How Much Should You Have Saved By Your Age in Singapore?

The classic rule of thumb — "have 1x your salary saved by 30, 3x by 40" — comes from Fidelity, an American financial company, based on American salaries, American retirement accounts, and American cost of living. It's referenced everywhere. It also maps poorly to Singapore.

In Singapore, a big chunk of what's technically "saved" is locked in CPF. Your HDB flat is an illiquid asset that eats most people's OA balance. The numbers look different here, and the goalposts need adjusting.

This isn't about making you feel better or worse about where you are. It's about having an honest baseline that's actually relevant.

First: CPF is savings, but not usable savings

By 30, a Singaporean who started working at 23 earning $3,500–4,500/month will have accumulated roughly $60,000–90,000 in total CPF (OA + SA + Medisave combined), assuming standard contribution rates.

That sounds like a lot. But: Medisave is ring-fenced for healthcare. SA is locked until retirement. OA is available for housing, but if you've been using it for HDB loan repayments, it may already be partially or fully deployed.

For the purpose of "how much can I actually use if I need it", most of that CPF balance doesn't count. What matters is your liquid savings — cash in bank accounts, investments you can sell, emergency fund.

Rough benchmarks for Singapore (liquid savings only)

These are intentionally wide ranges. Salary levels, whether you're renting or paying off a flat, whether you have dependants, and lifestyle spending all create huge variation. But as a rough reference:

These are medians, not targets. Being below doesn't mean you've failed — it might mean you've been paying down debt, supporting family, building a business, or just had a rough couple of years. Being above doesn't mean you've won — it might mean you've been under-living and should actually enjoy more of your money.

What "savings" should actually include

When tracking your net worth or savings progress, it helps to separate things into layers:

1. 1.Emergency fund — 3–6 months of expenses in cash. For most Singapore adults this means $10,000–25,000 sitting somewhere accessible. This is not for investing. It's for job loss, medical bills, or anything else that goes wrong.
2. 2.Accessible investments — ETFs, stocks, unit trusts, T-bills, SSBs. Money working for you that you could sell within a few days if you had to.
3. 3.CPF (all accounts) — Real money, genuinely yours, but largely illiquid. Count it separately.
4. 4.Property equity — If you own an HDB or condo, the equity you've built (market value minus outstanding loan) is worth tracking, but it's not liquid savings.

Most people are further along than they feel — because they forget to count CPF and property equity. Most people are also behind on accessible savings — because they've been mentally counting the illiquid stuff.

Why the 20s gap is normal and also a problem

In your early 20s, income is lower, lifestyle tends to expand to fill it, and there's often still some catching up to do (paying off student loans, getting settled). It's very common to have minimal liquid savings at 24–25 even while earning a decent salary.

The issue is that the 20s gap tends to persist if you don't actively interrupt it. Salary goes up, but lifestyle inflation tends to follow. By the time people start thinking seriously about savings — often triggered by a specific goal like a house, wedding, or a scary birthday — they've lost 3–4 years of compounding.

The fix isn't complicated: start tracking what you spend, figure out what you can actually save each month, and automate moving that amount somewhere before you can spend it. The amount matters less than the habit.

The HDB complication

For many Singaporeans, the biggest financial event in their 20s–30s is buying a flat. HDB purchases require using OA savings for the downpayment and ongoing CPF monthly contributions go toward the loan — effectively wiping out a large chunk of accessible savings in one event.

This is why savings benchmarks for Singapore need to account for whether someone has bought property. A 32-year-old with $20,000 in liquid savings and a flat they're paying off is in a very different position from one renting and sitting on $20,000 with no property.

Neither is objectively better — it depends on your goals. But they're not the same, and comparing them against the same number doesn't make sense.

A more useful question than "am I on track"

Instead of benchmarking against an average, the question worth asking is: do I know my actual savings rate right now, and is it sustainable?

If you're saving 15–20% of take-home consistently (excluding CPF), you're building meaningful accessible savings over time. If you're saving 5% or less and you're not actively paying down debt or dealing with an unusual situation, that's worth looking at.

The only way to know your actual savings rate is to track your spending. Not estimate it — actually track it. Most people who do this for the first time are surprised, usually in one of two directions: either they're doing better than they thought, or they find the two or three categories that have been quietly absorbing a disproportionate amount.