As you might already know, I would always try to use my credit card at every opportunity rather than cash.
Well, simply because - by using your credit card, you get to earn cash rebates, rewards or miles. Yes that means, your expenses are actually giving you savings in some form.
But here's the big trap that most credit card companies are hoping.
Certain credit card companies set a minimum spending for you to enjoy certain attractive benefits - making you want to spend more money than necessary.
T&C Example of spending $800 minimum to enjoy a 10% cashback
This article is written specially for people like me, who is so thrifty that hitting this minimum sum would be a tall order. The last thing we want is to mindlessly spend money unnecessarily just to hit this minimum spending.
Well, here are few ways to hit this minimum spending - without spending extra money unnecessarily.
#1 - Use FavePay or XNap To Use Your Credit Card On Hawker Food
Wait what...?
Some of us may know this - in Singapore, we have something called the SGQR code - the simple, yet brilliant way to bring us into a cashless society.
Example of a SGQR code (Image credits to abs.org.sg)
In the past, I used to simply scan these QR code with my PayLah or PayNow App.
Boy, was I making a mistake all these years - as I could have been using my credit card to pay for all these delicious hawker food and earn cashback / miles in the process! Here's how.
You notice the little icons below the QR code?
Well, these are applicable payment methods - and yes, PayLah and PayNow are one of those applicable methods.
But did you know that there are payment methods that allows you use your credit cards to make such payment to hawker centers or coffee shops?
Well, here are two of the payment apps I usually use with Hawker Centers' SGQR code.
FavePay and XNap allows you to connect your credit card and make direct payment to our hawkers and coffee shops - and yes, you do earn credit card rewards as a result.
Now imagine if you spend $15 daily on food - we are already looking at around $450 worth of spending!
(And food is money you would spend anyways, so you are not mindlessly spending extra money just to clock up your credit card points. Imagine a 2% cash back on $450 - that's already $9 back into your wallet.)
So before you ever use your PayLah App to make a transaction - always keep an eye out for these two little icons.
#2 Use Your FairPrice App For Kopitiam
The Kopitiam food court is island-wide and most of us have probably seen it.
Did you know that you can use your fair price app for your Kopitiam food?
The best part - with the Fairprice App, you will also enjoy a 10% discount on your food.
<It really hurts me when I see people using PayLah to pay for their food at Kopitiam...>
What's even better is that you can also link your credit card in the FairPrice App. So if your credit card gives a cash back of 2%, then we are looking at 10% + 2% - which is a total of 12% total savings!
Yes - this literally means that with the FairPrice App + Credit Card, my favorite Peanut Min Chiang Kueh will cost me $1.40 instead of $1.60!
So please, do your wallet a favor - always use the FairPrice App when in a Kopitiam outlet.
#3 Taking Advantage of Claimable Expenses
This is by far, one of the most effective ways to clock your expenses without actually spending money. Yes - you read it right, without spending money.
Some of us have company's benefits which allows us to claim back expenses - such as transport expenses if we ever happen to work overtime, etc (whatever that your company policy is).
For example, I would use my credit card to pay for my Grab expenses of $60 (to-and-fro). And subsequently, claim for my expenses.
Voila - I just clocked an additional $60 worth of expenses on my card in a single day.
Now, if I happen to make 4 trips in a month - that's an additional $240.
And remember - you won't actually spend the $240, since you will be claiming these expenses back. Yep - that's free credit card rewards for you.
So, take a good look at your company policies and you might opt to use your personal credit card to claim later, rather than your company's credit card.
Note: Please only do this if it is within your company policies.
#4 Volunteer To Pay For Your Friends/Family
Okay, this is tricky. For this to work, you really need to have friends that have some integrity and would pay you back.
Well, so this method is pretty straightforward.
If you happened to go out for a meal or any other activities - volunteer to pay on behalf of everyone first, and request them to pay you back later.
For example, let's say you go out with 5 friends and clocked a total of $120 worth of expenses (to be split equally) - pay the bill first and get the other 5 friends to pay you back $20 each.
This way - you have clocked $120 worth of expenses with just $20.
#5 Spending Money on Vouchers
Okay - so this is the most straightforward method, which is called the "pre-paid" method.
If you are nearing the end of your statement cycle, and have yet to hit your monthly minimum spending but don't know what to spend on - consider buying vouchers from merchant which you would frequent, so that you can delay the spending to the future.
For example - you could get Fairprice Vouchers from NTUC, Capitaland vouchers from Capital Mall, etc.
Another place to get vouchers from other Merchants is from Wogi.sg
By doing this, you will easily meet your monthly minimum spending and get to think about what to spend on in the future.
Conclusion
Broadly speaking - the whole idea is to:
(i) use your credit card as much as possibly for your daily necessity expenses such as food - this are expenses you would have anyways, so might as well charge it your credit card,
(ii) strategise your credit card usage on expenses that you know you can claim back, be it from your company or friends
(iii) pre-pay for expenses through the use of vouchers - so that you can clocked your minimum spend without spending unnecessarily on impulse.
If you know of any other means where you can clock your credit card expenses without spending extra money - let us know in the comments below! So that we can all collectively benefit from it!