3 Ways Seedly Has Enhanced My Life

In my first Opinion piece, I shared about how fatherhood changed my relationship with money. Well, it’s thanks to the birth of my boy that a long-time friend recommended that I join Seedly so that I could figure out hoe to invest and make money grow. Suffice it to say that my past year here has been an interesting journey - so much so that I want to pen this tribute article for users to send it to reluctant friends and family so that their financial lives could undergo a changeover. Here are 3 ways how Seedly has spiced up my life.

1) Giveaway Gains

Singaporeans love freebies, and I'm no exception. I think what I appreciate most about Seedly is its innovative and ingenious giveaway contests, which make thinking and posting about money issues fun. The first time I dipped my toes in the deep waters of Seedly Forums was during the circuit breaker, where bubble tea was a scarce commodity. So I tried my best to answer as many forum questions as possible so that I could emerge among the top ten and win two cups of bubble tea. One for me, the other for the wifey. As they say, happy wife, happy life.

Other giveaway contests Seedly organises include review campaigns, in which netizens are encouraged to post reviews of the services they are using. These services cover a broad spectrum from roboadvisors to saving accounts to home insurance, so there is bound to be something you can add your two cents' worth to. It even occasionally holds a Date to Update Reviews Campaign, in which you can post your update on why you are still continuing to use a particular service. Or reveal why you choose to suspend it. I find that through posting my reviews, I get to dabble in mindful introspection about my spending habits. Why did I choose this service from this brand? is my rationale compelling enough to persuade potential consumers?

Yes, this is the giveaway contest that cemented my love for Seedly.

In fact, there is a pineapple tarts giveaway contest going on right now. (https://seedly.sg/questions/create-your-happiness-this-2021-share-a-photo-of-a-moment-with-someone-and-tell-us-why-they-make-you-happy). Yes, I joined it. And yes, I don't mind sharing the news because if I don't win the pineapple tarts, I know Seedly will organise another contest around the corner.

2) Confidence Gain

Everyone has an investing story (or two) to tell. Here's mine: I never used to care that much about money, preferring to adopt an live-and-let-live attitude. That actually lasted for much of my 30s until I became a father. Overnight, money soared to the top of my priority list and I yearned to start investing in order to make every buck work. So on that fateful day of 1st January 2020, I opened a Stashaway account and set up a monthly DCA of $50. Yes, $50. That was how much of a novice investor I was.

Have you heard of Seedly Personal Finance Community (SG) (https://www.facebook.com/groups/seedlyfinance)? I got prodded into joining the Facebook group by a fellow parent and lurked in the threads, acquiring knowledge as and when I felt like it. What was immensely helpful for me was the many active users who generously shared their financial moves with the world. I remember coming across the Singlife advertisement on my Facebook feed and dismissing it straightaway, thinking that its design appeared glaringly red and promise of 2.5% per annum sounded too good to be true. But after reading time and again how Seedly users endorsed this insurance savings plan, I pushed aside my skepticism and took the plunge.

I was able to enjoy the lucrative interest rate of 2.5%. I was even able to enjoy referral fees twice because I acted ahead of the pack! So even though Singlife has since revised its interest rate to 1.5%, I remain grateful because it is putting new sign-ups on hold. I didn't miss the boat, yay!

The same could be said of Singtel Dash EasyEarn and GIGANTIQ. When I realised that other users on Seedly's FB page felt safe enough to entrust their money to these apps, I did likewise. Hence, I am one of the lucky ones who is still getting 2% from these insurance savings plans because I signed up for them before the interest rates got cut.

Seedly provides a conducive environment for me to “monkey see, monkey do”. It may be the same case for you as well.

3) Knowledge Gain

I initially wanted to write about how Seedly provides me with a Platform Gain since I scored the opportunity to be an Opinions writer here after winning its (you guessed it right!) giveaway competition. But I guess not many of you will find this relatable. So I decided to pivot my third point to Knowledge Gain.

Do you know that apart from its FB pages and forums and Opinions articles, Seedly boasts two Seedly TV seasons on YouTube? If you didn’t know, now you do - and it may be worth your while to check it out.

Anyway, to continue my noob investing stories, I was not at all familiar with the myriad robo-advisors available in Singapore even though I did put some money in StashAway. So you can imagine how thrilled i was when I came across this sharing by all the major players in the robo-advisor industry. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7Kj3iMK7cM&t=262s). It was so time-efficient to have all these founders/Chief Investment Officers gather under one roof and discuss the commonalities and differences in regards to the investing frameworks they employ. Since then, I have dabbled with Syfe's REITs+ portfolio and will most likely branch out to Endowus this year.

Other than Seedly TV, Seedly also organises live AMA (Ask My Anything) sessions with industry experts, where you can accelerate your knowledge on a particular topic such as insurtech or mortgage. Unfortunately, these live sessions aren't recorded, but we can still benefit from the detailed answers posted to the many intriguing questions. Here's how you can get up to speed with previous AMA sessions: https://seedly.sg/questions/hi-is-there-a-replay-of-the-live-session-and-where-how-do-we-attend-live-sessions-in-future

Closing Thoughts

I wasn't very interested in learning about money as I found investing books too high-brow but Seedly's emphasis on building a community of like-minded finance wellness enthusiasts has chipped away at my resistance and (dare I say it?) made the process fun and exciting. I'm sure you will enjoy similar benefits too when you engage yourself in Seedly!

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I just thought it would be nice to practise 饮水思源 (yin shui si yuan; expressing thanks for the source that nourishes you) since Seedly gave me this platform to post my money musings after all.

Updated on 5 Feb 2021: The power of the Seedly community is perhaps best illustrated what I went through last night. Within minutes of finding out that GooglePay has launched an attractive Huat Pals campaign, I saw on a Seedly thread that a user had recommended a telegram channel. Joined the channel promptly, traded Huat Pals with the best of them and subsequently recommended this channel to fellow GooglePay buddies. Seedly makes me hip!