Guys, I’m convinced it’s physically impossible to save money in this country unless you live like a monk in a cave. At the start of May, I looked at my bank account, panicked, and swore on my life I’d do a “30-Day No Spend / High Savings Challenge.” No unnecessary splurges, no nonsense.
Fast forward to today: I didn’t just fail; I crashed and burned into financial ruin.
Day 1 started with pure delusion. I decided to stop taking Grab entirely and rely 100% on the MRT and buses. Great in theory, until my alarm didn’t go off on Tuesday, I was running 20 minutes late for a critical presentation, and the morning sky decided to open up with a torrential downpour. Open the Grab app: Surge pricing. $34 from the heartlands to Downtown. My soul left my body, but I clicked “Book.” Boom, Day 3 and the savings plan already got a puncture.
And don’t even get me started on driving. On the weekends, I had to borrow my parents’ car to run family errands. Passing through those ERP gantries felt like getting mugged by a robot. Beep, beep, beep. Every flash of the In-Vehicle Unit (IU) is just another few dollars evaporated into thin air. With COE prices permanently sitting in orbit like a SpaceX rocket, even just keeping an existing car on the road feels like a luxury sport.
Food was the ultimate betrayal. I thought, “Okay, I’ll just eat at the neighborhood coffee shop or hawker centre.” Bro, hawker food inflation is a lawless wasteland now. My usual “Cai Png” (economy rice) stall uncle must have gotten a degree in Wall Street trading, because two meats and one veg magically cost me $7.80. If you accidentally point at the fish, you need to sign a housing loan. By the time you add a Teh Peng, you’re hitting double digits for lunch in a non-aircon place where you have to fight aunties for a seat.
The final bosses that absolutely destroyed me, though, were the micro-transactions of Singaporean life. It’s the $6.50 bubble tea because “the weather is too hot and I deserve a treat for surviving Monday.” It’s the casual walk through Don Don Donki where you only intended to buy a drink, but walk out with $45 worth of premium sweet potatoes, peach jelly, and a random Japanese head massager you will use exactly once. It’s the impulse Shopee/Lazada flash sales at midnight because the algorithm knows exactly what you’re vulnerable to.
I set out wanting to save $1,000 this month. Instead, I saved exactly $42.50, and I’m pretty sure I spent that on a McSpicy meal yesterday out of pure depression.
Is anyone else actually successfully saving money here, or are we all just playing a losing game against the cost of living? Please tell me I’m not the only one whose wallet experiences a severe allergic reaction to just existing in Singapore.