I love getting cashback or bonus interest whenever I spend on my credit cards. For instance, I was paid $20 over the last 2 months for spending on my credit card. These were expenses I needed to make anyway – my insurance premiums, groceries, movies, etc.
After all, why say no to free money?
If you’re like me, and are always looking out for ways to get extra money for transactions you’re already making, POSB’s latest cashback offer might just be your answer. As you might already know from my previous posts, my POSB account has been my designated “spending” account, while I reserve my other bank accounts for pure savings.
Most of us already have a POSB account which we opened from our younger days. If you’ve been doing your regular banking like salary credit, you can now get better bang for your buck with the new POSB Cashback Bonus Programme.
Who else remembers POSB’s Smiley Squirrel
who taught us to save from primary school?
who taught us to save from primary school?
How can I get the free money?
You only need to qualify for 3 out of 5 transaction categories (if you’re kiasu and want maximum cashback, go for all!). These are:
1. Credit your salary to your POSB/DBS Savings/Current Account
2. Spend on your POSB/DBS credit card
3. Purchase new eligible regular insurance premium policy through POSB/DBS after enrolling to POSB Cashback Bonus
4. Have an existing POSB/DBS home loan or refinance with POSB/DBS (cash and CPF components are included)
5. Invest and grow your money through POSB’s InvestSaver or new unit trusts
Unlike saving promotions from the other banks, you don’t have to open a brand new account before you can enjoy these benefits. You can simply start by crediting your salary into your existing POSB / DBS account, or chalk up even higher cashback on top of the rewards or cash rebates you’re already earning from your POSB / DBS cards.
These are what I call critical essentialsin our journey of personal finance. If you don’t already have insurance, please do yourself (and your loved ones) a favour and get covered. Unless you’re still staying with your parents, you probably have home loan instalments to pay off on your new BTO / resale flat / condo. And if you’ve not started on your investing journey yet, you really should. I’ve been recommending POSB’s Invest-Saver plan since forever so I was really glad that this is included under the Investments category, instead of only limiting to unit trusts. You can read more about why I like POSB Invest-Saver so much here.
(I’ve written extensively about the need for these in older posts. Just type “insurance” or “invest” in the search bar on the right to pull up those articles.)
I did a quick calculation to estimate how much cashback the average Singaporean could potentially and reasonably get. This was what I came up with.
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Cashback
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||
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Salary
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$5,000
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$15
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Credit Card
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$800
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$2.40
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Insurance
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$400
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$12
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Home Loan
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$1,000
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$30
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Investments
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$800
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$24
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Total Cashback (Yearly)
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$1,000.80
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Note: These estimates do not reflect my actual spending. I do wish I’m paid $5000 in monthly salary though…anyone wants to offer me a higher-paying job?
Getting over $80 for free every month can easily buy you a good meal or more, or if you choose to let that accumulate, you get over $1000 – enough to sponsor your round-trip ticket to Europe!
Assumptions:
– Ages 20s to 40s. I used a salary estimate of $5000 (as most of my peers are already earning beyond this amount).
– By charging your ez-link top-ups, taxi payments, discounted movie tickets on POSB/DBS credit cards and offering to pay the bill first when you dine out with your friends (get them to pay you back in cash), $500 to $800 a month is quite likely to be the norm.
– Using the simple rule-of-thumb of not spending more than 10% of your annual income on insurance, $6k a year would be the premiums paid for someone earning $5k a month. I thus used a more conservative figure of $400 (because I wouldn’t pay 10% of my annual wages on insurance…)
– Average monthly home loan for many of my peers in the age bracket range between $1k to $3k a month. I assume most of us can only afford flats so the lower end of the figure was applied.
– Spending $800 a month on your investments is less than 20% of your annual income! I try to invest more than that, but again, let’s use a more conservative estimate.
If you want to estimate how much cashback you can get for yourself, find out more here.
How do I sign up?
For existing POSB/DBS customers, Simply nominate your account via iBanking and continue with your existing transactions with POSB. It is pretty straightforward and fuss-free. Now excuse me while I go and nominate my own account for this Programme. Yay to more free money!
Here’s a quick video introduction if you’re keen to learn more.
Here’s a quick video introduction if you’re keen to learn more.
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post for POSB Cashback Bonus. In line with my Budget Babe philosophy, I am selective about the advertorials I write about on this space and will only accept assignments which I believe will be beneficial.
4 comments
How.about the amount spent on ETF every month? Would it be quantify under 'investment' expenses? Thanks.
POSB InvestSaver qualifies! I had the same question 🙂 but the thing I'm not sure of is whether you still qualify if you already have an existing account open for InvestSaver, vs signing up as a newbie. Maybe you can ask your banker?
From their press release:
The “POSB Cashback Bonus” programme is a simple programme for customers to earn cashback as the majority of POSB/DBS customers are already conducting these transactions with the bank. For example, customers will only need to conduct at least three of the following transactions every month to earn up to SGD 130 per month in cashback rewards.
(Frankly I think SGD 130 is a bit hard for us to reach…$80 a month is more realistic so I used that for my calculations)
How about paying the insurance premium annually one time payment? Am I able to enjoy cash back bonus as well? or it must be paid monthly
Thank you
I think it has to be monthly. Can automate as recurring payment! 🙂
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