

I considered selling away my car recently but notice SARs and birdie flu seems to have strike other countries. I am not optimistic that Spore will not be hit given our open door policy.

Hi Bibi,
Don't me saying: That is an excuse. Though not a good one.

Having said that, well, if you have and don't mind burning more than $10k yearly, that's okay. For me, I choose to make my $$$ work for me instead.

Yes, the car is a luxury for most people in Singapore. It is underutilised if you don't rat race and eat at home most of the time. But many people like me just so used to the luxury of owning car for for 6,7 or 8 years already (installment free) that we know once we sell our cars, most probably for the rest of our lifetime we will not buy another car. (Not that i can't afford to buy but because it just doesn't make sense to me except for the PAPY & Elites.)

Come 2015 or 2016, many more cars will reach their 10 years COE . So i shudder at the thought of how many more people going to make the sardine-packed transport system worst. But maybe, retirees like us should be smart enough or having the luxury to choose the off-peak travel time if nothing urgent.
But i have a phobia of the SMRT breaking down anytime, anywhere. i pray i won't be one of the victim caught by the SMRT breaking down in the tunnel. Especially in the Tunnel, SMRT tends to break down because it is where defects or malfunctions of tracks/equipments can not be seen or detected easily. So i think i will take the bus if it can take me to almost the same place.
6.9 million population, Ha! Ha! ????

For me "getting used to" is very dangerous. It's like an addiction. I had been a car owner for more then 20 years. I started getting frustrated with all the jams and difficulties in parking during peak and festive seasons. That's was when I began to consider giving it up. The high COE helped also. But major deciding factor was the fact that I can have about $4K in my pocket against more than $10K to evaporated every year. Not forgetting that there will be capital gain in years to come.

Sorry to sidetrack a bit here: Yes, our SMRT standard has much room for improvement. I couldn't believe it when I saw on TV that they were actually using nylon cable tie to secure the "hook" made of cast iron. I am not a mechanical trained engineer, but I can understand that in order hold 2 object together, we need something stronger or harder to do the job. For example, if you need to hold 2 piece of metal together with bot and nut, the bot and nut must be made of material stronger then the 2 pieces of metal. That showed the qualification of the engineers SMRT is having. As if did not looked bad enough, our CNA reporter commented that it was a "tried and tested" method. My foot!

I have been to Moscow and Tokyo, their system were much much older and without expensive ticketing machine. But they are traveling at much higher speed than ours without much problem. And here SMRT is giving excuses that our system are old giving the people that the problems are unavoidable.

Well, I don't have much hope of the new CEO either. What can you expect of someone at the helm taking holiday just merely 2 months on the job! I don't see any improvement if not worst since he came on board.

In the mean time, we have to bear with all the nonsense. This is the price we are paying for putting all our eggs in one basket. We should liberalized our transport system long time ago.

Haha, our CNA is screening now that our dear PM announcing building of train system between SG and KL. I am laughing here.

[yeokiwi]

Sorry to sidetrack a bit here: Yes, our SMRT standard has much room for improvement. I couldn't believe it when I saw on TV that they were actually using nylon cable tie to secure the "hook" made of cast iron. I am not a mechanical trained engineer, but I can understand that in order hold 2 object together, we need something stronger or harder to do the job. For example, if you need to hold 2 piece of metal together with bot and nut, the bot and nut must be made of material stronger then the 2 pieces of metal. That showed the qualification of the engineers SMRT is having. As if did not looked bad enough, our CNA reporter commented that it was a "tried and tested" method. My foot!

It's a pretty common practice for temporary solution for holding things together. These nylon cables are very strong(you can add a few more if you want) and come with different sizes.
http://www.newark.com/pdfs/datasheets/spc/TA-1224.pdf. The tensile strength can easily go up to 55kg.

Bolts, nuts and customized fixtures cannot be designed and indented overnight but MRT needs to run trains the next day.
I will expect them to slowly replace the nylon cables with permanent fixtures.

Nylon cables will become brittle(especially under the sun) over a long period of time. But, it takes a long long period of time.

[zhangwuji]

Sorry to sidetrack a bit here: Yes, our SMRT standard has much room for improvement. I couldn't believe it when I saw on TV that they were actually using nylon cable tie to secure the "hook" made of cast iron. I am not a mechanical trained engineer, but I can understand that in order hold 2 object together, we need something stronger or harder to do the job. For example, if you need to hold 2 piece of metal together with bot and nut, the bot and nut must be made of material stronger then the 2 pieces of metal. That showed the qualification of the engineers SMRT is having. As if did not looked bad enough, our CNA reporter commented that it was a "tried and tested" method. My foot!

It's a pretty common practice for temporary solution for holding things together. These nylon cables are very strong(you can add a few more if you want) and come with different sizes.
http://www.newark.com/pdfs/datasheets/spc/TA-1224.pdf. The tensile strength can easily go up to 55kg.

Bolts, nuts and customized fixtures cannot be designed and indented overnight but MRT needs to run trains the next day.
I will expect them to slowly replace the nylon cables with permanent fixtures.

Nylon cables will become brittle(especially under the sun) over a long period of time. But, it takes a long long period of time.

I am no expert in material studies. But being in the electrical industry for close to 30 years since day one of my working life, I know what a cable tie is good for. In fact, they were one of the must have item in my tool bag. I have plenty of them in my home utility tool box at home right now.
SMRT did not mentioned that it was a temporary. In fact it became a PERMANENT solution until the subsequent break down occurred. If you read the inquiry report, it commented that it was the WRONG to use the cable tie for that specific purpose. It was a simply a design fault that no one want to admit. Period.

[paullow]

agree that cars are truly expensive in s'pore. ang mo expatriates used to drive bmw and benz in their country. come to singapore, it's not unusual to find an ang mos neck flexed and driving a toyota or mazda. their 1.9m build would be quite a torture to fit into a jap car, but no choice if want to keep their expenses down and still live in s'pore.

for me, i would go for older used cars and pay for them in full and the total transport cost(depreciation, petrol, tax, insurance, repairs) kept to around 5% of my income.

today, even a 1.6 litre altis would need 20kpa, all costs added in. even a 120kpa (ie 10kpm) income person would blow off ard 20% of his income on a entry level family car. add that to his housing expenses, family expenses etc, really, he would not have very much left out of his 10kpm salary. and 10kpa salary would already placed him on quite high up the salary scale in s'pore, maybe top 20% of people.

so with a 10kpm salary, owning an executive condo and an altis, with a family, would not have much savings...in reality. if u add the occasional holidays and eating outs...sometimes pocket can become tight even.

Ah.... older used car. Quite wise.
My car's workshop technical supervisor advises me to keep my car (brand-new from Borneo M.) if i thinking of buying a used car after the end of my car's 10 years COE. The reasons are quite obvious. My car only clocked about 15KM to 20KM per year. It is really a shame to scrap it.

Can anyone advise if i want to extend for another 5 years of COE, how to calculate "Total expenses" of owning such a car? 5k/month or more? Sorry!
Only have elementary maths.
Thanks.

Hi there,

I think at todays level of COE, very few pple would extend 5 or 10 yrs coe unless u car is unusual, eg very very low mileage, got some sentimental value etc.

a more sensible way would be to buy cars which have renewed their coe at 2009 lows.

---

[quote='paullow' pid='43137' dateline='1361251651']
agree that cars are truly expensive in s'pore. ang mo expatriates used to drive bmw and benz in their country. come to singapore, it's not unusual to find an ang mos neck flexed and driving a toyota or mazda. their 1.9m build would be quite a torture to fit into a jap car, but no choice if want to keep their expenses down and still live in s'pore.

for me, i would go for older used cars and pay for them in full and the total transport cost(depreciation, petrol, tax, insurance, repairs) kept to around 5% of my income.

today, even a 1.6 litre altis would need 20kpa, all costs added in. even a 120kpa (ie 10kpm) income person would blow off ard 20% of his income on a entry level family car. add that to his housing expenses, family expenses etc, really, he would not have very much left out of his 10kpm salary. and 10kpa salary would already placed him on quite high up the salary scale in s'pore, maybe top 20% of people.

so with a 10kpm salary, owning an executive condo and an altis, with a family, would not have much savings...in reality. if u add the occasional holidays and eating outs...sometimes pocket can become tight even.

Ah.... older used car. Quite wise.
My car's workshop technical supervisor advises me to keep my car (brand-new from Borneo M.) if i thinking of buying a used car after the end of my car's 10 years COE. The reasons are quite obvious. My car only clocked about 15KM to 20KM per year. It is really a shame to scrap it.

Can anyone advise if i want to extend for another 5 years of COE, how to calculate "Total expenses" of owning such a car? 5k/month or more? Sorry!
Only have elementary maths.
Thanks.

Hi there,

I think at todays level of COE, very few pple would extend 5 or 10 yrs coe unless u car is unusual, eg very very low mileage, got some sentimental value etc.

a more sensible way would be to buy cars which have renewed their coe at 2009 lows.

i know of a friend who got a pay rise recently. immediately he went to trade his altis to a new e200 taking a loan. i din tell this to him:
with this pay rise, he's just paid the garmen 95k for the coe and C&C 150k and the bank for the interest charges. and he's using tomorrow's money to do that.
-the garmen will get their 95k straight away
-the C&C get their 150k straight away.
-the bank will slowly suck money from him.

this is just one example. there are many others who start to earn a bit more, only to blow money away as easily as the wind.

[zhangwuji]

agree that cars are truly expensive in s'pore. ang mo expatriates used to drive bmw and benz in their country. come to singapore, it's not unusual to find an ang mos neck flexed and driving a toyota or mazda. their 1.9m build would be quite a torture to fit into a jap car, but no choice if want to keep their expenses down and still live in s'pore.

for me, i would go for older used cars and pay for them in full and the total transport cost(depreciation, petrol, tax, insurance, repairs) kept to around 5% of my income.

today, even a 1.6 litre altis would need 20kpa, all costs added in. even a 120kpa (ie 10kpm) income person would blow off ard 20% of his income on a entry level family car. add that to his housing expenses, family expenses etc, really, he would not have very much left out of his 10kpm salary. and 10kpa salary would already placed him on quite high up the salary scale in s'pore, maybe top 20% of people.

so with a 10kpm salary, owning an executive condo and an altis, with a family, would not have much savings...in reality. if u add the occasional holidays and eating outs...sometimes pocket can become tight even.

Ah.... older used car. Quite wise.
My car's workshop technical supervisor advises me to keep my car (brand-new from Borneo M.) if i thinking of buying a used car after the end of my car's 10 years COE. The reasons are quite obvious. My car only clocked about 15KM to 20KM per year. It is really a shame to scrap it.

Can anyone advise if i want to extend for another 5 years of COE, how to calculate "Total expenses" of owning such a car? 5k/month or more? Sorry!
Only have elementary maths.
Thanks.

If the rule is still unchanged, you will need to pay the average of the passed six months. Note: once you extend for 5 years, you will not be able to extend anymore when it's due.

[yeokiwi]

I am no expert in material studies. But being in the electrical industry for close to 30 years since day one of my working life, I know what a cable tie is good for. In fact, they were one of the must have item in my tool bag. I have plenty of them in my home utility tool box at home right now.
SMRT did not mentioned that it was a temporary. In fact it became a PERMANENT solution until the subsequent break down occurred. If you read the inquiry report, it commented that it was the WRONG to use the cable tie for that specific purpose. It was a simply a design fault that no one want to admit. Period.

http://www.mot.gov.sg/news/MOT%20COI%20R...ex%20B.pdf
http://www.mot.gov.sg/news/COI%20report%...0-%207.pdf

Which paragraph?

I only have the following...

Review design of TRSA: SMRT and LTA to review current design of the
TRSA with view to developing a more robust fastening assembly for
implementation on a prioritised basis. In the meantime, the cable ties
used as an interim solution should be properly inspected and maintained.
Furthermore, SMRT to consider installing steel caps in addition to cable
ties to further reduce the likelihood of claw dislodgements. SMRT should
also study if the design of the TRSA covers and claws can be improved to
facilitate inspection.

[zhangwuji]

I am no expert in material studies. But being in the electrical industry for close to 30 years since day one of my working life, I know what a cable tie is good for. In fact, they were one of the must have item in my tool bag. I have plenty of them in my home utility tool box at home right now.
SMRT did not mentioned that it was a temporary. In fact it became a PERMANENT solution until the subsequent break down occurred. If you read the inquiry report, it commented that it was the WRONG to use the cable tie for that specific purpose. It was a simply a design fault that no one want to admit. Period.

http://www.mot.gov.sg/news/MOT%20COI%20R...ex%20B.pdf
http://www.mot.gov.sg/news/COI%20report%...0-%207.pdf

Which paragraph?

I only have the following...

Review design of TRSA: SMRT and LTA to review current design of the
TRSA with view to developing a more robust fastening assembly for
implementation on a prioritised basis. In the meantime, the cable ties
used as an interim solution should be properly inspected and maintained.
Furthermore, SMRT to consider installing steel caps in addition to cable
ties to further reduce the likelihood of claw dislodgements. SMRT should
also study if the design of the TRSA covers and claws can be improved to
facilitate inspection.

http://www.asiaone.com/Motoring/News/Tra...44006.html

http://www.asiaone.com/Motoring/News/Sto...50182.html

I think we have side track way out. Anyway, stand by what I mentioned that the design of the "claw" was a flaw from the start. See Pg 44 to 46 it mentioned that it was modified more then once and redesigned subsequently.

The report did mentioned the cable tie an interim solution. Well, since it was an interim solution, then what was done in the meantime to provide a permanent solution? Unfortunately the COI did not probe further. Was it deliberately left out? So wasn't it clear that the interim solution became a permanent until the subsequent break down occurred? Anyway the cable was a bad choice.

"This prompted a Committee of Inquiry member to ask if Mr Loke knew of instances where claws have dislodged even with the cable ties in place."

"Mr Loke answered: "I believe there were.""

[yeokiwi]

"This prompted a Committee of Inquiry member to ask if Mr Loke knew of instances where claws have dislodged even with the cable ties in place."
"Mr Loke answered: "I believe there were.""

I am not trying to defend SMRT(I think they sucked in terms of maintenance) but the above question is phrased in such a way that no practicing and honest engineer was able to reply no.

It is just like asking the software engineer is there any bug in the software or any instance that the software hangs
Or asking the production engineer is there any instance of failed products despite passing the QC.
Or asking the electronics engineer is there any parts in the electronics that has failed before.

It is hard to say no since there are 30,000 claws in NSEWL but a single claw failure within a certain length will not cause 3rd rail to sag.

The right way is to ask for the estimated no. of claw failures per x km per year.