My colleague Bertrand said (in some context that I can’t recall) — spending money is easier in SG than in other countries.  Mall shopping is very popular in Singapore, more so than in other cities. When a family’s disposable income grows, family members break traditional guidelines of simple life

eg: “family car” -> 2 cars per family still not enough
eg: “sharing a bedroom between 2 kids” -> one bed room per kid
eg: “Aircon in bedrooms only” -> a/c in living room and kitchen

Lifestyle creep infects through a shared sense of rising living standard and rising income. However, I guess a minority of infected individuals do not experience rising income.

— disambiguation .. Lifestyle creep is slowly progressive, often recurring. In contrast, big ticket items [rEstate, branded college, or even cars] are usually not part of lifestyle creep.  This bpost tries to focus on a few common themes:

• exclub, FOMO, comparing with the neighbours
• semi-conscious “creep”
• FTIL

— eg: Punggol experience .. In my Oct 2020 meet-up with Raymond in Waterway Point mall, I pointed at the rows of colorful lit-up shops all around me, and declared that virtually all of the fancy “things” on sale were unnecessary luxuries, if a family follows disciplined spending and a savings habit. Such a family of four (like my family or Raymond’s) can survive  easily in Singapore, thanks to the the essential livelihood supports (medical, housing, education, inflation..) provided by government.

However, if you always try to match the lifestyle of other people (exclub), then even 10 times more income would find their way out and you would still feel “not enough”… latency endless arms race

Raymond and I have similar spending habits, but not sure about the wives. Raymond said women “need” to spend more than guys, presumably in clothing, personal care.
— eg: Funan experience (On 2020 Christmas) .. looking at the fancy new shops in the renovated Funan mall (and the earlier Suntec mall), again I realized none of the thousands of commercial offerings is necessary for a healthy, fulfilling life.

Eg: without the learning programs, children can still grow well. Same can be said of MindChamps offering.
Eg: As to the relatively healthy but fancy foods, without any of them, you still can have a good diet. In fact, by my standard, those fancy foods are still too oily and sweet. Otherwise they won’t be popular.

— eg@FTIL: earliest example of unnecessary “finer things in life”… When I taste a fancy food, I find the taste special, but is it worth 5 times of the price of a regular meal like 杂菜饭 (mixed veg rice) ? Perhaps it’s worth 50% more. I have felt this way for 40 years, since my teenage years.

Basic-healthy standard for nutrition might be too hard for some people, but I believe that with some variety, you can enjoy tasty food within the same budget. MixedVegRice used to be the best value in Singapore, either in coffee shops or food courts. I used to pick 2 veg or 1 veg 1 meat, for below $3. Nowadays I eat out only once a month or so. I now pick 3 or 4 items for $4->5-6. I used to flinch at such price figures for mixedVegRice. Now I don’t even notice my higher spend. The only explanation I have is higher disposable income and lifestyle creep.

Is if for nutrition? No. It’s only for pleasure [variety]

Alcohol, golf, luxury cars (relative to modest cars) … are other finer things in life.

— eg@FTIL: yoga and fitness classes? I do need help (esp. motivation) to sustain a yoga practice. Underlying issue is my personal limitation. Therefore, the commercial offering is needed i.e. without the external help my life would be poorer.

If you really hate creep, then look out for the many free classes.

— eg@semiconscious: hearing the Taobao discussion in the C-epa team.. I feel spare-cash-rich people have a tendency to spend on small fancy goods of acceptable quality. Imagine you bring home 10k/M and saves 90%. Would you feel an urge to spend a bit more on those small “fancy” items like accessories?

An honest review may show that those small spends add up to, say $2k – $8k a month. Over 250M (20Y), it adds up to $500k ~ $2000k

— Work hard play hard .. Perhaps Rahul, my sis and many of the high achievers would say that, but I am suspicious of the play-hard part. It often means spend hard, party hard. Inevitably, there’s a powerful exclub and FOMO element, which used some implicit benchmark. Behind these benchmarks there’s nothing but vanity.
— CpfLife ERS amount won’t be enough.
— which level of ffree? well above Level 5 ffree
— 80% of the local median income for a comparable family size is my reference burn rate.
— exclub, FOMO