A new breed of poor people
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there is a new breed of poor people.
a 43 yr old woman lost her $7500 salary job. her husband earns little from his property career. she decided to spend using her many credit cards, chalking up more than $100k of debts. she later found a $5k job.
she is now working to pay off all her debts. sounds familiar?
according to the report they are new breed of poor people. a unit was set up just to counsel and advise such people. generally these people are near 40. -
Living in Singapore for locals are fast becoming inevitably precarious, due to the lack of alternative means of making a living.
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its true.
with more and more older workers losing their jobs and outsourcing we cant possibly all work as taxi drivers or brokers.
even start a business is difficult. the cost and risk is just too high. -
I find it hard to sympathise with her ...
earning 7.5K once upon a time doesn't mean you'll be up there forever ....
chalking up more than 100K obviously meant that she was still indulging in the life style of a 7.5K a month worker while she was jobless ..... so whose fault was it ? ...
But is she really poor ? ... poor (in Singapore) means you're living many souls in a one room flat eating porridge and pickled veggies ... poor means you're a sickly man in the 50s earing $650 a month as a factory general worker with 3 kids to feed, such that your lunch would be slices of plain bread with water, ... take a look around at the underbelly of society, these are real people you'll find in singapore .... not someone used to driving a car and holiday overseas suddenly whinning about not being able to make car payments when she loses her job .... no one, not the goverment, not society, owes you a living, much less a life-style you were used to, hello ! .....
when reality strikes, one can only bite the bullet and adjust your life style accordingly ... if she persists in living her life to what she's used to, then she has no one else to blame but herself ... tough ... -
I agree with Fatum.
The lady got into the mess because she couldn't reconcile with her new status. Once she lost her job, she should have quickly 'cut her losses' by adjusting her lifestyle accordingly. In other words, she should have 'downsized'. If she had a car, sell it off. Living in a condominium? Sell it off and live in an HDB apt instead. Country club membership? Sell that off.
Perhaps, she kept thinking that she'll find a good job 'tomorrow' and held on tight in wait.
And in the meantime, the bills just kept getting chalked up, the interest keeps accummulating. And credit card interest is scary! It's kinda like compounded interest! Interest upon interest upon interest!
The REAL poor are those mentioned by Fatum. What you term the 'new breed of poor' are really just folks who used to live in an ivory tower, and who are now standing on ground level, and all they need to do, is to take action and stop dreaming of their glory days gone by. -
How lucky are some of you. I am not saying that the lady should not be responsible for their dire suitation, but really, how many of the people in sg are not spending future money?
Are not our house paid for with future monies such as CPF or Bank loans thinking that if we continue to work, we have no problem paying back. How many of the ppl took a loan from the bank to further their education so that we can repay them when w work.
How many of them would know that they would be retrenched or jobless even if they are working in government bodies?
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the so called new breed of poor people is steadily growing.
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Yes there are many more who are pooorer, beyond the imagination of all of us here...Originally posted by Fatum:I find it hard to sympathise with her ...
earning 7.5K once upon a time doesn't mean you'll be up there forever ....
chalking up more than 100K obviously meant that she was still indulging in the life style of a 7.5K a month worker while she was jobless ..... so whose fault was it ? ...
But is she really poor ? ... poor (in Singapore) means you're living many souls in a one room flat eating porridge and pickled veggies ... poor means you're a sickly man in the 50s earing $650 a month as a factory general worker with 3 kids to feed, such that your lunch would be slices of plain bread with water, ... take a look around at the underbelly of society, these are real people you'll find in singapore .... not someone used to driving a car and holiday overseas suddenly whinning about not being able to make car payments when she loses her job .... no one, not the goverment, not society, owes you a living, much less a life-style you were used to, hello ! ..... -
car = liability. in such a small SG, u seriously dun need a car one....got people tot of it b4 ? with more LRTs and MRTs coming up....y do u even need a car for...with so many unemployed driving taxis...i will be surprised if u can't hail taxis...
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Earning 650 a month in Singapore with 3 kids to support and still got bread to eat and go with water meh....??????? I should say........sai may not have for eating also. Freaking singaporeOriginally posted by Fatum:I find it hard to sympathise with her ...
earning 7.5K once upon a time doesn't mean you'll be up there forever ....
chalking up more than 100K obviously meant that she was still indulging in the life style of a 7.5K a month worker while she was jobless ..... so whose fault was it ? ...
But is she really poor ? ... poor (in Singapore) means you're living many souls in a one room flat eating porridge and pickled veggies ... poor means you're a sickly man in the 50s earing $650 a month as a factory general worker with 3 kids to feed, such that your lunch would be slices of plain bread with water, ... take a look around at the underbelly of society, these are real people you'll find in singapore .... not someone used to driving a car and holiday overseas suddenly whinning about not being able to make car payments when she loses her job .... no one, not the goverment, not society, owes you a living, much less a life-style you were used to, hello ! .....
when reality strikes, one can only bite the bullet and adjust your life style accordingly ... if she persists in living her life to what she's used to, then she has no one else to blame but herself ... tough ... -
The so-called new breed of "poor" people are just financially irresponsible with no budgeting sense.
I have no sympathies for them.
I have a credit card but I make a conscious decision not to spend beyond a fraction of my current month's salary. I don't spend "future" money because I know the risk of getting into debt.
If these people choose to over-spend on their credit cards, they reap what they sow. -
well no offense but if she spend like there is no tommorow when times are good.She has no one but to blame herself when times are bad.
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Agreed with Fatum...
These are the 'rich' ppl out there that bitch and moan on the lack of high paying jobs and the salary to support their Merc/lexus/condo/country club life style.
I will not pity these sort of ppl. They are the one who thinks that the world owe them a living. -
i don't think she wanted to consider herself as poor. She believed that the loss of her $7500 salary job was only temperory and she could easily find another high paying job to maintain her high living.Originally posted by dragg:there is a new breed of poor people.
a 43 yr old woman lost her $7500 salary job. her husband earns little from his property career. she decided to spend using her many credit cards, chalking up more than $100k of debts. she later found a $5k job.
she is now working to pay off all her debts. sounds familiar?
according to the report they are new breed of poor people. a unit was set up just to counsel and advise such people. generally these people are near 40. -
extracted from ST forum.
More credit card debtors than thought?
I REFER to the articles 'Emergence of 'New Poor' a worrying trend: Credit agency' (ST, Oct 2
and 'How long can I hold off credit card debt repayments?' (ST, Oct 30).
In reply to a question in Parliament, it was said that 'as a whole, the number of credit card bankruptcies as a percentage of credit card users is extremely small, at less than 0.05 per cent'.
However, a more detailed look at the statistics is quite alarming.
According to the Insolvency and Public Trustee's Office, there were 22,540 undischarged bankrupts as of end August this year. What is the total number of undischarged and discharged bankrupts here? If the total is, say, 30,000, the number due to credit card debts, at 60 per cent of the total, is about 18,000.
According to a report in July last year by Visa International, 'Credit card use and debt in Singapore', there are about 800,000 eligible credit card holders, with an annual income of more than $30,000. This means about two out of every 100 eligible credit card holders is now or was bankrupt (18,000 divided by 800,000).
If a bankrupt has on average three family members, 72,000 people (18,000 x 4 people) may be affected by the inability to get credit to buy a house or a car for the rest of their lives.
This works out to be about two out of 100 population (72,000 divided by 4 million population), who may be in this predicament.
According to the Department of Statistics, Singapore's credit card debt in 2002 as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product at 1.4 was double that of Britain's 0.7. The credit card charge-off rate, defined as bad debts written off during the period divided by the average rollover balance for the period, rose by 31 per cent from 5.5 in 2002 to 7.2 in 2003.
The Visa International report also said the credit card default rate at the end of 2003 was under 4.3 per cent, and 62.1 per cent of total balances attracted interest.
With 3.7 million credit cards and 3.4 credit cards for every household in Singapore, this means about 150,000 credit cards are in default, and many Singaporeans are not managing their credit cards well and attracting interest at the typical rate of 24 per cent a year.
The 'extremely small' statistic on credit card bankruptcies in the first half of the year may be just the tip of the iceberg. There are about 30,000 people here who owe more than $20,000 on their credit cards, and three out of four have rolled over their debt in a 12-month period.
How many more Singaporeans have to be made bankrupt due to credit card debts before we no longer say 'the number of credit card bankruptcies as a percentage of credit card users is extremely small'?
Leong Sze Hian -
I find the 'news' nothing new. We are all in debt. Only a handful of us is really debt free. We go about our lives fooling ourselves and those around us that we are rich. In fact , our neighbouring countries and even those far-off , think we are well-off so much so that all kinds of 'donations' also have.I agree our country is doing well, but what about ITS PEOPLE??
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The ministers, GLC's top management, tomasick's top managment are doing their pockets very very very extremely well.Originally posted by highway69:I find the 'news' nothing new. We are all in debt. Only a handful of us is really debt free. We go about our lives fooling ourselves and those around us that we are rich. In fact , our neighbouring countries and even those far-off , think we are well-off so much so that all kinds of 'donations' also have.I agree our country is doing well, but what about ITS PEOPLE??
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it is indeed true that our govt is damn rich.
only a small group of people in this country is rich, most are in debts.
the lucky ones have less.