Everything is going digital these days: work meetings, payments, shopping, and even dating. And if you thought things weren’t moving fast enough, COVID happened in 2019.
All of a sudden, everyone was forced to either adopt tech solutions, or slowly fizzle out into the background. Cash was frowned upon as people are more wary of hygiene protocols, shopping moved mostly online, and people created more online accounts than ever.
And that came with some caveats. Scam and Phishing attempts became extremely prevalent, and the multitude of payment options confused many.
In order to properly secure and take advantage of all these technologies in this climate, we compiled a list of tech related life hacks that every Singaporean should know about.
Let’s dive in.
Get Rewarded For Taking Public Transport
As if the impending GST hike to 9% wasn’t enough, Public Transport rates were increased by 3 to 4 cents for adults on 26 December 2021, adding to higher consumer prices.
But did you know that there is a way to earn rewards, or cash back to offset those price increases every time you take the bus or MRT?
No, I’m not talking about the native EZ-Link rewards programme where the best use case for your EZ-Link points is to redeem it for a $2 card top up. This effectively works out to a 1.1% cashback.
This may seem decent at first glance, but remember, debit and credit cards can be used for Public Transport since 2019. This means the superior card rewards like cashback and miles can be accrued rather than those EZ-Link points.
Bank credit cards like the Standard Chartered Spree card and DBS Altitude card, offer 2% cashback and 1.2 miles per dollar on Public Transport without any minimum spend. Far superior compared to EZ-Link’s own program.
I touch on more benefits of not using an EZ-Link card for Public Transport in this article here, check it out to know more.
Crypto is all the hype now right? What if I told you that even Crypto can be earned, just by taking the train or the bus?
By signing up for a Crypto.com debit card, you can enjoy between 1% to 8% in Crypto cashback, depending on your staked amount (S$0 to S$500,000).
The cashback earned is in Crypto.com native coin, CRO, which can be converted into any other Cryptocurrencies within the app.
Note that Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile and you should do your own due diligence before committing to a stake.
If you wish to know more details and the step-by-step instructions on how to do so, view this article here.
Get The Most Out Of Digital Payments
Like I mentioned earlier, Singapore is rapidly transitioning towards cashless payments. This is no surprise given that Singaporeans have the highest awareness of contactless payments within ASEAN.
Our government and NETS even came up with a way to unify all the different QR codes provided by the different providers, further boosting consumer confidence in using such payment methods.
And if you’re still paying cash for everything, you’re literally leaving money on the table.
See, fintech firms like GrabPay, FavePay, and ShopeePay reward users with points, cashback, and discounts in order to drive higher adoption rates.
So whenever you see a SGQR, use a QR payment service to get at least something back for your purchase. The alternative is fumbling for cash and not getting any rewards for it.
QR payments can be broken down to mainly Bank-linked and e-wallet linked services.
Bank-linked services like PayLah! PayNow, PayAnyone don’t usually offer any rewards for using them since they already have the lion’s share of the market.
The acceptance of e-wallet linked services are less prevalent than bank-linked services, so they have to play catch up by offering consumers rewards.
Have you ever wished to get additional discounts on your online shopping? Well, It’s time to get familiar with ShopBack.
If you’re living under a rock, ShopBack is an affiliate linking app that offers cashback for all purchases made through their app.
For example, if you purchased a $5 phone case from Amazon SG without clicking through ShopBack, nothing will be awarded.
However, if you simply took 1 more step to visit Amazon SG’s website through ShopBack, you can be awarded up to 10% cashback after 60 days. This cashback can be withdrawn to your bank account, who doesn’t love saving money?
Other than providing affiliate links, ShopBack also sells food delivery and Private hire ride vouchers.
Though the amount needed to purchase a Gojek or GrabFood voucher is the same as its stored value, cashback is awarded upon purchase.
I’m talking 6-10% cashback on your voucher purchases, perfect for when you hit the redemption limit for your ‘925’ or ‘teatime’ codes.
Where does all this money come from? ShopBack partners with merchants who pay a fee for the publicity and higher sales volume ShopBack provides.
Instead of keeping all the fees to themselves, ShopBack customers receive a cut from the fees, incentivising them to use ShopBack more. Pretty ingenious if you ask me.
Rule of thumb: Before you buy anything, check if the merchant is available through ShopBack. Don’t miss out on the potential savings.
Never Overpay For DataAgain
Data has gotten cheaper over the years as Sim-Only Plans started to pop up. Check your contract, are you still paying S$49.90 for 2GB of local data on your ancient plan?
Legacy mobile-bundled plans offer steep discounts on handsets upon signing up, making you think that you snagged a great deal. In the current market, this is simply not the case.
Phones have gotten so good that we need not upgrade them every 2 years. Let’s take a look at the value proposition between an ancient S$49.90 2GB plan vs a much cheaper Sim-Only plan, assuming an iPhone 13 Pro is purchased.
Singtel Combo 2
Giga! 40GB plan
Monthly Price (S$)
49.90
20
Data provision
2GB
40GB
TalkTime and SMS
200 mins, 1000 SMS
500 mins, 500 SMS
Price of iPhone 13 Pro 128GB (S$)
1098
1648
Total Price Paid over 2 years (S$)
2295.50
2128
Table of comparison between an old Mobile-Bundled plan and a Sim-Only plan
Yup, with a competitive Sim-Only plan, you can save over S$100 dollars while having more data and talktime.
If you’re confused about all the offerings available, fret not as I wrote a comprehensive guide to Sim-Only plans. Do check it out if you’re interested.
Sim-Only plans can also offer 5G like traditional mobile-bundled plans since they rent bandwidth from the big 3 Telcos. So there is little need to worry about the speeds and reliability by subscribing to a more affordable Sim-Only plan.
Get 50% Off Your Restaurant Bill When You Dine At Off Peak Hours
If you head to any restaurant between 3-5pm on a weekday, you can notice a general trend: 80-90% empty tables, and restless service staff staring into space.
If a restaurant continues to stay open for diners, it has to continue paying its service staff and rent during this lull period.
Most of the time, the profits generated during these 2 hours will not be sufficient to pay off the expenses from the chefs, waiters and utility bills.
The solution was simple, to get higher sales volumes, hold steep promotions during off peak hours. This would attract a new group of customers who are price sensitive to patronise.
With Eatigo, restaurants can post a range of percentage discounts at different timings. These discounts can range from 5% all the way to 50%, depending on the restaurant and timing.
Screenshot from Eatigo
To make things seamless, Eatigo will work with the restaurant to reserve a table for the users, at the selected discount and time.
If you ever wanted to try a restaurant with an unapproachable price tag, look it up on Eatigo first. You might just find a sweet 50% discount just for dining in at off-peak hours.
Secure Your Digital Life Easily
Next, what’s the point of saving time and money using these life hacks if your account gets compromised easily?
As we create more and more online accounts, we tend to be lazy and reuse the same passwords, lest we forget it. And that’s a dangerous security practice.
See, most reputable companies store our passwords in a salted, encrypted format that looks like gibberish. But what about the less reputable ones?
The scary thing is that these companies don’t really publicise how securely they store our data on their servers. So we wouldn’t know how bad their security practices may be, until a data leak occurs.
And if you reuse the same password on all your accounts, a leak on a single company’s weakly encrypted database could spell trouble for all your accounts. There is literally a list online matching common passwords with weakly encrypted passwords (the gibberish that is stored).
Infographic on complex but simple-to-remember passwords
So to prevent this single point of failure from wreaking havoc in your life, set a unique password for every account you create. It’s much simpler that it seems. Check out the guide I wrote here, you will be enlightened by how secure yet memorable each password is.
The next easy step to secure your digital life easily is to keep abreast of the common scam and phishing attempts being made.
OCBC customers in December 2021 lost a total of S$8.5 million from sophisticated phishing SMS. Among those who lost their life savings were young digital natives like you and I, so don’t think that you are immune to these types of scams.
I laid out 4 ways to spot phishing attempts in Singapore back in November 2021, but the content still remains very relevant. Go check it out and educate yourself if you haven’t already.
Whether you like it or not, technological advancements and the release of disruptive new products show no signs of slowing down.
These new technologies can bring benefits to our lives, whether it be saving money, or improving security. And with the right list of tech products we use, we can effectively hack our way through life.
To summarise, always use digital payments rather than cash whenever possible, try out new technologies to save money and time, and always keep your digital life secure.
Do you have any other tech related life hacks you would like to share? Let me know in the comments below.
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Derrick (Yip Hern) founded Tech Composition to provide valuable insights into the tech and finance world. He loves to scour the web for the best deals and embark on software projects during his free time, a typical geek, right?
