A few weeks ago, over coffee and old stories, the conversation drifted to our retirement, and a friend said something that's stuck with me since: "I don't think I'm going to hit my Full Retirement Sum." He'd just turned 40. Decent job, decent pay, the kind of salary that should put him comfortably ahead of many people his age. He's not reckless with money, he saves what he can and had always assumed "doing okay" now meant he'd be doing okay later too. Then he actually ran the numbers on his CPF. What struck me wasn't the number itself, but the resignation in his voice, like he'd quietly convinced himself it was true. "But I earn well. How is this possible?" I walked him through some preliminary numbers that night to show it wasn't as bad as it seemed. But I've kept thinking about that conversation, because if a friend with a "good"...