TL;DR – Your life, your choice.

Want to know what is it like to be a Singaporean?

Here’s a quick and easy guide found on Facebook the other day.

I don’t usually entertain such Facebook posts but this one…

1. You serve NS and are put under a 10 years reservist and IPPT cycle that can stretch into your 40s while you have to juggle family and work commitments at the same time.

But I ain’t too sure how are you going to live till your 40s without national defence. Let alone talk about family or work.

2. After NS you come out to work and fall in love,married and start up a family.

At least you have a job and congrats on finding love.

3. A wedding cost a lot so most Singaporeans married in their late 20s,mid 30s or even later.

The last I remembered (fine, I checked their website lol) it only costs a couple $15 to register their marriage which works out to be $7.50 each. #Godutch #Genderequality right?

(Though I have to say the ROM website needs some upgrading. Who still uses Internet Explorer these days?!)

Throwing a fancy wedding dinner at a fancy 5-star hotel is a choice – your choice really.

4. Now we come to the house.

Upon successfully balloting for the house one need to wait at least 3 years for it or you can buy from open market or private developers where price will be even much higher.

It’s starting to sound annoying but it’s true – nobody said it’s compulsory to get a house of your own.

There are people who live with their parents or in-laws.

5. Once you get your keys your entire CPF OA will be depleted totally and the rest of the mortgage balance will be paid by your monthly CPF every month for a maximum of up to over a decade or 25 years max.

Then imagine, what if all these happened without CPF? Are you gonna pay with cold hard cash?

6. During this time every month of your CPF will not be able to save and accumulate CPF interests because you need to use it to settle house loan.

Technically not true. If you earn more than what you are paying, you will have savings. The rule here is not to bite off more than what you can chew. And yes, you still earn interest on the balance.

7. So 25 years finally finish and your house is fully paid up but by then you will be 55 or into your 60s already.

Congrats! You are still alive. Count your blessings.

8. You want to rest and retire but you can’t because your CPF OA account is empty and CPF minimum sum of 161k is set in place to prevent you from cashing out your CPF in full to use to finance your retirement.

It’s your retirement, and your savings shouldn’t just be your CPF. If you didn’t buy those branded goods, travelled to different countries, or drank those alcohol. Sorry, I assumed. Facts? You have enough money to have an internet connection, which means you have enough to have a phone, or a computer. You have a fully-paid for home to live in and it’s not like you are sleeping under a flyover.

9. So in your 50s or 60s you still need to work until you die or at least for another 10 to 20 years in order to build up your CPF OA account.

If you don’t work until you die, it just means that you will be sitting at home, surfing Facebook and complaining until you die. Matter of preference, I guess.

10. By the time you can really rest you will be in your 70s or 80s already.

Most will have meet their maker by that age already. Lol How to look forward to retirement bliss?

70 – 80? Do you know the life expectancy of people in Nigeria is 52 years? That probably explains the popular Nigerian prince scam.

11. Also the health could be failing or no one is willing to employ the elderly Singaporeans and what are they going to survive on?

It was announced in our Budget 2017 that employers will get wage subsidies if they voluntarily rehire older workers above the re-employment age of 67, as well as those workers who would have already turned 65 before the re-employment age is raised in July this year. So yup, you do have a choice at staying employed even when you’re old, if you want to.

12.In the end their CPF Medisave accounts got wipe out and they either rent their flats out to sustain themselves or sell back their flats and lease to downgrade in order to survive in their dying years.

Downgrading for cash doesn’t sound that bad if you ask me. Especially if you don’t need all that space anymore – smaller area to clean too.

13.If anyone can still say Singaporeans are living a blessed life then I clap for you.

Thank you for your claps.

My final thoughts?

Life ain’t THAT difficult. It ultimately boils down to the choices you make and your own expectations of what entails a “good life”. For some, they are content with a job and a roof above their heads. For others, they desire monthly business-class trips to Europe and beyond.

Here’s a quote I live by, and maybe it’ll be useful for you too?

(Cover image modified via)