I define fair as in, living with enough, not having to scrimp and save for the next meal, have good enough clothes to wear, some holidays, a handphone, tv, etc.
This is NOT the best standard of living, it is not the minimum required to live. It is what I feel is good enough to be considered living a good enough life in Singapore. The point is GOOD ENOUGH. You can say I can save on X or Y or should spend more on A or B. But that's not the point. This is what I feel is a GOOD ENOUGH life to live in Singapore and the costs related to it and the monthly salary required to sustain it.
The scenario will be a couple with no kids yet. Living by themselves.
1) Housing - Paid by CPF no cash overlay
2) Daily food - SGD10 per pax x 2 x 20 working days = SGD400
3) Weekend food & entertainment - SGD400 (Some weekends you go out some weekends you don't)
4) Insurance - SGD200 x 2 = SGD400
5) Transport - SGD3 x 2 x 20 working days = SGD120
6) Misc taxi transport - SGD20 x 5 = SGD100
7) Handphone plan - SGD30 x 2 = SGD60
8) No cable tv you are a working couple. You only watch at night it is not worth it. Use youtube.
9) Clothes/shoes - SGD100 x 2 = SGD200
10) Utilities - SGD120
11) Misc household items/replacement - SGD300
12) Misc birthdays/weddings/gifts - SGD200
13) Travel 2x a year, 1 long trip (SGD5k) 1 short trip(SGD3k) - SGD800 per month
14) Misc budget - SGD400
15) Parents allowance - SGD500
Total expected monthly expense = SGD4000
Total required income SGD2500 x 2 = SGD5000 less CPF = SGD4000
So I come up with about SGD2500 per pax
I gave quite a lot of buffer for some of the items.
Between points 14 and 15 the couple COULD work out some savings but some might want to give their parents more, etc etc.
So a more comfortable amount would be SGD3k per pax.
This might be quite a challenge to many people in Singapore. BUT back to my previous post.
People just need to do something about it.
We can't just sit around hoping for more pay by doing the same thing. The world just doesn't work that way.
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