sorry lor... HSBC is basically like Maybank in its main biz countries. definitely for the masses.

just that because it is a foreign bank in Malaysia, somehow the malaysian clientele think slightly higher of it: HSBC, Citibank, and to some extend, the 2 local foreign banks OCBC and UOB...

sounded like how UM think they are top tier uni internationally but not self aware. syiok sendiri.

so basically you just gotten brainwashed by a lousy bank called HSBC. lol. even within senior bankers, none cares much about HSBC MY.

This post has been edited by Wedchar2912: Nov 9 2023, 08:04 PM

great marketing spin by the bank to spin a handicap into a positive attribute...

eitherway, hsbc is a mass universal bank, especially so in Malaysia. Similar to Citibank once upon a time.

haha...

i also thought HSBC report claim "mass affluent" is 2 million usd and below? Then again, I guess the report was right: malaysia 99.9% of population is mass.

don't so fast up the amount lar... just when the new narrative of 4 million is enough... give it like 10 years to up it to 10 million mah....



i am refering to this article:
https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/732593
"Wealthy Malaysians say they need nearly RM4 mil to retire comfortably, HSBC survey shows"

i don't follow BAT... could it be due to stock split effect? if just div, really doubt can cover the crash.

you seemed to like to ask these type questions almost on a monthly basis...

the answer will remain the same, cos your question is basic. can retire with 4 million? can. end of story.

next question? if wish for better help, need better refined questions with specific details.

between Malaysia and the country P (the country where you need to reside for 6 months to collect the pension), which has the higher cost of living? (I highly suspect Malaysia is the cheaper)
one way is to switch your FIRE calculation to the country with the higher cost of living.

Plus the pension must be worth more than the cost of living in country P rite? If the country is a large country like Australia or NZ, u can choose to rent at cheaper cities or outskirt?

your 16K pm now (ie 8K clean after loan payment) or 21K pm at 50 (13K after loan) is to cover how many people?

i would hazard a guess that for 1 to 2 persons, 8 to 13K rm will be able to cover a comfortable lifestyle for retirement, as this amount is the clean amount after tax income and other "fix" deductions.
If scaled back to traditional active work income, the equivalent salary would be something like 30 to 40K rm pm gross salary. It would be hard pressed to say that a household cannot live well with such a gross income even in Klang valley. (20% average tax, 11% epf deduction, 20% saving rate)

Plus, as you indicated, you have plenty of buffer as you can always liquidate your real estates.

Ah… with these numbers, easier to figure out.

Basically your current expenditure for 3 persons is 5K rm pm + 8K pm for property loan, assuming you settle your car loans. 3 years is very fast.
Then it is 16K/18K vs 13K expenditure. It does feel a bit tight.

Consider settling/selling all your spare properties (ie except 1 for own stay), that would zerorize the 8K pm commitment? And in the same time free up a nice chuck of home equity for investment?
That would push your expenditure down to just 5K plus a decent amount of home equity (which you can throw into EPF or ASM or invest earning 6% pa on the lower side).
Now the scenario is: 25K above income vs 5K expenditure base case.

You should start planning more spending like vacations or better meals, etc…
Very safely you can up your spending to 15K pm.

Just curious... since earlier you mentioned your passive income... and then mention lean Fire vs fat Fire, i am just wondering if you defined lean fire to mean your current passive income?

Cos usually lean Fire is a supposed to mean frugality and require lowering of one's standard of living, and to be benchmarked to standard of living/income of population. So M40 benchmark is fair, at around 12K rm toppish per household.

20K currently would be way more than FIRE requirement (and the fact that this is most probably T05 household income).

Ah... yeah... one good thing about Malaysia and hopefully it lasts for next 30 years for us here.... is that cost of living remain affordable.

but wow.... budgeting GBP 10K pm for UK living is a lot also eh... London's average income is 4K pm... even a VP in a investment bank is only earning 10K pm. pls retired no need to live in london... can just stay at the next city over like Reading... much cheaper.

nice... if can fire there, su can retire here...

yes, did factor this in and in my financial planning, also allocated an emergency pot to either top up or cover medical expenses beyond medical card.

I figured I should be happy to pay for my medical card (inclusive of fee inflation of the card) until i reach 70 thereabout. and the pot should be able to cover some what a few normal "medical" emergencies.
After this, if not "rich" enough anymore, I will go queue at klinik kesihatan and GH... hopefully kkm 1rm still available.

Its the above 70 years old medical card fee that I worry I cannot cover (but hope I am wrong).
The good thing is that my current monthly budget expenditure for the family is very comfortably below the traditional SWR of 3%

This post has been edited by Wedchar2912: Mar 23 2025, 04:24 PM

yeah.... such is life... can only plan and execute.... and hope for the best...

I would believe it is going to be super tough to find a 75 years old person with such a medical plan.

this type of high limit plans only came out within the past 7 to 10 years.
which means the said person would have gotten the medical plan when he/she was like 65 to 68 years old. what's the chance of this? Plus the plan would have costs at least a few K pm at such advanced age rite?

Then again, I am not an insider... maybe if there is someone from the insurance industry can share...

400++ premium is really affordable. may I know your age group and which provider?

mine is ILP...
already paying like 3600 per year. early 40s. looks like have to consider cutting the room rate from RM 400 down to RM 200 in a few years time if this up up up shenanigan by insurance providers do not stop.



yours is really affordable. very good.

there is another alternative to consider (for ILP)... instead of contributing extra every month, you can self invest the "extra" cash yourself... and then only do a lump sum contribution later when the surrender value come closer to 0. Especially if you can outperform the insurance's investment portfolio.
My emergency pot is also there for this.

Technically yes. As our official retirement age is 60, since 2012.

Nonetheless, growing up, this stuck in my head. My secondary school teacher shared this info once:
for government employees back in 1990s and before, official retirement age was 55.
Men can apply for early retirement at age 50; while women can apply for early retirement at age 45.
(teachers had incentive to do so, as they can teach tuition and earn better income)

you are right in that the primary focus of FIRE is not about an age number.

Nonetheless, in real life, it still has to tie to one's age... and should be below the official retirement age of the country.
An example. saying one FIRED at age 50 makes sense.
what about at age 75? if there are those who basically still work to earn an income at age 73 because they cannot cover their living expenses, can we use the phrase FIRE at 75 and still make sense?

The FIRE movement really started with early retirement first... and then it evolved to include those who can retire early but still work for whatever reason, hence added the phrase financial independence.

So, in your case, you most probably already arrived at FIRE already... being financially independent as of now.

Different people have different tolerance, endurance and preference.

To me, properties are not really my forte as they are not really passive income generators. (of course if one has already setup something that handles this for free or 0 effort, that's different story... like someone who claimed family members will do everything for free etc).
So judging from your "stress" about property commitments, you maybe the same as me... somemore, older one gets, really want to manage a bunch of properties and face the tenants?

My clean passive income comes from financial assets that require no work at all... day in day out... EPF, banking stocks, e-wallet earning 3.+%, t-bills etc.
Luckily nowadays, don't even need to go to attend physical AGM... no longer have the mood to wake up early, get ready, go through jams, find parking slot, sit there listen... if got 10 stocks, that was one per month. Virtual is good..

I do have semi-passive income from financial assets: its semi because i will look at them on daily basis much like hobby (reading financial news), but usually not much actions beyond weekly to monthly activities on those positions.

Compared to the above, managing a rental is just too much work for me unfortunately.

This post has been edited by Wedchar2912: Mar 27 2025, 01:00 PM