by KT
I am a 39-year-old a true-blue Singaporean, earning about $3,000* a month working as a warehouse supervisor for the past 8 years.
My wife has been working part-time as a retail assistant, earning around less than $1,800 a month and retail business has been bad and she might even lose her job.
The standard of living in Singapore today has been increasingly high and wages have not been increasing and I have a daughter and aging parents to take care off.
Employing a maid alone (which includes salary, food and levy) to take care of the elderly and kid a month will cost me one-third of my salary.
Even eating at the coffee shop, a plate of mixed vegetable rice can be costly, many stalls today will cook their vegetable and mixed with some meats so that they can charge us as meat price so easily each plate can get as costly as $5-$7 (depending on location).
Healthcare cost is also getting increasingly high, even with the “so-called” subsidies by the government, but the price of the healthcare is not going down because the doctor will increase their price in the consultation and all others miscellaneous charges.
With this kind of high standards of living, how can one survive with such a salary? Is our government doing enough to control the cost of living?
*TOC has viewed the writer’s payslip to ascertain his claims.
