young working singaporeans not saving enough

in a recent survey by hsbc's the future of retirement programme, an independent study of global retirement trends, the key findings were:

a. 48% of over 1,000 respondents aged 30 to 39 say they have no short-term
savings
b. only 30% of those who were married or living together aged 40 to 49 are
protecting their assets
c. 34% of those who are aged 50 to 59 do not have retirement plans
d. only 12% have undertaken tax planning
e. 24% of parents do not have any life insurance policy
f. 53% of all parents do not have individual term life insurance despite
having dependent children
g. 8 in 10 parents have not made a will
h. for parents who have financial plans for their families, 24% do not have
any type of life insurance in their plans
i. maintaining a private retirement fund or life insurance rank above
investing in stocks and shares with 20% and 12% respectively

and the survey also found that singaporean men are more proactive than women in making financial decisions concerning both retirement planning and household budgeting.

my comments:

the top finding of not having any short-term savings is even more stark as compared to a recent study entitled, "the happiness report" by grey group, a global communications firm which found that almost 1 in 2 respondents were unhappy about the fact they had insufficient personal savings.

i can certainly understand the younger gen's propensity to enjoy instant gratification, and one of the gizmos to attract die hard apple fans was the october 28 singapore release of the iphone 4s which saw many hundreds queuing long hours just to be amongst the first to own steve jobs's last biggie apple product before his recent most untimely demise.

and i can definitely attest to hsbc's findings to be pretty consistent in terms of my 14 years of experience in the financial industry working with many hundreds of individuals and families in singapore.

yes, dear reader, there is still so much more ground to cover with regard to just wealth protection planning alone which is simply skirting the surface (although an important one) of wealth management.

and as can be seen, a rather shocking 8 in 10 parents have not made a will which simply sums up the dismal status of the financial picture of the population here.