Sunday, November 02, 2003

Woke up in the afternoon, really caught up on sleep over the weekend.

Stayed at home today and packed my car. It's always messy after a week, so have to learn to be neater so don't have to do this too often.

Cooked chilli crab noodles for lunch today, but it was a tad too dry and too salty. Too long never cook, judgement all gone haywire.

Going for colleague, A's wedding dinner at Goodwood Park Hotel in a while time.

Went to Orchard with D yesterday to look for dress shoes for walking. Rockpot was really comfy, but the design was not what I exactly wanted. Aquila was really cool, but at $249, it's way above my budget.

Met Eliss along the way as she was with her sis. We had lunch at Crystal Jade. The French toast was not as good as Kim Gary in KL, lacked the punch of peanut butter and was too oily.

Chatted with my friend, D over at BK about his ambitions and stuff. Good to hear that he has plans, and working towards it.

For me, I want to manage my finances with more wisdom. Is $1m for retirement enough?

To arrive at a simple answer, let's divide $1 million equally over 20 years, and you get slightly more than $4,000 to spend each month. And let's assume that inflation does not eat into your money as you have parked it in fixed deposit accounts that pay an interest rate equal to the inflation rate.

According to OCBC senior vice-president Anne Tay, a wealth management specialist, to categorise key living expenses, and apportion money in a way that many people would. Here are her numbers:

About $750 is available for food, or $25 a day for a couple. (Well, looks like fine dining won't be a frequent affair.)

About $1,000 for petrol, car maintenance and loan repayment. (You can forget about a topless BMW.)

About $9,600 a year for vacations, which will take you both on a trip to Australia and another to New Zealand every year.

Other expenses include $450 for personal maintenance (that is, for clothes, toiletries, etc), and $400 for medical expenses and drugs (which would not be enough if you are unlucky enough to be among the nearly one in three deaths here which arise from heart disease or kidney failure). Another $300 is available for entertainment and hobbies, that is, stuff like movies, music CDs and country club membership. And there's $300 for house maintenance and utilities.

Conclusion? 'It's a reasonable lifestyle, and it will keep you reasonably happy,' says Ms Tay. 'It's not exactly luxurious, though.'


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