Monthly Expense: 2021 February

Another month, another tracking.. 1/6 there to annual budget report. Exciting to fill up my tracker up tbh.. hope I'm not the only weird one.  

Expense 2021 ~Feb

This month was marginally higher than Jan 2021 despite a shorter month.

While food/groceries fell lower; main contribution was due to Birthday month, so I am paying less for food this month and also shorter month. However, I can see my groceries fee coming up much higher compared to Jan.. mainly due to the fact that I've used up my groceries voucher (was diligently portioning them out). We can expect this category to rise sharply next month due to higher food and groceries costs.. reckon close to SGD1,000. 

The rest under Basic remains relatively stable for now, and I also don't foresee any bump coming up for the coming months. 

The excess also maintains relatively stable less the entertainment as I had some nights out drinking which explains the higher cost here. 

On another note, I've paid to get premium features on my tracking app using money I earned from Google Rewards. I just want to pay back to the service that I've used for more than 4 years. Support what you like before they go under. 

Cheers

Birthday Perks

Thought of compiling some birthday perks for the month as it is mine this month.. and hopefully will help you uncover some gem that you might have missed. 

On second note.. it is quite sad for people to have birthday in February, the shortest month of the year.. meaning you get at least 1~3 days less to enjoy such perks. 

Anyway, jumping ahead.. I've split these to a few categories so feel free to jump if the category doesn't interest you. 

Personal/Finance

Tiger Broker (Gold Member) - 5 general commission-free trades within 30 days (birthday perks are the same across Silver/Gold/Ace, you just have to graduate from "Uncertified" trader)

Food

Paradise Group (Gourmet Rewards) - 2x rebate throughout the month, meaning a whooping 20% on the subtotal spent

Genki Sushi (Genki Club) - Birthday 20% off nett spend

Shopping

Shopee (Gold Member) - SGD5 voucher on min. SGD10 spending (I think Gold Tier is the only tier with this voucher)

Uniqlo (App Member) - in-store SGD5 off on a min. SGD60 purchase.

BHG (Member) - 20% Birthday Voucher (off regular price items) to redeem at the customer's service counter

Don Don Donki (Bronze Member) - SGD5 off on next purchase (no min. and only during birthday month)

Honestly there aren't much other noteworthy ones such as small promo from qoo10 etc.

Cheers

New Credit Card - Citi Cash Back+

Saw the following promotion and definitely not passing out on free cash; 

    "Apple AirPods Pro or $350 cash (Citibank credit cards)"

And of course the catch is that you have to be a new-to-bank customer. I had a student clear visa card with Citi ages ago where I canceled last December since student card has limited perks and I wanted a new-to-bank perk. Seeing that it hit SGD350 cash bonus, I jump on it immediately. 

Rationale

The Card that I picked is Citi Cash Back+ which is a no frill, no cap 1.6% cashback card. Initially, I wanted to go after the Citi Cash Back card which gives 8% cashback on groceries/petrol and 6% on dining. However, such good cards usually come with frills such as minimum monthly spend of SGD800 and also cap of cashback at SGD80. This is a little troublesome for me to keep track tbh, thus I went for the no frill. 

Current Cards

My main card is still UOB One card, but I've been spending >SGD1k - <SGD2k which makes me give up quite a bit of cashback since UOB One card is by tier. Now I am keeping track to make sure I spend only around SGD1k on my UOB One card and the rest to the no frills card. 

Consideration

Another factor I considered was my monthly expense.. I projected and plan to spend less this year, ideally charging only <SGD2k monthly is an easily achievable goal but stretching it to <SGD1.5k charges to card. I had a good start with my UOB One card at around < SGD1.2k for Jan.. so another SGD800 on top of my UOB One card of SGD1k easily sustainable at least for now. I can always come back and reapply the cash back card when I see increment of my expenses. 

Cashback Versus Miles

Seeing that I no longer talk about miles.. can see that I am currently in the cashback camp against the miles although I started out in the miles camp. I just see that accumulation of such miles a bit of tedious work.. but I still maintain my DBS Altitude card where I will probably charge large cost items to. Cashback tbh is a quicker relief especially on daily expense.. and also I do think that I am happy flying normal economy class so let's see how it goes eventually. 

Rewards

Of course I picked the cash, hard cold SGD350 by just charging SGD200 to the card (easy-peasy), will post an update once I get the card and get the bonus! I am happy with my cheap Xiaomi wireless earphones for SGD20.. and for expensive ones I still have my over-ear Sony noise-cancelling one. 

I plan to cancel my Standard Chartered card soon to return as a new-to-bank customer in the future as well. 

What's your take on rinsing the new-to-bank bonuses on your non-main cards? I feel that it is still free money, so why not leverage on it. On that note, HSBC has one of the worst service ever, they denied my application without proper reasoning despite my credit score being the highest. #highlynotrecommended. 

Monthly Expense: 2021 January

Finally my favorite day of the month! Where I compile my expenses and match them to the forecast and see how in-line I am. This month is a good month for expenses even though I restarted working in the office, I'm actually back to a low compared to the last 6 months. 

Expense 2021 ~Jan 

Special highlights for specific categories..

Food&Groceries

This low figure actually surprised me.. considering my food usually averages around ~SGD1k especially that I need to eat out for lunch working in the office. However, I can expect late next month for my expense in this category to shoot up a little considering that I've been subsidizing my grocery fees with the government-given vouchers.. been using SGD30~40 every weekend. I still have some left for probably the first two weeks of Feb and we can expect to see the expense start crawling up.

Transportation expense is non-negotiable.. however, I always give a little buffer in case I need to take Grab or cab.. 

The rest of the expenses stay pretty low.. starting the year good.. and I've actually shopped quite a fair bit so this year I don't really have much to splurge on.

Cheers~ And looking forward to a good Feb!

Google Pay (GPay) Update 2021

A little late to the scene but I realized that I've yet to write about GPay which I use on a daily basis ever since transiting to an OnePlus phone that I bought in last year's 9/9 sale. 

This might be more oriented to Android phone user rather than iPhone but if you're using iPhone, you can still reap some benefits from it (Apple is smart to not allow you to change the default payment). 

Something sad is that GPay is getting less aggressive in attaining new customer-base, where we see Google giving less rewards (scratch cards). I will be going through the current rewards available and how best you can attain them. The rewards are instant, if you're using Android and not using Gpay.. you're missing out free cents.

Earn $2.5 cashback on your next movie at Shaw (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Purchase a movie ticket on Gpay App from Shaw and get guaranteed SGD2.5 back; once a week.

Earn $2.5 cashback on your next movie at Gold Village (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Purchase a movie ticket on Gpay App from Golden Village and get guaranteed SGD2.5 back; once a week. It was actually a whooping SGD5 reward last year... thankfully I reaped the reward once.

Order food on Google Pay and get $2.5 cashback (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Spend a minimum of SGD10 on any food place in GPay App, and get a guaranteed SGD2.5 back; once a week. This is a really good reward as I usually go for cheap lunch at work but this helps me get a yummy lunch once a week (especially last year where it was giving SGD5 cashback).

Tap or scan to pay in stores and earn up to $10 twice a week (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Spend a minimum SGD3 by GPay (paywave), online Google Pay, or QR scan (this works for Apple users) and you will get a scratch card; twice a week. It used to be 3~4 times a week or actually up to 7x cause they split the scan and tap components.

Send money to friends & earn up to $10 twice a week (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Send your friend a minimum of SGD10 on the GPay (via paynow/PayLah) to earn a scratch card; twice a week. There's a major change to this component, previous rewards you can send to same group of people every week but now you can only send to a different person even if it's the next week. TLDR; instead of the same 2 person every week you send for the scratch cards, you need a whole bigger group of different people in a month.

Refer a friend and get $3 cashback (ends 24th Jan 2021)

Earn $3 for yourself and your friend if they register through your code and once they done their first SGD10 transaction on Gpay; max 80 referrals. Shamelessly, you can use my referral if you're not on Gpay yet, we can be send money buddies. - Code (ch4yj0v) or click here.

Save $2 with HSBC and Golden Village (ends 31st Jul 2021)

Get $2 back for paying for your movie ticket at GV in GPay App using HSBC credit/debit cards; only off 2D standard seats.

Save up to $3 with DBS and Golden Village (ends 31st Dec 2021)

Get cashback when you use DBS/POSB card to buy ticket on GPay App; SGD3 off Gold Class, SGD2 off Gold Class Express, SGD1 off other movie tickets

Free Upsized Meals from Burger King on Google Pay (ends 31st Mar 2021)

Gets free upsize to any Burger King Ultimate Selection meal when you purchase Burger King on GPay App.

Hopefully this will help people new with GPay App! I will be back to update if there's new changes (probably from 25th Jan 2021). I really love how they integrate all the payment, food and movie into one platform, so far I've earned SGD70++ across 4 months.. what about you if you've been a GPay user?

Cheers~

2020 Expenses + 2021 Forecast

Today is actually my favorite day of the year (not my birthday, not any day) but it is not due to being NYE but actually it is the last day of the year.

In Feb 2016, I began my journey to track all my expenses and I’ve been really diligent in doing it, I am proud to say my tracking has minimal error (definitely less than ETF’s tracking, lol). I’ve also progressed slightly as a human, cutting corners on some of the tracking to make my own life easier;

• track top-up to Grab wallet as “Food Expense”, save effort on tracking Grab as a separate wallet (inclusive of YouTrip/Revolut/etc)
• put aside a small wallet for hawker food where I “top-up” physical cash
• no longer count the small cashback/promo on my expense, I just look at it as bonus money in my “Expenditure” bank account

Disclaimer: I don’t track my expenses to limit myself but for me to know where my money is going to, and from there I can forecast a budget for the upcoming year.

Budgeting Excel

In addition to easing my tracking, I also lessen the categories to make life easier thus the above categories. As it is still my first post, I will go through the rationale of my grouping. Basic (Food/Groceries, Transport, House/Personal), I view these as the basic need to my life. While I put the excess (Travel/Entertain, Shopping/Misc) as something that is more controllable. Lastly, I don’t really include Insurance and Mortgage (pardon the typo) into my basic expenses mainly due to I view these as future asset/needs, and by no means have any control in them as well.

Basic (Food/Groceries, Transport, House/Personal)

As you can see that my food/groceries expenses are pretty high, as my current enjoyment in life is mainly in eating (my goal is to go to any restaurant and not care the price tag while ordering), so I’ll allocate high budget to this category; taking into consideration of inflation and increasing standard of living, I accounted for a slight increment. Transport is one of the best performer in the budget but it was due to 3 months worth of Circuit Breaker (Singapore locked down) that I am able to WFH thus transport expense is less than SGD20 in these 3 months; while I budgeted for this year with the thought that I can still buy student concession fare till August, thus I’d keep the same budget for next year and see how it goes. Lastly, on house/personal, it ranges from the monthly contribution I put at home along with personal therapy, medical and etc. However, start of the year was harsh.. as my kitten required some excess vet support which caused it to go over budget (no regret there, hope you’re having fun at the rainbow bridge my lovely kitten) as well as some household goods breaking down; going forward I reckon chances of such one-off expenditure will not incur (touch wood) thus the lower budget.

Excess Expenditure (Travel/Entertain, Shopping/Misc)

While I budgeted quite a fair bit of travel, I only managed to visit Johore Bahru (JB) once due to the Covid19 pandemic but I plan to set aside similar budget for next year, hoping that travel might resume in 2021Q3. On another note, my shopping expense has overshot the budget (2 years straight) but this year was mainly due to a one-off purchase of my new phone at SGD1k which I expect to last me for a minimum of 3 years (based on my iPhone 7 lifespan). Honestly I feel that the budget is slightly higher than what I really need, but I’d love to buy things from sales (especially work shirt, etc).

Expense Wrap-Up

This year, surprisingly I am in the green (thanks to Covid19), however I still plan to set aside a higher budget; not to restraint myself too much and I also got a pay bump from job hop. Ultimately, my goal is total less “mortgage&insurance” can factor less than a certain percentage of my basic take-home pay (currently in 40~50% range, not revealing because it will be easy to reverse engineer my gross); goal will be eventually hitting less than 25% of my take home through both way of earning more money and spending less.

“Don’t let what you earn dictates how much you spend” -Me

Tracking App

I understand there’s many apps out there that will help with your tracking including app from Seedly, Gpay (allows you to track all expenses that is paid via card etc), banking apps and etc. Personally I use Monny, I like the flexibility and ease of usage of the app. Few note-worthy points are; allow you to create multiple accounts (for different accounts such as investment/spending/travel expenditure), create of categories, and recurring expenses. You can find the app in the following link – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.greamer.monny.android

Disclaimer: I am not sponsored to share the app, nor I will get any referral fees from this.

And Happy New Year to everyone, hopefully 2021 will be a better year to achieve all of our goals!