Need a space to rant because I am genuinely at my boiling point with my parents right now.
I (31M) have been working hard and saving up for the past few years. About two years ago, when I was 29, my parents started aggressively pressuring me to buy a private condo. Their logic? “BTO take so long to build, by the time key collect you old already. Buy condo is asset wealth progression, property in Singapore will never drop, sure make money one!”
I told them repeatedly that as a single guy back then, straining my finances for a condo downpayment and servicing a massive monthly mortgage would wipe out my liquid cash flow. But they wouldn’t hear it. They kept calling me “shortsighted,” guilt-tripping me, and even pledged a small sum to help with part of the initial downpayment just to push me over the line.
Fast forward to today. I am now servicing a hefty $4k+ monthly mortgage payment on my own. Between the loan, maintenance fees, property taxes, and daily living expenses, my monthly savings are virtually non-existent. My entire net worth is tied up in four walls of concrete.
Here comes the plot twist: I’ve been dating my girlfriend (28F) for over a year now, and things are getting serious. We recently started discussing marriage, ring shopping, and planning a modest wedding banquet for our families.
Last weekend during Sunday dinner, my mom casually asks me: “Ah Boy ah, when you and your girlfriend going to get married? Your cousin just held a 30-table banquet at St. Regis, very grand! You should also do something nice for her.”
I sighed and told her truthfully: “Ma, I don’t have $40k-$50k lying around for a fancy wedding right now. Almost all my monthly salary goes straight into the condo mortgage.”
You know what my dad had the cheek to say next?
“Walao, how can you have no savings?! You working for so many years as an adult already, where got people no money to get married? You must be spending recklessly on nonsense right?!”
BRO. ARE YOU SERIOUS?! 💀💀
They literally forced me to lock up my entire lifetime savings into a condo mortgage that swallows my salary every single month, and now they are acting blur, asking me why I don’t have a chest of gold sitting under my bed to host a lavish wedding banquet!
When I reminded them that they were the ones who pushed me into this financial chokehold, my mom gave me the ultimate boomer line: “We do it for your own good what! Last time our generation buy property can still save money for wedding, you just don’t know how to manage your finances properly.”
I was completely speechless. The property market and cost of living back then vs now is completely night and day!
Now my girlfriend and I are just planning to ROM quietly and do a simple lunch, but my parents are throwing a huge fit about “losing face” in front of our relatives.
Am I living in a circus? How do you deal with parents who want you to have high-tier property progression AND a lavish $50k wedding, but completely ignore basic math and financial reality?! Sibei headache sia.