Budget 2024 - Can SGD 400 Ease My Living Costs?

🌟🌟🌟The Singapore Budget 2024 has been announced and it is a smorgasbord of goodies, one of which is the Special Payment of up to SGD 400 per person.  There are also the CDC vouchers of which eligible families will receive SGD 600 each.  This is in addition to the earlier CDC voucher of SGD 500 per household.  These can be used in supermarkets and food centres.

While these Government rebates  are good to have, I believe that it is not adequate to meet the high cost of living in Singapore.   The basic essentials like groceries have gone up as well as transportation and housing costs.

Therefore it is important for me to have a budget to allocate my living expenses.  There will be more home cooked meals, checking special offers from supermarkets, less outings to restaurants and cutting out unnecessary expenses like gym membership.  I will also review my utilities and mobile phone plans to make sure I get the best possible deals. 

Most importantly I will continue to save for rainy days and continue to stay invested in the stock markets.  My focus is have a diversified portfolio in different geographical locations such as  in Singapore, Hong Kong, US and Australia.    I love dividend investing as dividends are a great source of passive income while waiting for capital growth.  Good examples of my dividend stocks are the Singapore Banks $DBS GROUP HOLDINGS LTD(D05.SI)$  $OVERSEA-CHINESE BANKING CORP(O39.SI)$  $UNITED OVERSEAS BANK LIMITED(U11.SI)$  as well as $SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF(SPLG)$ and $iShares Core S&P/ASX 200(IOZ.AU)$ . 

I am grateful to call Singapore home as it is a great place to live where there is peace and racial harmony, a stable government, good infrastructure and most of all it is safe.    

@Tiger_chat  @Tiger_SG  @TigerStars