You were born.

You study.

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.

After ns you come out to work and fall in love, married and start up a family. Nov the nightmare and maths truly begin.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

In the end, their cpf medisave accounts got wiped 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.

This is basically the life story of a common Singaporean.

And don’t forget in the middle of all these one still need to raise up kids and take care of sickly ageing parents and in laws too.

My retired uncle have been caught thrice for shoplifting in 2 years but since he is an elder, the police decided to just let him go with a warning.

On his third time he was arrested, he called my dad to bail him out instead. His family is sick of him repeating the mistake is had clearly state they won’t bail him for a third time. And they didn’t show up at all even after my dad called them. My dad made him promise not to shoplift again or he also won’t bail him out.

Fast forward, a year, nothing happened and we thought he is finally over the bad habit. But we are so wrong, the other day, we went out with my uncle and cousin for dinner. Before dinner, we did some grocery shopping when I saw he had hid a bar of soap in his pocket. I went over and gently remind him that there are cameras around and that someone was caught shoplifting a week ago (I made it up). I also make it clear that he can get anything and I’ll pay, since it a value shop.

I then walked away and do my own shopping. When we’re paying, I realized he didn’t have the soap in his basket. I assumed that he had put it back. But I was surprised when I saw him sneaked the bar of soap into his bag after we walked out of the shop.

When we’re done with dinner, I managed to find a time and speak with him, one on one. I told him I saw the bar of soap which he didn’t pay for. It’s not on the receipt. He admitted to ‘accidentally dropped’ it in his pocket which I told him that’s impossible. I reminded him that if he continues, the police will eventually charge him one day, it’ll be his 4th times already. He calimed that the police told him that they hate merchants who make a report over small things like these (because he usually steal small and cheap items like candies, soap, spoons, pens.. which can easily go into his pocket), so they won’t charge him. I don’t feel he wants to stop!

I know it might be a psychology thingy but is there a way to help him stop? What happen if no one bails him out? What is the punishment for repeated shoplifting?

I’m 35(f) and my younger brother is 29. He has severe mental health problems, starting with Non verbal autism, anger issues and complete inability to look after himself. My parents looked after him since the day he was born due to all these issues.

I have tried to love him, but as the ages gone past I have resented him. He has always been big and tall and since very young age he has tried to hurt me. I was always covered in bruises while living with my parents. When he got older he would try to kill me. He would try to drown me, choke me, threaten me with a knife and make holes in me, and I’m not mentioning the amount of times he has tried to set the house on fire. I ended up hating him and barely had contact with my parents as they always find an excuse for his behavior.

They are getting old and have recently contacted me asking for help to look after my brother. I laughed. I told them if I could I would happily put him out of his misery. But because I couldn’t I have told them if they force me to look after him I will either make an anonymous call for him to be taken to a place where qualified people can look after him or just abandon him by one and make sure I will never see or hear about him again.

I don’t want to be related to him. He is the reason why I will never be able to have kids of my own. He is the reason of many ugly scars left on my body and face. And I will happily get rid of him the chance I have or get him locked up for good.

I do not blame what he did on his autism. He needed treatment from a very young age which was not provided to him by my parents which has caused this violence and anger issues. Autism might just make them a bit stronger but I don’t believe it is a cause as he also has a bunch of other mental illnesses he was diagnosed with.

However people who say he didn’t choose it and he can not understand what he does and try to either make it seem like I’m blaming his autism for it or who are blaming autism for it themselves seem ignorant. He enjoys causing harm to me, to my parents or any pets we owned (my brother would “dispose” of any pets we owned from fish to dogs/cats). When he was younger it was hurting everyone, once he grew up it was aiming for a kill. There’s no outbursts or anything, it’s just him trying to actively get rid of me or any pets as he wants to be their top priority. When he is not my parents get hurt by him. He previously made attempts to burn me alive where I woke up covered in fuel while he was watching me while playing with lighter. I am not going to list everything he did, but its something I do not wish upon anyone.

My parents and my brother do not know where I live and I haven’t visited them in years due to my brother, especially after he tried to “dispose” of my girlfriend. We are currently looking to move to a different country across the world and change names if we can, so there will be no way for my parents or the government to look after my brother or pay for him to be in an institution as these are expensive.

Supervisor is gossiping about me at work because I choose not to eat lunch with her

My supervisor at my office job often invites two of my other colleagues to have lunch with her, so she has someone to talk to after her good friend left. My supervisor once shared an office space with her good friend, but now she’s alone. She’s been at this job for 30+ years and is much older than me.

My colleagues do oblige her and eat with her, but I always have to decline her few invitations. For one, because she asks me if I want to eat lunch with her, and I say, ‘No, I’m good,’ or ‘I’m not hungry right now,’ or ‘I’m using my lunch break for other stuff.’

She basically gives me the option to eat with her and doesn’t make it mandatory, so I decline until it’s made mandatory. I prefer to eat alone because I hate eating on someone else’s schedule, and I like my alone time with my food. That’s it.

But apparently, my colleague told me that my supervisor feels some type of way and said she’s going to continue asking me until I say yes.

What boundary can I set so that my supervisor knows my answer is no indefinitely unless it’s mandatory?

Netizens’ comments

1. I would just say that you take care of personal business during your lunch break and can’t sacrifice that time due to personal/family obligations but you appreciate the offer and will keep it in mind if you ever get some time.
2. I appreciate the offer, however I prefer to separate business and personal time. Lunch is my personal time.
3. Anyone who has been at a job for 30+ years knows some introverts just like to eat alone at work. If a supervisor that old is taking it personally, that’s a petty ego trip.
   Speaking as someone who’s been in the work force for 25 years myself, it’s not like people wanting to take lunch alone to recharge batteries is uncommon.

600k HDB vs 1.1m Condo – 30m/30f

I would like to hear your constructive criticism and suggestions because frankly speaking I’ve spoken to 4 property agents (referrals, friends) and they all seem to be hard-selling me the 1.1m condo idea and say that HDB resale is hot garbage.

It is worrying that most agents do not have any concept of discounted cash flow, IRR or opportunity cost. Their main argument is “Govt will never allow HDB to be expensive and will always keep their prices down”.

I did some math and some things did not feel right with their suggestion.

Background – I’m 30F with my hubby 31m. We don’t plan to live in Singapore forever (maybe migrating after 15-20 years?) – so this house will not be a forever home. But we WILL be moving into this home so rental yield isn’t an option for now.

We don’t mind flipping / buy 2nd house after MOP as long as it makes financial sense. Our priority is maximum ROI, so we don’t really care about convenience or size of the house. It’s just ‘nice to haves’. BTO and EC is not an option – we want to move in asap and are looking at Q1 2024. NO car, NO kids.

600k 4-room HDB – using HDB loan at 2.6% rate.

1.1m 2bedder condo – in heartland areas like Bedok/CCK? – 29% downpay with BSD, and max loan 75% at bank rate 3.2%

We don’t feel comfortable with going over 1.2m for condo because really hard to cough up the downpayment and we will start struggling beyond that price.

My biggest issue is Opportunity cost. HDB downpayment 15% (90k). monthly mortgage 2k.

Condo downpayment (330k) With such a large downpayment and average 4k mortgage/mth + $400 maintenance fee needed for the condo, I always argue with the agents that I could have used the excess $2400 and DCA into S&P500 for average 7% per annum. Using my compound interest and loan calculators, over a 10 year period, the HDB option wins the Condo option by a whopping 300k difference (assuming the S&P stabilises at 7%/year until 2034, average)

My assumptions are also that the Condo and HDB appreciates at 2.5% annually (that is the average annualised RoR over the past 10 years). In order for the Condo option to win the HDB, it has to appreciate at the same rate as the S&P500 – 7% per year.

TL;DR the numbers are all suggesting that HDB is the better option, solely because I can use excess savings to put into the market. UNLESS if the Condo somehow appreciates like mad over the HDB.

PLEASE poke holes in my numbers and let me know if I have miscalculated, missed out something, or maybe you have a suggestion that’s out-of-the-box and brilliant!

Bonus question: Is a <70 year old resale HDB flat better than a 90 year recently MOP flat based on our scenarios? I read somewhere in this subreddit about IRR and that a cheaper, 400k, 60yr HDB flat can breakeven faster than a more expensive 90yr HDB flat, especially if we rent out after MOP

Netizens’ comments

1. Property agents are there to help you look for property that you want to buy.
   As soon as they start mathing and planning your financial journey, property progression plan etc, just walk.
   Never rely on their math for financial advice, because 1% of 1.1m is more than 1% of 600k. And getting you to buy in to their progression plan means selling commission on your current and future properties as well as buying comm for the ‘next step in your journey’.
2. Your numbers are not wrong, but the premise of the numbers are geared in a way where equities will always win.
   Let’s look at your assumed rate of gain of 2.5% annually for real estate, with a risk free yield of 4% and a mortgage is 3.2%, you are losing money every day. There is no scenario where your math would work out for this vs equities when looking at purely a rate of return.
   what you gain from putting your money into real estate is lower volatility. If you’re only looking at the average absolute return and basing your decision on that, the logical decision would be to short real estate and go leverage long on equities in that case.
   Instead I’d suggest looking at it this way. Would you rather have 350k or so be in real estate equity, and increasing year after year, or 90k in real estate. The answer might be different if you have 1million now, 400k now, or 200k now.
   Remember that diversification is always the shield to volatility, and to not base decisions on just being drawn to absolute returns. There will always be people who make fortunes by going 100% on TSLA and AMD, or buying 10 properties all at once at the right time. But assume you’re not them and you’ll need to be protected against either a real estate down turn, a global equities down turn, or both.
3. A 1.1m 2 bedder condo is going to be tiny. Unless you’re going for a very old leasehold unit you’re probably going to be able to get 600-800 sqft including aircon ledges and balcony, probably without a proper kitchen.
   I know it’s not intended to be your forever home, but my husband and I lived in one of these small units for the first 3 years of our marriage and I didn’t like it at all. Couldn’t cook properly in our tiny kitchen, couldn’t get a proper sofa or dining table because of the lack of space.
   The amount of money and the salary bump needed to upgrade to a decent sized condo is a lot and you’ll be locked out of buying a resale HDB for some time after selling, so do consider the fact that you might be stuck for some time.

Me (25F) and my boyfriend (30M) got into a fight because he said he doesn’t want to hear about my emotional baggage

So I was a run away at 18 and I’ve been struggling and moving through things to build a life for myself.

Just recently I saw my dad just walking on the street and it triggered me for some reason and I came home crying my eyes out for the night.

My bf came home and said to me how I shouldn’t be talking like this, how I shouldn’t be acting like this because nobody cares, people will just laugh at me and my situation and that I should be stronger and work harder and then complained about how the dishes and laundry weren’t done.

This is my first relationship I’ve been in and I just want to know if this is normal what he said to me.

Netizens’ comments

• let me repeat it for the people in the back: Is this the way you WANT to be treated? Then who cares if it’s “normal”
• Not at all normal. Really sounds messed up.
• No, not normal. You should be able to expect him to be supportive.

My long term boyfriend broke up with me because I have stage three cancer

I have been dating my boyfriend for 11 years. We were planning our lives together. We are both financially stable just enjoying our lives for now.

Life happened I got terribly sick. He was there for me until we found out I have cancer. I couldn’t talk to him properly for two weeks there I found out he does not want to be with me because I had been diagnosed with stage three cancer.

He told me he does not want to live his life stuck with me after I die. I don’t understand what he meant by that.

I was so heartbroken that I felt like he wasted 12 years of my life. He told me he does not want to live with my ghost.

He is scared that he could not move on from me because people around us knew us together if ever I will die. I don’t understand I feel like he’s just making an excuse to break up with me.

It’s been three months since we broke up I am just so lost right now I don’t understand what’s going on. I am dying and my long-time boyfriend broke up with me all of a sudden.

It hurts so I don’t know what to do.

Netizens’ comments

• My husband abandoned me during cancer treatment. I had to shut down literally so I could focus on myself. I understand what you’re going through. You don’t deserve this, you didn’t do anything wrong. Some people are not capable of going through this for various reasons. I wish you love but most of all peace
• He made a decision to protect himself from the pain of losing you. Unfortunately, his decision feels selfish and leaves you lonely. I’m so sorry… hope you find something better to distract you in this difficult time.

I don’t even want this job

I’ve been at my job for the better part of a decade so far, and while it’s had its ups and downs, it’s been pretty okay.

Until earlier this year when my boss basically twisted my arm into taking a more senior position I told her several times I never wanted.

Now even my days off are loaded with work, I get phone calls about things I can’t answer because I’m not in the building looking at any of the paperwork, and even when I’m enjoying time at home with my husband, I feel an ever-present guilt like there’s more I should be doing.

All I’ve ever wanted was just a job that ends when I clock out, not one that rules my life.

I believe in hard work but this is insanity, all I see when I envision my future is a dark void of doing this until a heart attack or strokes kills me. But the benefits are good…

Netizens’ comments

1. Honestly, I would start putting my phone in Do Not Disturb mode when I’m off the clock. Fuck that.
   It sounds like you need to set some serious boundaries with your employer, and that starts with destroying the expectation that you are always available outside of work, especially if you want to keep the position because of the benefits.
   And if they can’t wrap their heads around that and still refuse to respect you as a person whose time off is valuable and important, I would still refuse to answer work-related calls or texts outside of work and would start looking for another job.
   You have to start doing something now to ensure this turns into a better situation, even if that means doing what you have to do to get out. You deserve work-life balance and to be treated like a human being. You don’t deserve to feel taken advantage of and to feel like you have no time off. Your well-being also matters, and this is not good for your health.
2. You were likely already working as hard as you needed to.
   If you can’t convince your boss to give you your old job back, it’s time to start looking for a different one.
3. Seems like you should talk to your boss about transfer to a less stressful position or something.

Just had an hour long call with my boss

My boss does not know how to have concise conversations. All of my calls with him are at least 20-25 minutes, but this was my longest one yet.

1 hour and 6 minutes.

We were talking about a project that needs to be done, meanwhile he’s wasted an hour of my workday where I could have been working on that very project.

He shows me random meaningless Excel spreadsheets, rambles on and on, repeats himself, and basically talks for an hour about something that could have been a short email.

Is there a way I can politely address this with him? Our meetings are truly pointless and just way too long. At a certain point I just stop responding with anything meaningful, nothing more than “yeah” and “mhm”.

He’s the same way with all of my coworkers and it’s never been addressed. I honestly wonder how he gets anything done – he’s just calling me and my coworkers all day to show us Excel sheets.

How do I (politely, but assertively) tell my boss to get to the damn point? I’ve been at this company for 2 years, I’m 24F and this is my first job.

Netizens’ comments

1. It’s never being addressed because you guys are scared how he will react, and is not a thing to be addressed is just how he is. Is best to know how to manage it.
   The best way to deal with him is by taking over the conversation, ask questions to get to the middle and end of the story, then you say when it’s over if his not getting to the end.
   What sucks about doing the “yeah” and “hmm” it makes them believe that you not understating what they saying. He might get upset at that.
2. Let him know you have a hard stop at x:xx time and you will need to drop for another meeting. Even if you don’t have another meeting, it’s really rude when meetings go over and affect other meetings that now have to start later/reschedule
3. My boss does this as well. He messages me on Teams saying “quick call” and well I say yes because its supposed to be quick but it never is. They can range from 15 minutes to over an hour sometimes. Even worse is when he wants to call like 15 minutes before lunch and the calls take so long. I now just do not answer him or his messages at least an hour before my lunch. He can wait.
4. Tell him you need to poop and hide in the toilet.