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is Uncle a millionaire?

First, what is definition of a millionaire? 

I think one of the more commonly accepted version is : Having nett USD1M of assets, excluding your primary residence. 

Uncle will not include CPF in measurement

Uncle has equity of about 1.6M in my primary residence, but cannot count that.

But there is also an outstanding mortgage of 1.6M. So do I deduct 1.6M from the value of my other assets?

My home is where me and my family live in, it's our shelter, it does not generate passive income, even if its market value continues to go up over time. In fact, it is an expense, due to mortgage interest, property tax, utilities and upkeeping costs.

But should I just deduct the outstanding mortgage from my net worth? That doesn't make sense, because at least 50% of the monthly repayment goes into the home equity. So maybe I'll take a haircut of 50% (i.e. 800k) as a cost.

So combined with my wife, we'll have a net of almost USD2M in assets, excluding the equity of our home. Yay! We are millionaires! But why still so stressed leh? lol

That's because of the high cost of living in SG. 

Yes, you may say, just move back to HDB and you'll be in better position! Well, that does come with a financial cost too...the value of the HDB will not go up as fast as value of private condo. It's a risk vs reward tension. We want to hang on to see it grow and grow, for future adjustments when value of current home is even higher. 

BUT TBH, a million dollars doesn't cut it anymore today. I would say, $5M at least is what we should go for. Inflation and cost of living / housing eats up a lot of money. 


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