By Chuin Ting Weber, CFP, CFA, CAIA 
CEO & Chief Investment Officer, MoneyOwl

💰 CNBC reports that in “most-expensive-in-world” Singapore, 60% of workers live paycheck to paycheck¹.

A touch of sensationalism in the implied causation.

But wherever you stand on the policy debates around living, housing and transport costs, it may be more helpful to focus on what we can do for ourselves.

A simple, time-tested hack—endorsed by many successful finance gurus including Warren Buffett—is to pay yourself first: save and invest a portion of your income the moment you’re paid, and live on the rest.

CPF is, in a sense, a state-mandated “pay yourself first” system. We may not like the smaller take-home pay, but it’s hard to deny that without the forced saving, many of us might not have even a basic level of retirement income we can get from CPF LIFE.

Beyond basic retirement, for a special goal, a legacy for the kids or just to have a buffer, we should have our own “pay yourself first” habit. The easiest way: automate it through bank instructions.

👉 Check out MoneyOwl’s rubric on paying yourself first to start building this muscle.

In suggesting this, I’m not taking sides on policy arguments nor denying that some of the 60% genuinely need more help.

Rather, as the old prayer says (I paraphrase): there’s wisdom in knowing the difference between what we can control and what we can’t. What we can most control is our own habits, whether or not we advocate for something larger.

1. In one of the world’s most expensive cities, more workers are living paycheck to paycheck ↩︎