Retirement moolah

With all the recent noise about retirement funds etc and the fear that our CPF would run dry, I decided to see how poorly off I would be at the age of 60 and whether I would have enough moolah to last till I am 80. So I used the CPF calculator - pretty detailed - it included mortgage payments, projected expenditure (down to haircuts and facials!!), savings and investments etc.

You're basically supposed to fill in the blanks - to the best of your knowledge but try not to cheat - and the programme will do the rest. So I did - put in everything, down to my $74 Shunji Matsuo haircuts. And ta-dah! I can afford to have monthly payouts of $800 from the age of 60 to the age of 80 - with a surplus of $200k + too! Woohoo!

That answers my question about whether I would have mad money to spend or not when I'm older, freer and crazier.

And this is a conservative estimate because it assumes that I am working half-time on this sort of salary until retirement at 60 (with yearly increments of 3%), it assumes that I alone will be paying off a mortgage of $384,000 on my home (which I am not!), it does NOT include property asset value (heh, like my house!)and it assumes NO other investment plan etc, just good ol-fashioned savings accounts, saving conservatively at $300 a month with an interest rate of 1%.

So all things considered, not bad at all. I think one can live - frugally - on $800 a month. As mom observed a tad wistfully - when you reach that age, you don't really think of enjoying expensive steaks anymore (bo geh - no teeth!) so you settle for porridge. I think that's the way it will be.