2020 Expense in Singapore Recap
Looks like all my 2020 resolutions turn out to be a failure. I’m still a noob in competitive programming. My Chinese is not improving. I bought a piano but I leave it as a decoration. What a sad lyfe 😢.
But I did fulfill one thing, very consistently from 1st Jan to 31st Dec, every single day: keeping track of my expense!
I randomly gave a thought about it and found the Money Lover app (https://moneylover.me/) to be very helpful (I am not endorsing it by the way). Here’s a short story breaking down my expense this year. You can compare it with my previous SG living cost story.
Expense Breakdown
Bills & Utilities
Breakdown of the expense per month:
- Master bedroom for $860 (a lucky deal)
- Utility bills (electricity, water, and gas) for $200–240. This amount shared equally between 3 pax ($60–80 / pax).
- Aircon service every 3 months is $20
- Whizcomms internet 1 Gbps for $38, split within 3 pax.
Multiply them by 12 months and voila! Even with this cheap option, it still contributes to 40% of the whole expense.
Food & Groceries
Yeah, this takes a lot of money and they end up as shit, but it’s the source of happiness in this difficult time. Got peaks in September and December because of birthday and new year dinners. Post-lockdown spending is much worse compared to pre-lockdown, mainly because of Covid-19 stress. No point in saving up cause you can’t go anywhere, better waste em for $$$ food :’D.
Weirdly, after the lockdown is lifted (mid-June), I noticed that I had started to buy bubble tea every other day. I guess it contributes to a $50–$100 difference monthly.
Notice how groceries expense is high during the lockdown (April-June). I can’t even remember what I’ve been cooking…
Shopping
- Two major contributors for Electronics: iPad Pro (with Apple Pencil + Magic Keyboard) and Piano. The others are tiny bits (mouse, PS4 game, etc.)
- Beauty consists of haircare and skincare. Maintaining colored hair is costly.
- Quite glad that my clothing spending was healthy. Much healthier compared to last year (bought too many shoes :’))
Health & Fitness
Acne scar treatment package. Fucking expensive, yes. Currently undergoing the treatment, I hope it’s worth it :(.
Others
- Transportation is mostly Bus and MRTs. I take Grab < 10x this year. Singapore has the best public transportation. It’s on-time, clean, safe, and incredibly cheap.
- Education consists of coding interview (LeetCode, AlgoExpert) and language (Mandarin) subscriptions
- Entertainment has a single record: bungee jumping in Sentosa (which was very very very worth it!!! Can’t wait to jump from the top of Macau tower)
- Gifts & Donations are self-explanatory.
- Fees & Charges also have a single record: fine of losing Shopee Building access card.
Anything Untracked?
Yes, but mostly small stuff that is < $300 per year, all combined.
- Netflix and Spotify subscription
- Mobile Data
Should’ve been covered by my credit card rewards and promotions 😛. I am currently using two cards:
- DBS Live Fresh. Most of the time able to maximize the monthly reward of $40.
- Citibank Cashback Unlimited.
2021 Prediction and Plans
I don’t think Covid-19 will recover anytime next year, so the expense will be most likely similar. New stuff I can think of:
- Eat more pricey food
- Haircare expense (I plan to go blonde for the whole fucking year)
- Get a new hobby (my colleague is into surf-skating and it looks very fun! Maybe I should buy one and go to the lessons)
- Piano lesson (it’s rarely used now…)
- Electronics craving: iPhone 13 (will mark 3 years of my iPhone XS), Dyson vacuum cleaner
- In case any country suddenly opens its border (Taiwan, Hong Kong, New Zealand), I will fly straight away.
The only priority right now is to go back home once Indonesia opens its border. I miss my family and friends. I miss my mama so so so much :( Will defer skydiving, bungee jumping, riding roller coasters, and other extreme stuff I am craving until 2022.
