4 best ways to boost your savings and rewards
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To many people, sales during 10.10, 11.11, 12.12 are the best time to enjoy greater savings. We can't deny that most of us will have definitely bought something during one of these sales. During this season of holiday spendings, what are the 4 best strategies to maximise your savings and rewards? We've summed it up for you.
Summary
- Choose both miles and cashback
- Explore earning Crypto rewards
- Stay up to date about all the deals your card is eligible for
- Use a personal finance app to better manage your money
- Bonus tip
We recently held our first ever 11.11 virtual event on Instagram to help our followers find the best strategies to maximise their card rewards and boost their savings game without increasing their spending.
With more than 600 attendees at our Instagram Live event, we spoke with experts in credit card and personal finance and they shared 4 best apps and strategies to manage personal savings, maximise credit card rewards, and earn crypto rewards.
Here are the 4 best savings and rewards strategies we've picked up from our guest speakers.
1. Choose both miles and cashback
Seth, who runs sethisfy.com, is dedicated to creating content and sharing with this community on topics such as adulting, credit cards, personal finance and just about anything else about money.
Seth's credit card strategy
Seth chose to earn both miles and cashback on his daily expenses. Which card to use—miles or cashback card—for a payment should depend on the...
- Card's earn rates for specific Merchant Category Codes and,
- Size of the payment
If the payment is large (e.g. purchasing electronics), a high earn-rate miles card (i.e. 4 miles per dollar) will give you greater rewards compared to a cashback card.
On the other hand, for small or regular-sized payments (e.g. dinner at a restaurant) a high earn-rate cashback card (i.e. more than 6% cashback) will help offset the spending.
Tip: Earn rewards on payments that traditionally don't earn you rewards
All payments made through credit cards get routed through specific Merchant Category Codes (MCC) — a 4-digit number assigned to businesses based on the goods and/or services they sell and provide. Some MCCs (e.g. Clothing, Retail, F&B Dining, etc) earn you rewards, while other payments such as school fees, tax, rent, and mortgage loan traditionally do not earn you rewards.
To unlock rewards on these payments, Seth uses payment platforms such as CardUp. CardUp enable users to earn rewards on these existing expenses, even if the end-recipient does not accept cards. With the introduction of CardUp's new mortgage payment category, Seth was able to pay his mortgage—his current biggest expense—on a recurring basis using his credit card. and earn rewards.
Seth's promo code
- If you are new-to-CardUp in Singapore, you can use Seth’s promo code to enjoy 0% fee for the first payment of up to S$1,153. Find out more here.
Fun fact: What will Seth do with $11 million?
In his own words, he said that his answer is very “Singaporean”. He would purchase a freehold property in a prime area in Singapore, invest, travel, spend and do charity with the remaining amount of money.
2. Explore earning Crypto rewards
Wirex is a payments platform that allows user to spend, exchange, and store digital and traditional currencies. The Wirex Visa card allows users to spend and earn crypto rewards on online and offline transactions.
With cryptocurrency being a hot topic, earning crypto rewards is gaining popularity amongst the digitally-savvy. It is a great way to be introduced to crypto in a much safer environment. A platform that enables you to do so is Wirex. With a Wirex Visa card, cardholders can earn Cryptoback rewards—which is essentially cashback in the form of cryptocurrency.
Use Cryptoback rewards to buy crypto assets
You can buy, hold, exchange and spend crypto using your Cryptoback reward. You can also convert the crypto to traditional currency through the Wirex App and spend it using your Wirex Visa card on your next purchase.
Earn crypto rewards on your daily expenses
Wirex's Brand Activation Manager, Fadzhana, shares how she integrates the Wirex Visa card into her daily life. She uses her card to pay for public transportation and for her purchases during sales such as 11.11. The card essentially works like any regular credit card—you spend and earn rewards.
Wirex promotion
- Exclusive for CardUp users — Earn S$25 in the form of Wirex Token (WXT) when you sign up for a Wirex Visa card from now till 31 December 2021.
- Exclusive for Wirex cardholders — Earn 2% Cryptoback on payments made through CardUp from now till 31 December 2021. Find out more here.
Fun fact: What will Fadzhana from Wirex do with $11 million?
Fadzhana would allocate 10% of the money into crypto investments and another 15% for other “traditional" investments. What about the remaining 75%? She will spend it on getting a house, taking business class flights and donating to charity.
3. Stay up to date about all the deals your card is eligible for
Krip is Hong Kong’s first centralised credit card rewards platform. With Krip, you can now easily look for the best credit card to use to earn rewards on categories such as Dining, Fashion & Accessories, Beauty & Wellness and so on.
The credit card and payments industry is getting competitive with new cards and payment platforms joining the scene, especially in Singapore and Hong Kong. Lucky for consumers like us, competition means more options and perks for us to choose from.
The challenge comes when you want to find out what the best deal is for a particular spend you want to make —just imagine wanting to pay for staycation but having to go through 10 web pages to see which credit card gives you the highest rewards.
With platforms such as Krip, a single web page is all you need to find all the deals. Of course, if there are any payment categories that exclude card rewards, you can always simply use CardUp to unlock the rewards.
Krip's promo code (only available in Hong Kong):
- For a limited time only, redeem HK$200 worth of HKTVMALL e-vouchers when you make payments of HK$5,000 or more through CardUp. More information can be found here.
Fun fact: What will David from Krip do with $11 million?
He takes on a strategic approach to answering this question. He highlights the importance to practice financial discipline because the $11 million is not an infinite resource. With that in mind, he highlighted two main things he would do—(1) spend with discipline (2) preserve and grow the capital.
4. Use a personal finance app to better manage your money
Planto is a smart personal finance app that makes expense tracking, MPF management, home buying and budgeting easier than ever.
Is managing personal finance meant to be complicated and intimidating? Although the numbers may make it seem so, there are methods and ways to pen down your saving plans. In the past, excel spreadsheet was the way to go, but that requires manually having to figure out how you want to document and track your expenditure and saving plan. Now, there are apps and platforms that can do all that for you and make things simpler.
A popular platform is Planto. It is an app made for young adults, by young adults. Through his own experiences with managing money and having credit cards for the first time, Ankit, the co-founder of Planto, created the app.
Put tracking of your expenses on autopilot
By linking your credit cards, investments, loans and more to the Planto app, you will be able to easily track your spending, get reminders for payments, and better understand your statements and fees involved.
Save before you spend
The first step to acing personal finance is to make sure you don’t overspend and to save. By prioritising your savings, you will more likely be able to afford and achieve your life goals as planned. Hence, it’s important to have the habit of managing your finances and know the ways to save and spend smarter.
Planto promo code (only available in Hong Kong):
- For a limited time only, you can either...
Fun fact: What will Ankit from Planto do with $11 million?
Ankit would invest majority of it because of the money's huge growth potential. As it is still important to lead a fulfilling and desirable life while managing personal finance wisely, he will allocate a small 5-10% of the amount for spending.
Bonus chance to boost your savings and rewards
As this article promises to share strategies to boost your savings and rewards, we have to let you in on promo codes you can use to make payments through CardUp at much lower transaction fees (as low as 1.75%). Information about the promotion can be found here.
Also, stand a chance to win an Apple Watch Series 7 (worth S$599)! The giveaway ends 30 November 2021. Join the giveaway today!