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Almost Half of All S’pore Residents Think They’ll Never Achieve Financial Freedom

2024-08-27 , 5:42 pm

It’s the most wonderful time of the year — GST vouchers in August, cost of living special payments in September, and more. Truly, heng, ong, huat!

But even with all these government payouts, it appears that a good handful of residents in Singapore are still rather uncertain about their finances. A recent poll revealed that half of Singapore residents think that they’ll never achieve financial freedom.

Here’s why.

Nearly Half of All Singapore Residents Think They’ll Never Achieve Financial Freedom

Ever heard of the Singlife Financial Freedom Index?

The Singlife Financial Freedom Index measures the degree to which individuals in Singapore feel financially free — the index polls Singapore residents, including Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents from all walks of life.

From April to June this year, Singlife polled 3,000 people aged between 17 to 65 to capture the sentiments and perspectives of Singapore residents on financial freedom. And the results, which are now out, may or may not come as a surprise to you.

For one, nearly half of all Singapore residents think that they will never achieve financial freedom based on their current trajectories. The other half of Singapore residents were a mix of those who felt they had already attained financial freedom and those who were hopeful that they would be able to attain financial freedom in the future.

Generally, Singapore residents scored 58 out of 100 on the index, meaning that individuals in Singapore don’t exactly feel very financially free.

Sigh… Must be because the cai png prices just keep going up…

But why exactly did Singapore residents respond this way? Well, we break it all down below.

Insufficient Income; Unforeseen Expenses; Job Insecurity

So, nearly half of the poll’s respondents shared that they did not think they’d ever achieve financial freedom. The question is: “Why?”

Well, there appear to be a few key reasons.

More than half of those who thought they’d never achieve financial freedom cited insufficient income as the reason for their sentiments.

Now, guess what is the median monthly personal income of the respondents who participated in the poll — it’s S$4,922. That’s already higher than the median monthly salary recorded from a Ministry of Manpower (MOM) survey in 2023, which found that the median monthly salary from full-time work in Singapore stood at SS$5,197.

Yet, the Singlife poll respondents still felt that they were earning insufficient income.

However, insufficient income wasn’t the only reason cited by the respondents for their gloomy outlook on financial freedom. 38% of respondents also cited unforeseen expenses, 32% cited job insecurity, and 28% cited repayment burdens, as some other reasons for why they thought they would never achieve financial freedom.

Perhaps they should consider joining those courses advertised on social media that promise financial freedom.

The poll also revealed that respondents believed they needed approximately S$612,045 to be considered financially free. This is up from the S$556,000 which respondents in the 2023 poll felt they needed.

On that note, it also doesn’t help that the poll this year revealed that respondents’ median yearly savings only stood at around S$20,195, which is approximately S$1,682 monthly. This is a slight drop from the results of last year’s poll, which found that respondents’ median yearly savings were S$20,790.

Based on the results collected, Singlife projects that it could take up to 30 years for Singapore residents to achieve financial freedom — a three-year increase from the 27 years projected from last year’s poll.

Ah, yes, it’s 6 pm — pang gang already! Only 30 more years to go…

Majority Aim to Retire in Singapore By 65 Years Old

But what about Singapore residents’ retirement goals? Well, the Singlife Financial Freedom Index polled for that as well.

As it turns out, in true kiasu fashion, 80% of consumers intend to retire by 65 — this is slightly above Singapore’s legislated retirement age of 63.

But, retire where?

Nearly 80% of respondents also shared that they intended to retire in Singapore. Those who said otherwise shared that they wanted to retire in places such as Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand, where the cost of living is lower and the pace of life is slower, just to name a few reasons cited by respondents.

Well, we can’t argue with that — there’s a reason why Singaporeans’ go-to weekend spot is JB and not some other place in Singapore.

Nearly Half of Singaporeans Believe Having Children Will Slow Down the Journey to Financial Freedom

Perhaps what you may find interesting is that 44% of Singaporeans believed that having children would slow them down in their journey to financial freedom. In fact, respondents who shared this sentiment thought that having a child would delay their retirement age and ability to achieve financial freedom by an average of 14 to 15 years.

Well, it’s not the first time we’ve heard of such sentiments — raising a child in Singapore isn’t easy. After all, half of the 3,000 respondents believed that they needed more than $500,00 to raise a child in Singapore until the age of 21.

At least now with the changes to the GEP, hopefully, you won’t have to spend so much money on your child’s tuition to get them into the programme lah.

Following the above sentiment, more than half of the respondents without children shared that they did not intend to have any children and 80% of respondents who already had at least one child said they did not intend to have any more children.

Um… Then who’s going to be using the new parental leaves announced by the government?

What Does Financial Freedom Even Mean?

If you were asked right now: “What does financial freedom mean to you,” what would your response be?

While some of you might say “infinite GST vouchers until I retire”, Goody Feed’s Blue Cat might say “enough money to buy ngoh hiang every single day for the rest of my life” — the point is, everyone has a different perception of financial freedom, and this was reflected in the Singlife poll as well.

According to the poll, 21% of respondents shared that financial freedom meant the ability to lead a desired lifestyle without worry, while 19% shared that financial freedom meant being free from debt obligations.

Others thought financial freedom meant having stable work to support their lifestyle, or the ability to spend freely.

So, where do you stand in this? Do you think you’ll be able to achieve financial freedom in your lifetime? Why or why not?