I shall take the liberty to spin off from this thread http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=394239
A brief description of whats the situation now:
I am at the stage of my life now whereby people are starting to think about marriage. Nowadays when i go out with my friends, I could often hear them saying "this guy/gal is getting married with this gal/guy on xx/xx/xx date".
And the best thing is some of these friends whom are getting married are earning about $2k/month each, so as a couple, their combined income is <$4.5k/month.
Lets take a quote of a typical singaporean, our dear forummer Hitman:
as u can see a person alone has about $1.5k expenditure per month. Thus as a couple their savings per month would be $4.5k - $1.5k x 2 = $1k / month
With this $1k/month, they are going to pay for their housing bills such as electrical, water etc. this can easily reduce the $1k/month to $500/month left.
Take note i still havent put in the amounts needed for buying house, renovation, money to host wedding dinner, money to pay to hire clubsnap ppl to shoot their weeddings.
renovation: about $10k
wedding dinner + hotel etc. : about 20 tables, i take a conservative $20k
Nightmare comes when u have babies:
a) Pamper and milk powder are not cheap at all.
b) Regular medical checkups for babies are again not cheap
With one more baby in the family, the baby could easily contribute $500/month to the expenses. Not forgetting as the baby grows older, u have tonnes and tonnes of items such as textbook, computer, uniforms, occasional pampering items to buy.
The baby bonus that u receive will disappear into thin air before u can even blink ur eye, most ppl have theirs used up before baby 5 yrs old.
On the optimistic side, one can say that their income will gradually rise, if one takes a consensus and be more general, it doesnt take a smart alex to realise that most ppl's salary/month are capped at $3 to 4k +/- till the day they walk to the graves.
Lets not forget that if either one or both gets retrenched, i dunno how is the family going to survive. The couple wont even have much savings like wat i have shown above. And Worst still if the couple is going to have multiple babies.
And by the time ur salary is up to $3 to 4k, it is eaten off by mrt/bus transport hikes and overall economy inflation. An ice milo is only $0.80 about 5+ years back but its $1.20 now in coffee shops. thats 50% inflation over 5 years, arithmetic mean of 10% inflation per year.
And u guys knows wat is the best thing? There are people who are acutually jealous of ppl marrying early or are envious of them. And the people who are getting married are happy!
To me, I dont understand the point of marrying so young, or even having the point to marry in Singapore! Its true that marriage can be considered as the event that fuses 2 couples and their families together in a bond.
But with such high economic burden in a marriage, wats the point of marrying early or even marriage?
Love is important, but when we are tied down financially/mentally, who is going to give us bread to eat?
A brief description of whats the situation now:
I am at the stage of my life now whereby people are starting to think about marriage. Nowadays when i go out with my friends, I could often hear them saying "this guy/gal is getting married with this gal/guy on xx/xx/xx date".
And the best thing is some of these friends whom are getting married are earning about $2k/month each, so as a couple, their combined income is <$4.5k/month.
Lets take a quote of a typical singaporean, our dear forummer Hitman:
as u can see a person alone has about $1.5k expenditure per month. Thus as a couple their savings per month would be $4.5k - $1.5k x 2 = $1k / month
With this $1k/month, they are going to pay for their housing bills such as electrical, water etc. this can easily reduce the $1k/month to $500/month left.
Take note i still havent put in the amounts needed for buying house, renovation, money to host wedding dinner, money to pay to hire clubsnap ppl to shoot their weeddings.
renovation: about $10k
wedding dinner + hotel etc. : about 20 tables, i take a conservative $20k
Nightmare comes when u have babies:
a) Pamper and milk powder are not cheap at all.
b) Regular medical checkups for babies are again not cheap
With one more baby in the family, the baby could easily contribute $500/month to the expenses. Not forgetting as the baby grows older, u have tonnes and tonnes of items such as textbook, computer, uniforms, occasional pampering items to buy.
The baby bonus that u receive will disappear into thin air before u can even blink ur eye, most ppl have theirs used up before baby 5 yrs old.
On the optimistic side, one can say that their income will gradually rise, if one takes a consensus and be more general, it doesnt take a smart alex to realise that most ppl's salary/month are capped at $3 to 4k +/- till the day they walk to the graves.
Lets not forget that if either one or both gets retrenched, i dunno how is the family going to survive. The couple wont even have much savings like wat i have shown above. And Worst still if the couple is going to have multiple babies.
And by the time ur salary is up to $3 to 4k, it is eaten off by mrt/bus transport hikes and overall economy inflation. An ice milo is only $0.80 about 5+ years back but its $1.20 now in coffee shops. thats 50% inflation over 5 years, arithmetic mean of 10% inflation per year.
And u guys knows wat is the best thing? There are people who are acutually jealous of ppl marrying early or are envious of them. And the people who are getting married are happy!
To me, I dont understand the point of marrying so young, or even having the point to marry in Singapore! Its true that marriage can be considered as the event that fuses 2 couples and their families together in a bond.
But with such high economic burden in a marriage, wats the point of marrying early or even marriage?
Love is important, but when we are tied down financially/mentally, who is going to give us bread to eat?
