A common question by clients I meet is how much inflation do we need to factor in when planning for the future. There is definitely no simple answer to that or a one-size fits all answer, however it might be helpful to look at some recent trends to get some ideas. This is based off an article published on Asiaone. Some notable points:
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1. Inflation has been relatively low (1.7 per cent annualised average) in Singapore over the past few decades.
2. Cost of higher education has skyrocketed, with an overall increase of 16.65 per cent in the past 5 years.
3. The cost of healthcare has also steadily increased ahead of CPI: 7 per cent since 2009.
4. Cost of food has increased by 10% from 2013-2018.
5. Housing prices have decreased by 11% from 2013-2018.
6. Transport costs have also come down by close to 3% over past 5yrs.
7. Median income has increased by 4.4% per year.
Personally, the thing I’m most concerned about is healthcare costs. For the wealth protection plans we have in place, have we realistically factored in whether the same coverage will go as far as we hoped in 10 or 20 years time? Even for my own planning, I think perhaps not. But of course the government is trying to bring down healthcare costs and certainly the past numbers do not reflect the future, but it wld be prudent for us to be aware and to take these numbers into account in our planning.
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