How much does a person really need to have a comfortable retirement in Singapore?

“How much does a person really need to have a comfortable retirement in Singapore?” – I believe this is something that most Singaporeans would like to know and to have, a comfortable retirement (not luxury) life-style which most Singaporeans would deem to be pretty good enough for them!

According to Singapore’s household income statistics 2014 (from http://www.singstat.gov.sg/), your household would be in top 20% household earnings if your household income is about $14500 and above.

Also, according to Singapore’s household expenditure statistics 2013, household with that kind of income spends on average about $7000 per month. However, this $7000 pm figure includes spendings on kids and/or parents, so I would say a figure of $6000 per month for the couple’s retirement would allow them to maintain their comfortable life-style.  However, this is not to say that you can simply imply $3000 pm to be sufficient for 1 single individual for a comfortable life-style because the pooling of resources for 2 actually makes many things cheaper, hence to achieve a comfortable life-style for a single individual should be higher than $3000 pm (in contrast to a couple just needing $6000 pm).  Note that the $6000 pm should exclude costs of lodging (which should be $0 if the couple own their property they are living in and have fully paid up for the property with no property loan debt).

When do you think will the coming Singapore's General Election be held?

Singapore's coming election must be held latest by 2017 January.  Singapore will be celebrating SG50 for 50 years of Singapore's independence in 2015.  Many people are expecting "goodies" from the National Budget speech in 2015 (think sometime in April/May period). 

Given all the above providing feel good factors, I would hazard a guess that the coming Singapore General Election should be held sometime in 2016 H1.  More likely March/April 2016, either after 2016 National Budget Speech if 2016 National Budget Speech still giving "goodies" to Singaporeans, or before the 2016 National Budget Speech if there is no more "goodies" to Singaporeans. 

Diversified investments

In terms of diversification of investments, I am currently invested in the financial instruments (mainly stocks) listed in these countries:
1) Singapore
2) US
3) HK (and H-shares as proxy to China)
4) Germany

I have exposure to these currencies:
1) SGD
2) USD
3) HKD
4) EURO

What is the outlook of private residential property prices in Singapore?

Property investment seems like a favourite investment class in Singapore.  This is particularly so for private residential property prices in Singapore where there is "more free" market and can be purchased by foreigners (compared to the public HDB flats - which is restricted to citizens).  It is not difficult to see why, given that the best place to invest in properties have the following characteristics:

1) Small available land area (Singapore is just a small dot of about 700 sqm in the world!)

2) High population density (Singapore is the top most populated country in the world!)

3) High GDP per capita (Singapore has one of the highest GDP per capita in the world!)

But given the many private residential property cooling measures implemented by the Singapore government, what is the private residential property price outlook from here?

Let me make a proper summary and will get back here to let you know my view............