FIRE, which stands for "financial independence, retire early", is taking off in Southeast Asia. Milieu Insight's FIRE research* found that more than six in 10 respondents expect to retire in their 50s or 60s (62%).
.png "Source: Milieu Insight. Chart of different FIRE strategies across Southeast Asia.") |
| Source: Milieu Insight. Different FIRE strategies across Southeast Asia. |
Retiring early (defined as retiring before 50s) is a possibility for 60% of respondents, but only 14% think that they are on track for early retirement - Singaporeans seem most pessimistic about being able to do so, with only 9% indicating that they are on track.
The most common strategy towards early retirement is savings (71%), followed by ‘being careful with how I spend my money’ (63%) and ‘investing’ (63%). Finding additional employment is much less common (37%) as part of strategy to retire early, but tends to skew towards Thais (54%).
Insurance - one way of investing - is also more common among Singaporeans (56%) and Filipinos (53%). Most people are hands-on for retirement planning, with only 31% of those who plan to retire early saying that they have a financial consultant to help them.
Among those who save regularly for early retirement, 43% save more than 20% of their incomes. Among those who invest, 36% indicated that more than 20% of their incomes go towards investments. The most common investment types are:
- Investment funds (56%)
- Stocks (53%)
- Real estate (52%)
Cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are currently crashing, register at 41%, and seem to be more popular in Thailand (57%) and the Philippines (54%).
*Based on Milieu Insight surveys with N=1500 employed respondents, aged 18-49 years old, each from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, conducted in May 2022.