Hi all, I am
StressBoy, a Singaporean, thank you very much for reading this, any
helpful advice, comment or feedback will be sincerely appreciated
thanks. Lastly, sorry for being very longwinded here and my poor
language used here.
I have been facing the following
problem, it’s causing me to be stressed and sad everyday and
sometimes also angry with myself whenever I think about it. This is
sadly a daily affair because it’s a life problem regarding my
parent’s and my future.
My Background
info:
Father: 60+ years
old, only primary school education, working as a private school bus
driver earning about 3K/mth or maybe a little more. He is going to
retired in about a few years time as his bus is going to reach its
maximum usage age thus needs to be scrapped. And it cost too much
to buy a new or secondhand bus as business is not as good as before
too many competitors. Not sure what he is going to do after that or
just retire and enjoy his old age as he should deserve it, he has
been working hard for most of his life, wakes up 5am comes back at
8+pm. I am proud and thankful of him.
Mother: 50+ years
old, only primary school education, housewife and follows my dad’s
bus as a conductor, sadly about 3 years back she suddenly gotten
Kidney Failure due to the cause of taking too many medicines since
young as my mum has not been a very healthy person, she for example
has asthmas. She now can only live if she has a kidney transplant
or do not miss her kidney dialysis sessions every week which is
very sad. She now has to go Kidney Dialysis 3 times a week at a
private dialysis clinic, which cost about $200 each time so tats
about $2400/mth excluding medicines, checkup and monthly doctor
appointments. Luckily she has a government insurance called
“medishield” I think to subsidize her maximum of $1000 every month,
but this subsidization has a limit of I think 200K then we are on
our own. Therefore, for now my dad still can handle her bills. We
tried asking about NKF, but due to my father’s earning it will only
be just a little lesser than the private one she is going now which
has a good professional doctor and staff and also I heard that NKF
staffs are sometimes volunteers in my opinion is not good as it’s a
matter of life and death if you what I am trying to say, I believe
Life > Money.
Elder Brother:
Late twenties, Married, earning about I think 3 to 4K/mth excluding
his wife, not sure how much she earns. Has a flat with his wife far
away from us. But problem is that his wife controls as in really
control all his cash and him, so he has never contributed to the
family income since he worked. I am not very close with him due to
the age gap, to me he is the root to my main problem as being the
eldest son he doesn’t even contribute a single cent even when now
my mum has such a serious and expensive illness. But, my mum is ok
with that as he is her most favorite son as long as he comes back
home to see her she will be very happy already, but sadly such as a
easy task he also can’t do due to him been overly controlled by his
wife, he doesn’t come back much like only 1 or 2 times a month
that’s all. So when my dad retires my parents only has me to depend
on, which I don’t think I can handle such important and heavy
responsibilities on my own.
Lastly Me: I am,
male, single, 21 years old this year, when I entered NS, I started
thinking about my future and all these problems started to surface.
I will ORD or finish my NS next year August. I have a Electrical
and Electronic Diploma (DEEE) from the Singapore Polytechnics with
a GPA of 2.8. But I do not like engineering, just got into the
course because I followed my friends, which is one of the bad
decisions I made in life. This GPA is not enough to get me into a
local university unless it’s a private one like SIM or MDIS. I
currently do not know what I want to work as or have a dream job,
but I know I do not want to sign on as a regular for the SAF as I
need to be in Singapore at all times in case of an emergency at
home as my brother is either very hard to contact or nearly
impossible to get to.
Thank You again for your patience
for reading the above, I just wanted to be clear and accurate and
not miss out on anything important. Please leave my brother out of
the solutions thanks, as I think he is hopeless unless he leaves
his wife, but that is impossible as he love her a lot.
Now for the problems I am and been
facing:
1)
Should I continue to get a 3 years business degree in one of the
private universities after my NS? Money wise I think I can get a
bank study loan. Because a diploma holder’s pay will be surely not
enough to pay for my mum’s medical bill what more my parents and my
daily expenses and house bills.
2)
Money problem: When my dad retires, how am I going to pay for all
the bills? Though I think my dad has some savings but I think it’s
not much to last long. As a diploma holder I can only get like a
starting pay of below 1.8K/mth and after like 10 years I think I
can’t even hit the 3K/mth mark without a degree.
3)
What jobs do you recommend I should work excluding engineering if I
don’t continue my studies and not sign on SAF for the reason I
stated above? How to find my ideal or dream job?
4)
Any real estate agent out there can tell me more about your job? I
am kind of interested about it. Will it be a good job for my
current situation? Cause I heard if I can work hard I can earn good
money, is it true? I plan to be single so as to be committed to my
job to earn as much as I can to support my parents to give them a
comfortable live like they work hard for my brother and
me.
5)
Where can I get further free counseling or consultation or advice
on my problems?
6)
Any helpful financial advice or experience will be appreciated also
thx a lot.
Any helpful advice, past similar
experience, comment or feedback or links on my problems above will
be much appreciated. Thank You.
1) You should continue to get a 3 years education in your desired
degree course. BUT YOU SHOULD NOT APPLY FOR A STUDY LOAN FROM BANK.
- Because you do not need to be financially burden with paying off
your study loan upon graduation.
If you are smart enough to study for a degree, then you will
need to figure out how to achieve my point 1) to you, without me
spoonfeeding you with your options.
2) I am proud of you that you are able to worry
financially into your family's future needs. However, DO NOT
FACTOR YOUR FATHER'S SAVINGS INTO YOUR EQUATION, because these
savings aren't the solution and your father's savings should
not formed part of your solution for your family's future
needs.
I can give you the golden rule of building wealth....since the
Age of Cavemen...
"Wealth isn't about how much money you can earned, it's really
about how much money you managed to save"
Instead of worrying about how much you can earn in your future,
why not start thinking about how much you can save every month and
try to do better than the previous month? - At least you can do
this to help yourself and your family financially.
Let go of all the unnecessary luxuries and splurgings and
comforts you think you deserved.
Rich people aren't people who knows how to sue other people or
buying football clubs overseas or having alot of money in your bank
accounts to spend every month or to lose money in casinos.
REAL RICH PEOPLE are people who truly understood the meaning
behind saving money and mastered the lifestyle of frugality to
the point that it doesn't affects their mental well-being.
3) There is no ideal job in this world. Even if you are
President of some blah blah countries, you will still suffer
because you are surrounded by real idiots of your own country which
you will need to deal with at the same time you are dealing with
real idiots from other countries.
It's important for you to break and shatter your own dreams now
and begin your career with zero dream.
Because you can only build your own dreams ONLY when you have no
existing dreams.
4) If you do not understand the importance of saving money at
your current stage, you will only end up spending as much as you
earned in the future. And that will only bring you back to square
one and you can certainly deceive yourself in your future that you
just need to earn more money and more money.
Please take my advice seriously and start learning how to save
money and instill it into your blood and core before it is too late
for you to do so in your future.
