Dear Mr. Piggy Bank

If your piggy bank could talk, what do you think will it say?

Aside from the occasional "oinks" I think most of us will say that Mr. Piggy bank will definitely scold us. Bad piggy!

Imagine, pay day is coming soon and we are already thinking of what we NEED to buy and what we WANT to buy. However, there is only a handful of people who would think of how much they would SAVE. Guilty as charged. I for example, will prepare a list of my expenses and try to set aside some money for the "rainy days". Then...Ms. Sephora comes and knocks on my door. "Hello there, we have a sale coming soon and I was wondering if you can come and take a look." There goes Mr. Piggy Bank.

Now I am not a here scold you or tell you that you should not go near temptations, cause let's face it, there is a certain satisfaction in going out from the store holding your precious black and white stripe paper bag. It's a stress reliever, a way to forget that you worked your ass off for the past week. Then again, we were not able to save today but tomorrow's another day. Nope! This may happen every month. It may not be Ms. Sephora, it might be Mr. E-bay with his friend Mr. Aliexpress. My point is, it is really hard to save up and fill Mr. Piggy bank.

However, we can still buy the things we like without breaking the bank. We just need to know where to buy them at a cheaper price. If not, we can always sort out the things we don't like anymore and sell them so that we don't need to touch our savings but still be able to buy that palette that we have been dreaming about. I'am a Filipino but I'am working in Singapore and I think that there are several ways for you to save money if you really want to. Here are some of the ways that you can save up a bit for le piggy:

1. Sell your stuff

There are several sites and applications available that can help you sell your used items from clothes to bags to shoes or even that make-up that you only used once for that date night that you regret going to. One of these is Carousell, it is a website and application that serves as a platform for sellers and buyers. Here you can sell new or used items as well as buy them at a more affordable price. However, as with all online shopping sites, we need to take caution of some sellers as they may say that an item is pre-order but they may be bogus sellers. There are also bogus buyers who will offer you a certain amount but will not show up in the end or worse, take advantage of you during the meet-up. The best thing to do is to read up their feedbacks and try to buy from those sellers with a lot of positive feedbacks. Try to avoid secluded meet ups, the MRT or a busy area is better as it will be safer for you. Here is my carousell site for you to have an idea of an ideal seller/buyer.

2. Save by using coupons or deals

Deals and coupons are another way to save on your shopping specially online ones. I know some of you have heard about Groupon. This site offers discounted deals or if you are lucky, some are even free. I was able to buy a photobook from Groupon and only paid for the delivery. I saved about SGD 35 on a 40 page small sized photobook which is quite a deal. There is also an online shopping site called Qoo10 where you can buy cheaper stuff such as cute phone casings, caged bras, tempered glass screen protectors, etc. However, there are some stuff that will change their prices once you check out which may be due to a higher delivery fee. Thus, always check the prices before you check out or maybe find somethings that may be cheaper (they have a time sale and a group buy where they give even more discounts).

3. Rebates

There is a new site that I recently discovered called Shopback which offers rebates on your online purchase. How it works: you need to go to their website/app, log in your account and choose which site you want to shop in. It will then show you how much you can get for rebate and when the amount can be redeemable as it is different for each shop. For example: I bought an item from sephora which entitled me to a SGD 4.99 cash back. I can redeem the money after 77 days. However, this is not enough to redeem cash since you need at least SGD 10 to redeem. It may take longer but at least you will be expecting some "income". They also have a referral system which entitles you to a SGD 5 cash for every referral who bought SGD 25 above using the Shopback account that they created under your referral. In conjunction with this, your friend who signed up will also get SGD 5. Everybody wins! If you are living in Singapore and would like to try Shopback, you can use my code to start saving.

4. Just Save It!

There Is not better way to save but to avoid spending. I once heard someone say that when you spend money on a 50% off dress, you did not save SGD 40, you spent SGD 40. Yes, you can save and you can sell but in times when we need it the most, we may have already spent the money on something that is not important. In the end, the decision is still up to you my dear reader.

Will your Mr. piggy thank you?

#carousell #savings #singapore #groupon #rebates #shopback #coupons