How to save money on wedding banquet? With a bit of research on the internet, I have found a way to do so.

Some people may like to clock reward points onto their credit cards, but I prefer cashback the most, because I can use the cashback on things I really wanted to buy instead of restricting myself to the redemption offered by the banks which usually is quite useless to me.

Wedding banquet is very expensive and involved a big amount of money. With a table easily costing over $1000, It easily mounts to $30k and even higher!

I find that Standard Chartered Bank offers the best cashback with their debit and credit card.

Standard Chartered XtraSaver Debit Card
- offers 2% cashback (cap at $300 per month)

Standard Chartered Manhattan Platinum Credit Card
- offers 5% cashback (cap at $200 per quarter)

I can charge a amount of:
- $15,000 to XtraSaver Debit Card to get the max of $300 cashback
- $4,000 to Manhattan Platinum Credit Card to get the max of $200 cashback

I got my wife to apply for Standard Chartered Manhattan Platinum Credit Card too!

In total, we can get $700 cashback on amount of $23000. The rest of the bill can be charged to other cards to earn points or get 0.5% rebate using SingTel-UOB Platinum Credit Card which can offset my Singtel bill!

Never use cash to settle your banquet bill, you will miss out on the enormous amount of points or cashback.

Every cents saved is money in your pocket~

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Standard Chartered reduced eSaver Savings Account interest rate yet again!

Effective 1 Jan 2011, the interest rate for eSaver Account is 0.15% p.a. That is 0.05% difference from the previous 0.2% p.a. interest.

Throughout the years, eSaver have went through a few rounds of interest rate deduction and this is the new low.

To me, it it no longer attractive to deposit money into this account anymore. I guess it is no longer possible to see 2% p.a. interest for savings account anymore. :(

CIMB Starsaver still offers the better interest of 0.8 p.a.!

Incoming Search:

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Citibank is going to reduce the interest rate for the step-up account again.

From my march 2010 electronic statement:

Effective 1 May 2010, the interest rates for SGD Step-Up Interest Accounts and Tap and Save Accounts will be revised to:

Base Interest 0.14% p.a
Bonus Interest per Step-Up Counter 0.03% p.a (Maximum Step-Up Counter = 12)
Maximum Interest Rate 0.50% p.a

So, they are doing it on labour day. I wonder when is the next cut, I hope not so soon. The good thing is that 0.5% p.a is still higher than most of the savings account out there, but its time to look out for better ones.

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I have managed to save quite a bit by cutting down on unwanted expenses. It is important to track what are your expenses.

Some of the things that I have cut down cost are soft drinks and junk food.

The video below shows you how to save money by eliminating 10 things you don’t need.

Remember, it does take discipline to save money.

Standard Chartered e$aver account is still offering one of the better savings account rates in singapore. The interest rate  has indeed dropped quite a bit since its high of 2%p.a.

The current rates of SCB eSaver

Less than S$50,000           0.30% p.a.
S$50,000 to S$199,999    0.40% p.a.
S$200,000 & above          0.50% p.a.

(rates effective 20 July 2009)

Location of standard chartered branches to open accounts with them. Visiting them to open account is so much faster than mailing them appliciation forms.

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The World’s Greatest Money Maker: Evan Davis meets Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is one of the richest man on earth and he is also the greatest investor of all time. He invest in companies using his own set of rules rather than speculate in stocks.

Lets take a look at his frugal lifestyle :)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6 (Last)

Do you really need a car? I have owned a car for 3 years in the past. Monthly maintenance comes close to 1000 dollars per month with those road tax and misc charges all added in. Now with public transport, I am only spending about 150 dollars per month with buses and MRTs.

In my case, having a car only eats away my finance and pulls me away from reaching financial freedom.

Citibank’s Step-Up Interest Account & FairPrice Plus Savings Account has reduced their interest rate yet again!

Bad news for us who have savings in these accounts.

Step-Up Interest Account still offers the highest interest rate if you have managed to step-up to the max. You might want to consider Maybank’s iSAVvy Savings Account or StandChart’s eSaver account as they have better base interest rate.

Step-Up Interest Account Old Interest
Base interest – 0.16%p.a.
Step-Up to 1%p.a.over 12 months

Step-Up Interest Account New Interest
Base interest – 0.15%p.a.
Step-Up to 0.75%p.a. over 12 months

FairPrice Plus Savings Account Old Interest
First S$50,000 (0.50 % p.a.)
From S$50,001 to S$500,000 (1.00 % p.a.)

FairPrice Plus Savings Account New Interest
First S$50,000 (0.30 % p.a.)
From S$50,001 to S$500,000 (0.60 % p.a.)

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If They accept credit cards, I usually charge everything to my credit card.

Nowadays I only use SingTel-UOB Visa Platinum Card as it is convenient and it offers cash rebate which offset my handphone bill.

One plus point to use credit card is that you know where your money is spent on by looking at the bill.

I pay it off in full at the end of each month. This way the money stays in my account up to a few weeks longer than if I pay cash or check. It is important not to leave anything over because incurring interest would be a foolish idea.

I carry only very little cash to cater for those places that do not accept credit cards. I feel that when you see the more money in the wallet, the higher the tendency to spend it away. So even if I use the ATM to draw cash, I usually withdraw in small amount.

In the past, Check is only used for my car installment payment. I seldom touch the check book since I scrapped my car. 

Credit Card is a good friend if you dont misuse it.

If you can’t afford it then don’t buy it now.

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As stated in my previous post: High Interest Rate Savings Account, the interest rates of the better savings account of Maybank and Citibank are as below

1) Citibank Stepup Account

• Base interest – 0.16%p.a.
• Step-Up to 1%p.a.over 12 months

2) Maybank iSAVvy Savings Account

• 0.50%/0.75% + 6% IOI — iSAVvy savings (min $5k/$50k)
• Daily balance below S$5,000 (0.25% p.a.)
• Daily balance of S$5,000 to below S$50,000 (0.50%p.a.)
• Daily balance of S$50,000 and above (0.75% p.a.)
• Interest-on-interest every 6 months (6.00%)

I would suggest opening both accounts at the same time.

Maybank iSAVvy Savings Account initial deposit is S$500 while Citibank Stepup Account is S$2000 (no initial deposit required with salary credit)

Credit your salary into iSAVvy and automate fund transfer a small amount of money (eg. S$100) monthly to the StepUp Account to build up the interest to the max of 1% p.a.

It will be good if you have S$5000 in iSAVvy to enjoy the 0.5% p.a. interest on the savings while building up the StepUp interest.

After which you can change the salary credit to the StepUp Account, and/or move your money from iSAVvy to StepUp to enjoy the 1% p.a. interest while ensuring that the current month minimum balance is not less than last month. (hope that the interest doesn’t drop by then)

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