8 Money Saving Tips: Spend less, Get more!

1. Buy or borrow newspapers and check out promotions/best buys! Very often these stores will advertise on papers about their promotions. When a store advertises, doesn’t mean that it’s got the best price in Singapore. Don’t come back commenting that you bought something much more expensive but was on promotion. (Read #2)
2. Start to compare and remember prices You don’t have to go around the different stores looking remembering the prices of everything. Just roughly remember the price of stuffs you get more often. Example: Glico Pocky at 85cents at NTUC Fair Price. For some stuffs, Carrefour may be cheaper. If you’re getting stuffs in larger quantities, sometimes Giant offers a better deal! If price isn’t an issue, go over to Cold Storage for some fresh deals.
3. Start buying house brands Some people got the concept that house brands lacks quality. Not true. Maybe food wise, the taste may not be as good as some popular brands. Other than that, I guess they’re comparable. House brands are cheaper because they are less advertised. However, not always house brands are cheaper too. Remember, compare. (Read #2)
   Brands and stores:
   Fair Price – Fair Price
   Watsons – Watsons
   Carrefour – Carrefour
   Giant – Giant
   Cold Storage – First Choice
4. Buy what you need Jot down a list of items you probably will need. I am a bad shopper as I always walk around the store for very long, aimlessly and buy everything that I see that’s on promotion. This is very wrong. Buy only what you will need to use or eat. (Buy more? Read #5)
5. Buy 3 get 1 free?
   Do you really need 3? If today, Giant starts to hold a promotion for Organic salt and offers 3 packets for the price of 2. Are you going to get it? Do you need 3 in the first place when you’re going to take a year to finish 1. There’s an expiry date to most items. (Not forgetting Active Ingredients too!) Think about it.
6. Free Gifts vs. No free gift (Not always true!) Buy tomato ketchup and get a free apron. Good deal isn’t it? Let’s put the word free aside. Normally when there’s no free gifts, tomato ketchups on shelves could be priced at a dollar or two cheaper. So make sure you check if you could get the one without a free gift at a better price. Don’t be misled by the word FREE; nothing is free in the world. Unless you need the free gift, else it’s not worth forking out the dollar for it, although it’s a good deal.
7. Quality vs Quantity. I would take clothes detergent as an example. There are brands such as “Attack” that produces detergent that is 2 In 1. Which means you do not need to buy any softener. And also you do not have to pour as much detergent as other brands because it’s thicker. That’s why you have to know what’s value for money.
8. What size should I get? Again I shall take clothes detergent as an example. NTUC Fair Price sells 2 Litre and 3.5 Litre Attack 2IN1 Liquid detergent for $7.65 and $11.95 respectively. But which one to get? Since detergent isn’t perishable, start calculating. $11.95/3.5L=$3.4142/Litre for 3.5 Litres bottle and $7.65/2L =$3.825/Litre for 2 Litres. Isn’t it obvious that buying the 3.5 litre bottle can save you more and it’s going to last you a longer time? Bigger bottles doesn’t mean cheaper sometimes though. Just be more calculative.