https://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/nav/are-you-saving-enough.page?pid=sg-dbs-pweb-nav-featured-cardtile-others-are-you-saving-enough claims that the average Singaporean household in the survey saved 55% of the total income including employer CPF contribution + nonwork income reported on tax forms. This figure is highly questionable.

— Issue: What’s the average Singaporean? I guess the authors meant that average household expenditure is $X and average household income is $Y, so 100%-(X/Y) gives 55%. This doesn’t mean a typical household saves 55%.  If we tabulate the savings rate of 1000 households, we get a distribution (bell curve histogram). Given this histogram,

( issue: ) is it valid to find a population average? I can only speculate

• low-income households save less (in general but not always),
• younger households save more for housing and raising family,
• pre-retirement households may save more as their grown-up children have left
• retiree households may have negative savings rate or possibly excluded from the calc

It’s questionable to compute aggregate statistics across any two distinct categories.
— Issue: most Singaporeans in the survey would have 30%+ of monthly income locked into CPF (compulsory savings scheme)

I would guess the alternative statistic of “savings rate as percentage of take-home salary” is much lower among Singaporean families with kids. The median might be 10-20%
— Issue: is mortgage payments considered savings or an amount spent? For the P+I,

• I feel the interest portion is definitely an expenditure.
• The principle portion is more like investment (savings)

— issue: is rental and dividend income captured as income? I would doubt it.

In conclusion, it’s hard to have any confidence in these numbers. My target is Brbr, focusing on non-investment expenditure.