Sunday, August 21, 2011

To retire, you need at least RM1,000,000

For young people, retirement seems to be so far away!  I remember that when I first started to work.... and that was 30 years ago, retirement or reaching 55 seems to be such a long way. I remember drawing my first salary of S$1000 and they were mostly used up by the end of the month. First month, I bought myself a watch costing S$230. I am still using it today. On my second month, I decided that I need to paint the whitewash wall of my room. The rest was history. At the end of a year working, I saved a little. I came to Miri to work.
First, I decided that, I am not going to live on overdraft or bought anything on loan. So, I bought myself a small motorbike to travel to office. I saved enough and bought a Toyotal GL for RM19K. Then I went to learn how to drive!
I read an article on The Star today and it is quite disturbing! To summarise:

  • Average EPF saving at retirement for most people is RM146K and 70%  of them used the whole lot in 3 years
  • Average life expectancy is 74 years - so 20 more years of living without income to "worry" about
  • If we spend about RM4000 a month, a million ringitt could last about 20 years
  • If you want to retire with a million ringgit, start saving and investing before 40. To play safe, start saving the day you start working.
  • Most Malaysia under-invest and under-save
  • If you want your money to grow faster, the return must be more than 4% inflation
The big question: Are you willing to sacrifice short-term thrills for long-term value which helps to build up your saving and investment to exceed RM1 million?
You can invest in properties, unit trust and others low risk investment.
By the way, I am also an unit trust agent. If you are interested, please let me know and we can discuss.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Totally agree with u, i am 27 and i had started saving in investing since 22, epf is certainly not enough, the main problem is that most people doesnt realize this,only aware when it is too late. Almost all people save their money in bank(savings and fixed deposit)which highest interest rate is less than 4%. Like u said,I certainly recommend investment such as unit trust(low risk),stocks(high risk) and properties (houses and shop lots)