On board DBS Multiplier Account

笨mummy knew that she is going back to the workforce and being a salarywoman, she did some research on what saving accounts offered by the banks would be best for her salary crediting. Currently 笨mummy has a UOB one account which she earns an interest of 2.43% on her $50,000 by meeting the minimum $500 credit card spending and 3 GIRO debits per month. To maintain the UOB one card, all household expenses are charged to UOB One card - home internet, insurance premium, town council conversancy charge, the purchase of groceries, milk powders, diapers, etc and she also set up GIRO debiting for expenses that cannot be pay by credit card - child 1's school fee, her monthly donation to community chest, and payment for NTUC union. She is happy with the current status of spending via the UOB One card and does not wish to change as this is the highest interest rate she can attain for her $50,000 saving.

Given she now has a salary crediting, she was actually looking at OCBC 360 account ('360'), DBS Multiplier account ('MA'), BOC SmartSaver ('SS'), Standard Chartered Bonus Saver ('BS'). Based on her preliminary review below, MA seems to offer the best rate based on her need.

Account	Salary crediting (>6K/mth)	Other criteria	Comment
360	1.20% (no need to hit other criteria)	·       OCBC Credit spending > $500 (0.3%) ·       Investment – purchase of eligible investment products (0.6% or 1.2%) ·       3 bill payments > $150 in total (0.3%) ·       Account balance >$200,000 (1%)	笨mummy does not want to spend more money just to hit a criteria to earn more interest so credit card spending is not attainable and purchase of investment products are out. Also on the wealth bonus offer, it is quite ridiculous as who would put 200K just to get an addition 1% on the first 70K, and the remaining 130K just earning 0.05% interest. However, 3 bill payments is still something that can be attainable. Maximum possible interest rate for 70K put in is 1.5%
MA	1.90% (plus one other criteria) 2.00% (plus two other criteria)	·       DBS/POSB Credit spending ·       Investment (include dividend credited from CDP) ·       DBS/POSB Home loan ·       Manulife Insurances purchased through DBS/POSB	Home loan and insurance are out.   Credit card spending seems attainable as only need to clock any amount – buying a pack of Fisherman from Watson once a month should do the trick. Plus Investment allows dividend credited from CDP which is superb as 笨mummy has dividends inflow almost every month except for Jan and Jul. Maximum possible interest rate for 50K put in is 2.0 %
SS	1.2% (no need to hit other criteria)	·       3 bill payments >S$30 each (0.35%) ·       BOC Credit card spending > $500 or $1500(0.80% /1.60%) ·       Extra saving for meeting more than one criteria	3 bill payments is still something that can be attainable. Maximum possible interest rate for 50K put in is 1.55 %
BS	1% (no need to hit other criteria)	·       SCB Credit card spending > $500 or $2000(0.88% /1.88%) ·       Eligible Insurance Policy/ Unit Trust (0.75%) ·       3 bill payments > $50 each (0.25%)	Spending and purchase of insurance policy/unit trust are out. 3 bill payments is still something that can be attainable. Maximum possible interest rate for 100K put in is 1.25 %

笨mummy did more reading up on DBS MA by browsing the FAQ and T&C on its website and forums. To her pleasant surprise, she discovered that MA allows joint account is counted for hitting the salary credit and crediting of dividend by CDP (investment). This can be considered a huge advantage or "competitive edge' that the MA has over other banks products. For those who do not see why she is so excited, please continue to read on. For those who got it, you can close the browse now. 

笨mummy takes advantage of this above to open a joint account with her hubby and use this joint account to be her salary crediting account as well as the crediting account for CDP and both she and her hubby opened one individual DBS MA each and switched the monthly utilities bill from GIRO to hubby's POSB everyday credit card. 

In this way, her hubby can continue to earn the 1.2% under OCBC 360 for his own salary crediting and yet he can qualify for DBS Multiplier by levering on 笨mummy's salary. Now she has 50K plus 50K (hubby money) earning 1.90% or 2.0% from just one salary crediting account. 

So now 笨mummy's family has:

- $50K earning 2.43% in UOB one account

- $100K earning 1.90% / 2.0% in DBS Multiplier

- $70K earning 1.60% in OCBC 360 (as 笨mummy's hubby can only hit the bill payments critera)

by hitting:

- two salary crediting

- monthly spending of slightly more than $500

- 3 GIRO

- 3 billing payments

Saving tips - part 1

Having a new role as the CFO of the household, 笨mummy needs to improvise and learn a few new tricks to manage her expenses well. Here are some of the "tricks" she picked up in the recent weeks for sharing. 

1) Looking out for samples before checkout

Before she checkout of her groceries shopping on online websites, such as Redmart and  Fairprice online, 笨mummy would always do an additional step to search for the keyword "sample" to see what items are being offerred as samples for 笨mummy to pick up before she completes her shopping. 

In the recent shopping on Redmart, she had picked up 

• A Nescafe Gold Latte Coffee Sample pack for S$0.25 which consists of 4 packs of the Nescafe Gold Latte Coffee (which a packet of 12 could cost around $6.50).
• A sample 370g tin of Enfagrow A+ Gentlease stage 2 stage for Child 2 at $0.10. This is a real bargain considered how expensive milk powder can be, and being, older and starting to weaning, Child 2 has no problem drinking milk powder from other brands)

Below is a printscreen of what are offered on Redmart that you can find: 

2) Qoo10 Gift card

As a regular shopper on Qoo10, it is only now that 笨mummy discovers the gift card. Qoo10 allows a shopper can actually buy gift card of $100 value on Qoo10 at a discount of 3%. If you are a regular buyer, like 笨mummy, you can actually save $3 for every $100 you spent when you purchase the gift card and use the gift card to top up your Q Money. 

That's all 笨mummy has to share for now. If anyone has any saving tip, do share with her. Saving is caring. :)

How to minimise individual income tax for a working couple

Although Singapore’s tax rate is one of the lowest in the world, 笨mummy hold the belief that one should aim to pay his/her fair share of tax and claim all the reliefs that one is entitled to. As a working couple, 笨mummy always need to take into account of her hubby’s income and reliefs as well as hers when preparing the individual income tax filing as to minimise the tax payable for them as a couple.

Here are her workings in computing the prefect combination of reliefs to be split between the couple to achieve the lowest tax payable possible:

• Step 1: List down the income of both couples as well as the tax reliefs available. This can be easily extracted from the draft form B1 when you log in the IRAS tax portal. 

• Step 2: Identify the “non-shareable” reliefs and the “shareable” reliefs. Non-shareable reliefs are those that are only allowable to a particular person, for example, working mother child relief is allowed to the mother (i.e. the wife), while earned income relief, CPF relief, etc are only allow to that particular individual (i.e. the husband or the wife). While shareable relief can be split and share amongst the couple. 

• Step 3: Compute the chargeable income net of non-shareable reliefs

• Step 4: Split the shareable reliefs according to the highest marginal tax rates

Here is an example for illustration of how the above work:

Assuming both husband and wife are working and they have one child. The wife would be entitled to the working mother relief which is 15% of her total income. 

INCOME		Husband	Wife
Employment income		100,000	100,000
Other income		-	-
TOTAL INCOME		100,000	100,000
DEDUCTIONS AND RELIEFS
Non-shareable reliefs
Approved Donations		68	65
Earned income relief		1,000	1,000
Working mother's child relief		NA	14,990
Grandparent caregiver relief		NA	3,000
CPF/provident Fund relief		17,000	16,000
Course fees relief		-	-
Foreign maid levy relief		NA	-
CPF cash top-up relief		-	-
Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) relief		-	-
NSman(Self/wife/parent) relief		1,500	750
TOTAL NON-SHAREABLE RELIEFS		19,568	35,805
Shareable reliefs
Qualifying child relief	4,000
Parent relief	0
Net chargeable income net of non-shareable reliefs		80,432	64,195
Husband tax rate		Amount	Tax rate
		20,000	0%
		10,000	2%
		10,000	3.50%
		40,000	7%
		432	11.50%
		80,432
Wife tax rate		Amount	Tax rate
		20,000	0%
		10,000	2%
		10,000	3.50%
		24,195	7%
		64,195

As in this example, the amount of $432 of husband attracts the highest tax rate of 11.50%, follows by the $40,000 (Husband) and $24,195 (wife) attracting the second highest rate of 7%. The couple has a few choices of split the child relief: 

1. S$432 to husband and balance to wife, 

1. All $4,000 to husband

Net FlashPay top up promotion - $3 per month up for grab from Nov to Jan 16

笨mummy saw a promotion in Today newspaper on the NETS Flashpay that rewards a 10% rebates on top up to any NETS Flashpay on the DBS/UOB/OCBC bank cards (debit card / credit card), cap at $3 per month for 01 November 2015 to 31 January 2016.

笨mummy has a OCBC Frank Credit card that comes with NETS Flashpay and she is going to top up $30 via the Add-Value Machine at the MRT Station at the end of each month.

Details on the promotion can be found here - https://promo.nets.com.sg/netsflashpay.html

Shopping malls reward programs review

Even since Capitalmall introduced its reward program – Capita Star that allows one to earn points from spending in their malls, other shopping malls are catching up and introducing their own reward program to attract shoppers.

Frasers Rewards

Frasers Centrepoint Malls has its Fraser Rewards (link) that awards shoppers with 10 point for $10 normal spending or 2 points for a $10 supermarket spending in their malls.

Normal	Supermarket
Spend $10 = 10 Points	Spend $10 = 2 Points

As for the redemption, it is mentioned on the website that every 500 points earn 0.5% rebate, which it is hard to understand what is meant by 0.5% rebate and how does it work.  For members whom purchases spending is $8,000 or more, can be upgrade to Frasers Rewards Elite the following redemption year and enjoy DOUBLE rebates.

This is a reward program that 笨mummy has no experience on as she does not stay or work near any of Frasers Malls.

Suntec Rewards

Suntec Mall recently introduced its reward program – (link). A minimum of $20 spending in a single receipt is required. And the points awarded vary depending on the type of spending.

General	F&B	Supermarket
Spend $1 = 5 Points	Spend $1 = 3 Points	Spend $1 = 1 Points

Shoppers can redeem a $5 e-voucher with 5,000 points. It is launched in late Oct 2015. Fairly simple program – Shop/dine, scan and earn points.

Like Frasers, they also have special privileges for members that hit certain spending tier – 6,000 for Gold & 40,000 for Ultimate, in the way of more bonus points on birthdays and member discounts. 

JemX Rewards

JEM (Jurong East Mall) has its own reward program – JemX Rewards (link). It is a fairly straight forward program. $1 spending regardless of category would get 1 point. Minimum spending of $20 accumulated in 2 receipts for earning points.

CapitaStar

CapitaStar (link) allows shoppers to earn the CapitaStar points for purchases made in the shopping malls under Capitalmalls. Every $1 spent would get 5 points for normal purchase and for supermarket purchases, every $1 spent can only entitled to 1 point. A minimum of $20 for a receipt to be entitled to earning points.

A summary for the various programs discussed above and comparison on a $$ value level:

	Min per receipt	General	F&B	Supermarket	Redemption
Suntec Rewards	$20	$1 = 5 pts	$1 = 3 pts	$1 = 1 point	5,000 pts = $5 e-Voucher
Frasers Rewards*	$10	$1 = 1 pt		$1 = 0.2 pt	Every 500 pts =0.5% rebate
CapitaStar*	$20	$1 = 5 pts		$1 = 1 pt	5,000 pts = $5 Voucher
CapitaStar * (Passion card )	$20	$1 = 7.5 pts		$1 = 1.5 pt	5,000 pts = $5 Voucher
JemX Rewards	$20 in 2 receipts	$1 =1 pt			800 pts = $5 e-Voucher

*Capping:

Suntec reward – cap at$5000 spending.

Frasers Rewards - cap at 500 per day

CapitaStar - cap at 5,000 per day

CapitaStar (with Passion card) - cap at 7,500 per day

For every $20 spent:

Spending Type	Suntec Rewards	Frasers Rewards	CapitaStar	CapitaStar (Passion card)	JemX Rewards
General	$  0.100	Unable to assess	$      0.100	$       0.150	$        0.125
F&B	$  0.060		$      0.100	$       0.150	$        0.125
Supermarket	$  0.020		$      0.020	$       0.030	$        0.125

Looking at the points converting to dollar value, it seems that for supermarket spending, Jem has the best offer, and for all other type of purchases, CapitaStar (passion card) is the winner and for those without out passion card, Jem is still a better bet.

The little efforts that added up

Here are a summary of the small steps that 笨mummy takes to reap those little perks from her spending and saving that she often shares with her friends and colleagues. 

(1) Transport spending

(a) MRT expenses

This was previously blogged by 笨mummy before -Travel Smart reward (formerly know as Insinc)

Sign up and link up your Ezlink card. And you are on your way to earn a bit of money from your daily commuting if you are taking a train to work daily. 笨mummy earned $28 from this program in 2015.

Link to earlier point on Insinc- Insinc point update

(b) Taxi spending

A occasional taxi taker, 笨mummy, has signed up for the cabreward program introduced by Comfort to promote customer loyalty. She can earn points for taking cab and then redeem these points for comfort taxi voucher. It takes about a minimum 1,000 points to redeem a $5 voucher and that meant a spending of $1000 on cabs with payment ie. S$19 per week. Considering that 笨mummy needs to take her son to her mum's place every sun and the cab fare is estimated S$15 per trip. And adding some ad-hoc promotion for bonus points, reaching the minimum redemption points of 1,000 should not be any issue. 

Yes, this is previously shared in an earlier blog post - Points system for taking cab.

She also regularly checked the comfort website for update on their promotions that allows her to earn from taking cabs. Like the recent promotion with Dash, she can earn 5% rebate on taxi spending and 2x reward points, and 5 x points for birthday month.

(2) Spending on daily necessities

(a) Qoo10 for your diaper needs

There are some expenses that 笨mummy cannot avoid for her little one, such as milk powder,  diapers, wet wipe, etc. For diapers, she is not fussy and is willing to get from Qoo10, especially when they offered free delivery to her house (if above a certain amount) and the price is much cheaper than those from the super markets.

(b) Shopback and Redmart

She has been introduced to Shopback and Redmart and getting her milk powder supply online. As the price for the brand of milk powder is more or less standardised whether you get from a supermarket or other sources like Watson in Singapore unless there is a on-going promotion. By using Redmart and Shopback, she could get a 9% as a cash rebate and she can also tag along some cheap and bulky stuff, like toilet papers, tissue, detergent, etc, to the basket so that she can get a free delivery (total purchase of $50 to entitle for free shipping on Redmart) and avoid the need to carry the bulk stuff. 

Here is a link to Redmart and shopback via 笨mummy's referral link (Redmart), referral link (Shopback). for those interested to try out, so that she can earn some credit from referral and cut down some of her marketing costs. 


(c) Shopping malls rewards 
Nowadays, the shopping malls are like a duplicate of the other malls having similar shops and F&B outlets. But to 笨mummy, not all malls are ranked equally as some allow one to earn points (which can be converted to shopping vouchers).

She write a blog entry in the coming week to share the different malls reward programs and also a comparison table on these program .

(d) Credit cards rebates / rewards
One point that 笨mummy has always stress is the use of credit cards rather than cash or net. She is sticking to OCBC card as she needs to the spending to hit the criteria for the 0.5% spending interest to be awarded. As long as a purchase can be clocked with a credit card, she would use the card regardless of the amount, unless paying by NETS or cash is cheaper due to additional charge imposed on credit card payment.

This was mentioned before in a previous blog post - Why pay by credit card?

(3) Purchase of SGX shares

笨mummy has switched her primary trading platform to Lim and Tan Securities to take advantage of the award of linkpoint for the commission paid - for every $1 commission, 5 link point would be awarded which is 3.33 cents if converted to cash.

For low value purchase (anything with total purchase value below $8K), 笨mummy is using the Standard Chartered Bank Platform instead as it has no minimum commission.

(4) Incremental deposit promotion
笨mummy loves the incremental deposit promotions introduced by the various banks from time to time. She would move her cash from one bank to another just to take advantage of the special interest rate during the promotion and with the introduction of FAST, it is so fast just to move $50,000 from one bank to another.

She would find time to make a blog entry to discuss her strategy.

That's all 笨mummy has to share for now. If anyone has any tip, do share with her. Saving is caring. :)