Can You Still Retire At 35 Like Colin Lau? I Ran The Numbers For 2026

Happy National Day!

If you've been on Singapore Facebook or YouTube in the last two weeks, you've probably seen him: Colin Lau, an extremely frugal 55-year-old who retired at 35 after losing his job, and has been living on about $150 a month ever since. His CNA Money Mind segment blew up with half a million views in 24 hours and is past 2 million now.

My friends and I were discussing the obvious question many are asking after watching it: "Can we still do this today?"

So I decided to check. I pulled up the cheapest HDB flat I could find on PropertyGuru right now, did the math, and compared it against what Colin actually did back in 2007. The short answer is: the playbook still works, but it's got significantly harder to execute 20 years later, in 2026. Let me show you why.

The Original Playbook (In 4 Moves)

Strip away the frugality tips (rainwater collection, freeganism, eating close to nothing) and Colin's actual wealth strategy boils down to four moves:

1. Buy the cheapest flat you can find. In 2007, aged 35, he bought an aging 3 room HDB with 64 years left on the lease for $87,000.
2. Pay for it in full, in cash. No mortgage, no interest, no 30 year "gift to the bank" as he put it.
3. Rent out a room. He's been collecting $900/month in rent today, plus a share of utilities and broadband.
4. Live off matured insurance payouts. Policies he'd paid into during his earlier years now pay him an extra $1,600/month.

Total income: about $2,500/month. Total expenses: $150/month. Everything else piles up as savings and insurance premiums, which is how he weathered a 62 day hospital stay and 15 surgeries without paying a cent out of pocket (subsidized ward + insurance covered it).

Now let's see what replicating this actually costs in 2026.

Move 1 & 2: Buy The Cheapest Flat, In Cash

I went hunting on PropertyGuru for the cheapest HDB resale flat with at least 2 rooms (1 to stay, 1 to rent out). The bottom of the market right now is a unit at 5 Changi Village Road, 2 bed, 2 bath, 710 sqft, going for $300,000 (about $422.54 psf).

Colin's $87,000 flat in 2007 has become $300,000 today, roughly 3.4x more expensive in nominal terms (not accounting for inflation). HDB resale prices have simply run far ahead of wages and the cost of living.

Saving up $300,000 in cash, with zero mortgage, is a different order of challenge to saving $87,000. If someone today takes home $3,500/month and channels a genuinely aggressive 75% of it into savings (about $2,600/month), it takes roughly 9.5 years of relentless saving just to accumulate the flat money.

Move 3: Rent Out A Room

I went on PropertyGuru again to check rentals around Changi Village Road, and right next door on the very same street, there's a common room for rent at 4 Changi Village Road, going for $900/month, max 2 tenants (female), 130 sqft.

The rental Colin had 20 years ago was definitely lower than $900/month. A quick check online shows an average rental of around $400/month around that period. This means expenses would have had to be kept very low, so the balance could go toward funding the insurance premiums that are now paying him $1,600/month.

Move 4: The Insurance Income Nobody Mentions

Colin's other $1,600/month comes from insurance policies that matured over his working years. This is the part of the story that gets glossed over in every viral clip, but it's arguably the harder half to replicate, because it took decades of premiums paid before he ever needed the payout.

With $900/month rental income today, we'd have to keep expenses very low in order to fund an income or annuity plan that only pays out 20 years later. Assuming an expense of $150/month, similar to Colin's, which is extremely difficult to achieve today, we'd be able to contribute $750/month to the plan. This works out to a payout of around $1,600/month, 20 years later.

The Numbers, Side By Side

Here's the whole comparison in one place:

	Colin, 2007	Replicating It, 2026
Flat price (cash, no mortgage)	$87,000	$300,000
Price per sqft	~$124 psf	~$422.54 psf
Room rental income	grew from ~$400 - $900/month	$900/month
Other passive income needed	$1,600/month (matured insurance)	$1,600/month (Pay ~$750 premium/month for 20 years)
Monthly living expenses	$150	$150
Approx. total net worth needed by mid-30s	~$87,000 + insurance premiums paid over the years	~$300,000 + insurance premiums paid over the years

Laid out like this, the main gap is cost of the flat. 20 years later, the flat is 3.4x more expensive.  That means you'll have to save a lot more, or a lot longer, to follow Colin's playbook.

So, Is It Actually Achievable Today?

Doing the exact playbook, dollar for dollar, cash-buy a flat, rent a room, retire fully on $150/month by 35, is significantly harder now than it was in 2007. The math says you will need something in the region of $300,000 saved up, and then keep your expenses extremely low for the next two decades. That's not a small gap to close on any salary, against our current standard of living.

But I don't think that means the underlying philosophy is dead. I think we can opt for Barista FIRE instead of full FIRE and keep the spirit of the plan alive. Pair a paid-off cheap HDB flat and room rental with a part-time income, rather than relying on pure rental income on day one.

The core lesson from Colin's story isn't really "buy a cheap flat" — it's that housing cost, not income, is the single biggest lever in any early retirement plan in Singapore. That lesson is just as true in 2026 as it was in 2007. It's the price tag on executing it that's changed.

Not financial advice — just me running the numbers on a viral story with a calculator open. Property prices, rental rates and psf figures used here are snapshot listings pulled from PropertyGuru and will move around; do your own due diligence before any purchase decision.

Happy Value Investing.

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