Coping With The Rising Cost of Living
Singapore has been getting expensive, not just for luxuries but also essentials. Most evident is the price of hawker food as well as mid-range eateries like Ya Kun and Toast Box. When a traditional kaya toast set costs more than a McDonald’s value meal, you know something is not right. In my personal opinion, some of the price adjustments are out of proportion to the purported increase in costs. Although the government has said it would monitor for errant businesses that use increased costs as an excuse to maximise profits, I very much doubt it has the breadth of time and manpower to do such checks.
Growing up, I used to count my blessings that in Singapore, we have easy access to a wide variety of affordable hawker cuisine and do not have to resort to eating unhealthy processed food simply because they are the only low-price options. Now, it is no longer the case as fast food meals can be cheaper than hawker food. Even at food courts where hawkers are made to offer one budget meal option, the nutritional value of such meals is often in question as they more often than not contain unwholesome ingredients like instant noodles/mama mee, luncheon meat, chicken nuggets and hotdogs. It is quite sad to see Singapore in this state.
To cope with the rising cost, I have been cutting down on good-to-have-but-non-essential expenses like dining out. I rarely take taxi these days. When shopping, I try to look for better deals. I am constantly looking for more ways to make my investments work harder (hint to moomoo: let’s have more promotions![]()
).
With interest rate cuts expected, there is concern SGD will weaken against USD and make imports more expensive. However, I don’t think this will have a huge impact as MAS keeps SGD within a certain band against a basket of currencies. If USD continues to weaken, it doesn’t bode well for my US holdings so I would actually be relieved if USD strengthens. My SG reits and Singapore stocks $DBS Group Holdings (D05.SG)$ $OCBC Bank (O39.SG)$ $NetLink NBN Tr (CJLU.SG)$ have been doing well in anticipation of the rate cuts. I hope it continues.
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9333 : char Siew rice 6sgd at tpy. crazy. 1 bun 2sgd . mooncakes 100sgd mixed rice 4.50sgd
Dadacai OP 9333 : Yeah it is crazy. I know of a coffeeshop stall that charges $2.50 for a big pau.
9333 Dadacai OP : is it Jurong ?
Dadacai OP 9333 : No, it’s in the northeast.
9333 Dadacai OP : I tink most places this amount bah.
Devip : a nice hint hahaha
singaporenewbie : Sigh. No turning back
Benji_123 : such is life in SG... :(
snoopy123 : agree with your observation on budget meal options offered by certain hawkers where the nutritional value of these budget meals raises question..
![[undefined]](https://static.moomoo.com/nnq/emoji/static/image/default/default-black.png?imageMogr2/thumbnail/36x36 "undefined")
![[undefined]](https://static.moomoo.com/nnq/emoji/static/image/default/default-black.png?imageMogr2/thumbnail/36x36 "undefined")
) and leaves you craving for more... (or has my appetite grown..) ![[undefined]](https://static.moomoo.com/nnq/emoji/static/image/default/default-black.png?imageMogr2/thumbnail/36x36 "undefined")
the other peeve I have is that some hawkers would instead "shrink" the serving size to fit the "budget price" for these budget meals....
hence they can no longer fill your stomach as before (i.e. cut both quality and quantity !!
Dadacai OP snoopy123 : Spot on about the smaller portions. The budget meal is really a kind of obligation under the terms of their lease so some stalls don’t put their hearts into it.
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