facebookI'm already 27 years old but compared to my peers, my savings are very very low, feeling abit desperate to grow my savings, anyone has any advice pls! - Seedly

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Anonymous

03 Jul 2019

Random

I'm already 27 years old but compared to my peers, my savings are very very low, feeling abit desperate to grow my savings, anyone has any advice pls!

I’m 27 and I have barely $9k in savings now. I admit I have been making a lot of impulse purchases and the purchases are big sums. Since last month purchases slowed down, I am at a loss so I’m seeking help here. What should I do?

  • salary ~$3.5k (been working just slightly over 2 years)
  • single, no other commitments
  • 1 savings acc, 1 monthly spendings, 1 CC
  • rent $700, insurance $300, parents $500 (~$1550 including misc subscription)
  • monthly allocated $800 for food and entertainment

Discussion (19)

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Vincent Tan Wen Bin

03 Jul 2019

Assistant Vice President at Thinkers Alliance

One way that I use to build up my savings is the concept of "paying myself first."
I started saving 10% of my income before CPF contribution when I first started working. I transferred those funds into a savings account which I have no access to. No ATM card.
When I see the savings account grow, I started to save more and more aggressively till 30% of my income. This strategy works well for me and I manage to save and work within my budget.
Budgeting is tiring. But when you pay yourself first and budget with the rest of the funds, you will be able to find more joy seeing your account grow. This will motivate you to save more.

Gabriel Tham

03 Jul 2019

Tag Team Member at Kenichi Tag Team

If you want to supercharge your savings, perhaps your food and entertainment can cut down.

Simple example calculation here: Lunch $5 + Dinner $5 =$10 a day. 30 Days, $300.

Why didn't count breakfast? Buy a loaf of bread + butter or peanut butter, even nutella also can. 1 Week 1 loaf of bread = about $2 a week.

You need some entertainment, maybe a movie a week $10. Restaurant don't eat so expensive, can go those $20-30 range.
I think you can cut down your $800 food/entertainment as a single. No starbucks, no bubble teas :)

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I read to the answers of the others before replying. Most of what they say is right. One way to cut a large cut out of your expense is to move to a place with lesser rent. Think a room rent in HDB flat, in say Yishun or Sengkang is about $400-500. But this is subject to your current contract.

I’m assuming your Budget above is not what you’ve been spending but what you are proposing cause if you have followed it you would have saved more than $20k already. Looks good for a starter. If you keep to it. But follow the advise of others if you want to save more

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Hi anon,

I recently answered a similar question, you can have a look at my analysis here: https://seedly.sg/questions/i-have-been-working...

My additional advice for you would be:

  1. YES, keep those impulse purchases down. I'm quite a shopaholic as well tbh (used to be a super reckless spender too), but I try to keep my expenses at bay by following the following tips:
  • Cook more often to save money from eating out! Meal prepping is really helpful at saving money + attempting to be healthy haha.
  • Find free activities to do in your spare time, there are plenty in Singapore!! There are blog articles and Telegram channels sharing deals, promos & events in Singapore which are free or really inexpensive. Here’s a Seedly article compiling all the Telegram channels in SG that you should follow!
  • Use money saving apps & tools to help you save a little while you’re spending. Check out our Seedly article on money saving tools a Singaporean should use! My personal favourite is Shopback for online shopping & ShopbackGo for meals.
  • Do your expense tracking. Of course, I would like to plug the Seedly app for expense tracking because we have a really intuitive & user friendly interface! You can also set limits on certain categories of expenditure (this is how I limit my Grab rides haha).
  • We all grew up with the 3Rs in Singapore, yeah? Environmentalists believe in 2 additional Rs: Refuse and Repair. Refusing is the way to go if you wanna control your expenditure, especially if it's a want instead of a need.
  1. Follow our Seedly salary allocation model diligently!! It's a good tool for starters beginning their personal finance journey. Thereafter, you can plan for the other components of your personal finance too, i.e. debt and insurance.
  1. Read up! Like many other answers, you should definitely read to beef up your investing and personal finance knowledge. You can learn more on our Seedly blog for FREE! We've got plenty of articles on all 5 verticals of personal finance :)

Hope this helped! All the best :)

View 2 replies

Chin Guo Qiang (ITIL4 / CSPO / CSM)

01 Jul 2019

Assistant Vice President, IT Operations at Bank of China Limited

Start by paying 50% income (nett income after CPF deduction) to yourself in a good savings account, ...

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