Just curious, if you constantly work till say 55, saving diligently and investing occasionally. Can 1 survive? Feeling tired at work and thinking of retiring already...

Insurance isn't enough, need passive income too. Look at the "benefits table" of your insurance savings, only a certain amount is guaranteed, the rest is "bonus" which u may not get. Also after COVID, some insurance companies lowered the annual bonus of some customers' policies and changed their interest rates. U may get less $ than u expected, but 1 thing is for sure. U won't get MORE than u expected. 😂

Do not consider to fully stop work at 55! You can consider to look for lower paying jobs which are less stressful than your present one. There is no such term as "enough" in humanly needs/terms. You decide how much enough is enough. A word of caution, having no income and surviving on savings can be unnerving. Passive incomes from rentals,dividends etc will help.

Interest from CPF OA and SA also help.

Work yourself slowly down from whatever income you have now. At retirement and stopping work, remember life expectancy is about 82-85. You will be expected to live 27-30 years on your CPF savings,other savings,investments, rentals etc.

By now, you will realise that nobody can give an exact answer.

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It's really hard for anyone to be able to meaningfully provide specific views or advice without more details.

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When you say saving diligently - how much does that entail? 100 bucks a month or 3000 a month?

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When you say "invest occasionally" , again what does that entail? How much are you setting aside and in what investment instruments? 1000 a quarter or semi annually on crypto also matches your description.

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A more generic and universal "sure work" approach for anyone is to save AND invest diligently. As some folks have already pointed out, you need to contend with one of life's partners called inflation. At best, savings sitting in a deposit account can only barely cover inflation. It doesn't grow meaningfully, which means you need a really long run way to save to retirement. And that is where the importance of investing comes in, working your money harder to shorten the runway.

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As to what investment , the best bet for a lot of folks is to invest in low cost ETFs. I'd recommend a mixture of SG and US ETFs that track the market.

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The other important question is - how much do you need for retirement. some will say 3mil, others 1mil, etc etc. It ultimately depends on the lifestyle you expect to lead. Different strokes for different folks.

Calculate how much you and your family needs per month. Multiply by at least 25 years.

Adjust for inflation too.

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Then you have an idea of how much you need to get by on life. The more frugal you are, the less you will need.

Early retirement is way easier if you are single with no kids.