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4 Ways Singaporeans Can Save Money With the Help of Their Smartphone

4 Ways Singaporeans Will Benefit From Having a 4th Telco

You’ve spend hundreds, perhaps even over a thousand dollars on your smartphone. Now it’s time to claw back all that money you’ve wasted. If you let it, your smartphone can actually play a pretty major role in helping you to get your finances in order and spend less. Here are five ways you can use your smartphone to waste less money.

Install a budgeting app to track your expenses

If you don’t already have a budgeting app, you’re missing out. This is one of the most important tools I use to monitor my spending and ensure I don’t overspend. Each time you spend money on something, you simply enter the amount and what you spent on into the app, and it keeps track of how much you’ve spent in that particular category. I use the super basic Expense Manager. No frills but it does the job without using a whole lot of memory.

Use the calendar function of your phone to ensure you don’t end up spending money due to time-related issues

Life in Singapore is pretty fast-paced, and if you can’t keep, you end up spending money, whether you’re rushing to an appointment in a taxi because you took too long to decide what to wear, buying a coffee in the morning because you slept late the night before and are exhausted, or purchasing an expensive gym membership because it’s closer to your workplace than the ClubFITT gym is to your home.

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Some of these so-called emergencies are simply due to bad planning. Schedule Google Calendar reminders and make them go off as alarms on your smartphone so you can avoid these expensive mishaps. For instance, if you have an after-work appointment to get to, set a reminder to tell you when you have to leave the office so you don’t end up being late and taking a cab.

Speaking of spending money due to time-related issues, even bigger issues such as renewing your car insurance or refinancing your home loan can all be managed just by simply setting a reminder on your calendar. Sure, you might be quite a way from having to refinance your home loan, but do you really want to forget about it as well?

Compare prices on your smartphone before buying something

Ten years ago, I was a clueless student trying to buy a Gameboy at Lucky Plaza (not the best place to buy this sort of thing). Having no idea what the going rate was, I walked into at least 20 shops to enquire about the price. These days, shoppers are more discerning than ever. Use your browser to log onto Price Me or Price Panda to compare prices before you hand over your credit card.

Sell your unwanted stuff on Carousell

Back in the days when people still used Yahoo Auctions and eBay was the only other credible way to sell second hand items, the thought of spending half an hour creating each listing and taking photos was enough to turn many internet users off. Thanks to Carousell, a mobile app that enables you to snap a pic of your item using your smartphone and immediately upload it to their online marketplace, it is now ridiculously easy to sell your unwanted belongings.

So long as you don’t get into dumb bargaining wars with buyers or waste your time responding to low-ballers, the entire process is extremely quick and easy. Just wait for a buyer to confirm a sale, give them your bank account details, wait for the money to come in and then post the item. Alternatively, you can arrange to meet up with the buyer at a time and place of your choosing.

Do you use any apps that help you get your finances in order? Tell us in the comments!

The post 4 Ways Singaporeans Can Save Money With the Help of Their Smartphone appeared first on the MoneySmart blog.

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