How much do you need to retire comfortably?

For me

1) First workout your monthly expenses.

Between $2.5k to $3k per month should be sufficient for me. Multiple by 12mth and (90 - your current age). 90 because i assume i can live till 90 years old.

Eg. $3k x 12 x (90-25) = $2.34 million (if i want to retire by 25)

You may want to get insurance for protection. Protection ONLY

You got following option

• invest in growth stock, to achieve capital gain. Then allocate to dividend stock that can generate cashflow that generate $36k of dividend p.a. Assume 4% p.a. dividend. You need a capital of $900k invested. (if you want early retirement, you need to invest aggressively)

• if you follow majority retire at 65, you will want to contribute to your CPF. Take advantage of the CPF Life. You may still invest on your own, but no need to be too aggressive because anything more is a bonus.

JUST MY OPINON

Don't bother with any retirement plan, saving plan from any financial institute, no matter how good they sound. if you just simply buy & hold, DCA, the money into the S&P500 ETF, without any fanciful technique, i strongly believe you have a higher gain.​​​

Hi! So for one to retire, one must become financially independent. This is a term that is often used as Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE). Of course, the early retirement aspect is a choice and you don't need to do it if you don't want to, but being Financial Independent is a must to retire.

To be financially independent means that your lifestyle is completely covered by your assets. This can be drawing from an investment portfolio of stocks and bonds, receiving dividends from dividend stocks, annuities, rental from properties among other strategies.

So how much do you need to retire? Generally, FIRE advocates advise using the 4% rule, meaning that 4% of your total investment portfolio should be able to cover your yearly expenses. This means that if your yearly expenses are 36k (3k per month), your total investment portfolio value will have to be about 900k (36k / 4%).

Of course this is just a gauge and if you want to be safer, you can use a 3.5% rate instead which would give yourself more leeway.

You can find out more on this article I wrote more about how to FIRE in Singapore here!​​​