I am in my late 40s, married with 2 kids and working as an engineer. Just another rant on how expensive living in Singapore can be.

Gross pay is slightly over 5k and from my expenses below…I hardly have much to spend on non-essential stuffs. My wife works as a Beautician and occasionally helps me with meals and groceries.

When we got married 10 years ago, her savings is zero. Now she has almost double of mine… It’s not a big matter but somehow don’t feel good when I’m not the one in the family holding more $. Even my kids’ combined savings are more than mine. It’s a struggle for me to stay “positive”.

CPF – 20%

Parents allowance – 14.4%

Insurance – 10.45%

Student care fee – 10.17%

Wife allowance – 9.6%

Lottery – 7.83%

Meals – 7.16%

Kid#1 tuition – 4.85%

Kid#2 tuition – 4.73%

Kids insurance – 4.4%

Utility bills – 1.42%

Bus Transport – 1.34%

Kids bus transport – 1.05%

Conservancy fee – 0.85%

Home internet – 0.75%

Kids school fee – 0.49%

Kids allowance – 0.25%

Netflix – 0.24%

Mobile fee – 0.23%

Haircuts – 0.08%

Balance – Negative!

Need to drive Grab to stay positive…

Here are what netizens think:

A lot of people looking at the lottery expense, which is about $100 a week.. not a small sum, but at the same time, his total leisure expenses of lottery + Netflix is just about $400+ and still less than 9% of income a month? Doesn’t seem that insane if we just look at it as a hobby expense, although switching to another hobby might be more ideal. That said, maybe he can have an honest discussion with his wife about how this is stressing him, and since the wife is still working, consider giving less wife allowance?

Both spouses should have their own savings for their own occasional discretionary spending or retirement savings/planning.. I doubt his wife would want him to continue being unhappy/stressed up in this state…

I think…we all are curious about your lottery expense. It’s quite a large sum. That’s the part you can definitely cut. You pay tax already, don’t need to help your government become richer