Ask yourself this retirement question so as to not get blind sided when it comes

How much do you need when you retire in monthly or yearly income status? 

Has anyone asked you this or have you ever thought about it? 
My small survey of close friends seemed to come up empty. Seems like many of them, 6 to be precise haven’t thought about it and I’m the first person to ever ask this question. 

I find it puzzling, these are educated individuals with good paying jobs in leadership roles at their respective companies but yet they haven’t gotten the time to think about retirement. 

Initially I thought they just expected to work for love as they love their jobs. However as you probe more and ask questions, it just seems like they didn’t think about or ask themselves this question. It’s all left to chance, CPF money, some savings and that’s all. 

This is really a scary thought! Why? Because many of my friends, had I not asked this question would have not been ready when retirement comes. They would have hoped that their cpf, personal savings are enough for their ideal lifestyle. But from experience most don’t. Most retirees would have to dial down their lifestyle so that it can be more affordable or go back to do some part time work to ensure the savings don’t deplete as much. 

Now I’m not saying this is bad, and I’m all for it, in fact I would still want to work even when I’m 70-80 yrs old. However what I’m asking you or my friends to do, is to prepare for retirement, plan ahead, ask how much do you need for retirement. The goal is to not be sidetracked and be caught off guard. 

So today, I would suggest all to start asking yourself 

How much do you need for retirement, what’s the lifestyle you like and how long do you need your Money to last. 

Ps: my target is 3k a month in 30-40 yrs time. My inflation calculator tells me I will need 6-7k to have the same buying power. 

Also to note, hope is not a plan 🙂