Reader Mailbag #1 : Cost Of Living Singapore 2008

In this series I will try to address the questions asked by my readers specially on Cost of Living in Singapore. This helps me to consolidate the questions and answers by me. Also it helps readers to find the answers they are looking for quickly!

The reason of for having this series is that I would like to help readers and want to protect their identity in case they put their email in the comments. Also this is a great way to share ideas !

I am getting an Offer from company to pay me SGD $3000 and rental provided by the company. I have two kids, one goes to nursary and other is neonatal.How it would be to move to Singapore from India and earn some money..plz reply back me on at yahoo.com.
- Vidyanath

I would personally avoid to give any recommendations or advice in this case. But at the same time I would like to share some facts so that it helps you to take the decision better.

If you are planning to move to Singapore from India. It is important for you to assess what you are saving there per month and how much is your expectation when you settle down in Singapore after 6 months of moving in. As there are expenses when you move in, so the first year's average savings reduce. I would suggest you to do some fact finding based on your current spending habits and savings per month in India. Also factor your current job and its potential to grow in India.

Nursary costs depends on where you put your kid. The range is between $300(decent one)-$750 based on my research in this area.

hi Mr.Sandeep ...good work ..I have got a offer from Singapore and they are offering me $1200 for housing and $2800 for other expenses. My husband and 2 yr old son will move with me. my husband is a marketing manager and I hope he will get a job in Singapore..I am really confused if I should take up the job ..what do you think ?
-Praveena

I picked up this question from my readers comment too as it similar to what I answered earlier. But this has another important aspect. It happens many times that either of the spouse finds a job and they have this tough question to decide whether to move in with that and then find job for other one later when they land in.

In this particular case again its a tough decision to take. But if you do your research right and plan properly this is something worth exploring. You would get 2 Bed room HDB apt in Singapore for $1200, although it depends on area and how furnished the flat is. Living with a family of 3 with $2800 is tough on budget, but if your spouse is confident on getting job here in Singapore in 3-4 months timeframe. The idea is worth looking at.

Singapore job market looks promising at present. So getting a job if you have right skills in demand is not difficult.

Please refer to following archives for more information on this subject:

Cost of Living in Singapore Posts

Small Savings on Grocery Items in Singapore - 2008

With Grocery taking almost $300-$400 of the monthly budget. It is important that we save on some items which makes sense.

• Go with House Brand!
• This is my favorite of all!. I was at the NTUC(FairPrice) recently and found that Detol Hand wash costs around $5+ whereas similar quantity House Brand Anti-bacteria hand wash costs only $2.50+. We always know Detol or some other brand which is shown on TV, but are unaware of simple house brand alternatives!..Check out similar house brand items at Carrefour too ..Personally I like the Jams there !
  
• Buy from your favorite Shop
  
• This is a no-brainier but it is important that you buy in bulk only from the shop which offers discounts and priced fairly. I am still unable to understand how same brand of Fresh Milk costs $5.20 in One Shop whereas same costs $4.90 in other ;) ..checkout few stores like Cold Storage, Carrefour, NTUC FairPrice etc and you will come to know where to shop more !. My Personal preference is to buy Fruits from FairPrice and Carrefour(whenever possible).
• Order Online if possible
• We order the Indian Groceries online in Singapore using website Online Groceries
• It makes more sense to order online whatever you can specially when you know that the stuff you are ordering is going to be of a same quality as you buy it from the store personally.
• Specially bulky items like Milk Cartons, Rice , Atta flour etc. As you have lot of convenience to get these delivered at your door step. Saves Taxi trip, queue at Taxi Stand, weekend time !
• FairPrice also offers Online Shopping
  
• Compare prices before you buy some items
• This is again common sense but we ignore and assume sometimes.
• A very nice example of Umbrella I had yesterday when I went to FairPrice Xtra at Hougang Point. We bought good quality Umbrella for $2.60(Aluminum frame and light weight) only. I remember buying a similar kind of Umbrella from a local shop for $13 sometime back. Even in Little India I have never seen Umbrella below $5 and they are the heavy ones. Although its a small item, but we keep loosing them sometimes!
  
• Make a reserve list for promotions!
• Always have some items to buy during promotions. Recently I saw promotions of Cock Brand Groundnut Oil for around $7+ whereas same trades at some shops for $10+. So it is a good idea to buy few items from some of the shops which keep offering promotions for the same.
• Buy cut fruits from Grocery Shops !
• You are one of a kind who likes to eat Fruit everyday during lunch or in the evening !. If you are lucky to have a carrefour or FairPrice shop near your office. You should buy the cut fruit from them instead of buying from the Fruit stall as the difference makes a lot of sense. Fruit stalls are good for juices!

Happy Shopping in Singapore !

Related Posts

• Cost of Living in Singapore 2008
• Cost of Living in Singapore 2007
• Reader Mailbags on Cost of Living in Singapore
  
• All cost of living posts of mine
  

Financial Freedom on Independence Day ! 15th August 2008

Happy Independence Day to all.

I still remember my days in K.V School when we used to go to school in white clothes for Flag Hoisting Ceremony. The special treat used to be Mooti Chur ke Laddoo !!

On this day I would like to bring an exiting topic. Which is Financial Freedom! I am not a Financial Adviser. I believe we can at least achieve financial freedom by taking small baby steps.

• Stop signing up for more credit cards
• Stop taking Promotional Offers on Financial Products in hurry
  
• Stop taking personal loans if possible
• Save and Invest : Remember that just saving is not enough. You must Invest in order to potentially increase your income and achieve financial freedom.
  
• Invest in Low cost Mutual Funds : This is interesting as investing in low cost means two things. Either you find a fund which is having less management fees and expenses or Invest in Index Fund. Just now I read this article "The Lost World" on http://www.valueresearchonline.com. Excellent article which talks about Investing in Index Funds and how they are in India Vs USA. But before you jump look at these figures(taken from http://www.valueresearchonline.com) :

Open Ended - Equity: Index - one Year Return
Fund	NAV (Date)	Returns(%)	Return as on
ICICI Prudential Index	41.37 (13-Aug)	5.44	8/13/2008
UTI Sunder	467.82 (13-Aug)	4.09	8/13/2008
Nifty Benchmark ETS	459.69 (13-Aug)	3.88	8/13/2008
Franklin India Index NSE Nifty	35.79 (13-Aug)	2.60	8/13/2008
Birla Sun Life Index	45.37 (13-Aug)	2.57	8/13/2008
Principal Index	31.80 (13-Aug)	2.20	8/13/2008
Franklin India Index BSE Sensex	42.56 (13-Aug)	1.91	8/13/2008
UTI Nifty Index	28.56 (13-Aug)	1.85	8/13/2008
Canara Robeco Nifty Index	23.93 (13-Aug)	1.61	8/13/2008
Tata Index Nifty A	27.45 (13-Aug)	1.58	8/13/2008

Note that with same benchmark of S&P CNX Nifty ICICI Pru Index gives 5.44% Yearly Return whereas Birla Sun Life Index Fund gives 2.57% :) This is what author Dhirendra Kumar of the article I linked above is trying to explain.

• Generate Passive Income : Well this is something needs more thought and planning. It is easy to say but not so easy to implment. I follow this blog regularly and here is one interesting post on Passive Income
  
• Start blogging your ideas: Its been more than 2 years I am blogging. It is good to put your ideas and thoughts on a blog. It helps you as well as others.
• Invest in Stocks directly only if you know :)
• Invest with Mutual Funds directly with AMCs: This step alone will start saving you 2.25% entry load :)
  

Enjoy Freedom and your holiday if you are in India !

Indian stock markets on Cruise Control !

Indian markets are on Cruise Control today 11th Aug 2008 !. It seems all negative news are dried up and bulls are back..really ? I don't know for now.

• Oil prices came down a bit.
• Inflation is stable! - well people are tired of listening to the same tune..
• Banks are gaining - ICICI, HDFC are up !
• Elections are not in near term at least
  
• Mutual Funds NAVs are rising slowly
• IT companies in India are still recruiting
  
• Websites say
  
• Markets yet to see worst slowdown
• They are still trying to predict level for Nifty and Sensex ! - same guys on TV will say don't try to time the market :)
• Real Estate prices are still high - I do hear that they are coming down - but not in reality!
  

With all these, what an average investor is supposed to do ? I don't have an answer. I still feel India will continue to grow and therefore need to be in the market to gain from it. But at the same time I will see stick to my strategy :

Indian Mutual Fund Strategy for coming months - Part I

We still need to more analysis in order to understand how to play in this market.

Invest Online with AMCs Directly, NRI too ! ..SAVE Entry load 2.25%

With SEBI giving directions to AMCs for not charging Entry Load to Investors when they invest directly with AMCs. I have been thinking of doing this for long time but lacking some initiative to do the same !. Well with markets performing not so well for time being. I though it is the right time to try this with at least 1 AMC to see if this really works.

With my best guess I thought ICICI will be the best AMC to start with. With my experience I know that the ICICI is one of the pioneer's in implementing Online services for its customers.

This post is only about how to start investing with ICICI Pru AMC for Mutual Funds. Once I find out about others like Kotak, Birla..I would post about that too. btw till now I have found only ICICIPru, Kotak and Birla offering Online Investment facility. SBI does too, but their process is not 100% online!. Sundaram has tie-up with HDFC, Kotak Securities and ICICIDirect. So that means you need pay entry load of 2.25% !

Steps to start investing online(Purchase, Switch, Redeem) with ICICI Prudential AMC are :

1. Goto https://www.icicipruamc.com/InvOnline/invest.asp
2. If you already have a Folio with ICICIPru(Means you had bought Mutual Fund from ICICIPru directly using manual method earlier) then the process simple and can directly goto Step 3.But if you have invested in ICICIPru Fund using ICICIDirect, Citibank, HDFC etc ..because then in that case the Folio is sought of protected and only can be updated by those brokers.
3. Click on Button "Existing Investor" and follow the form to Invest Online. Don't forget to select option "DIRECT" in the Form. ICICIPru AMC have tie-up's with most of the banks to transfer money using net banking.
4. For Investor's who are first time investing in ICICIPru AMC. Goto website https://www.icicipruamc.com/InvOnline/invest.asp.
5. Click on link "APPLY NOW"
   
6. Click on button "First Time Investor"
7. There are instructions on this page to follow. But for simplicity, as I have done this I will give the steps here - Assuming you are Investing in ICICI Prudential Index Fund !
1. Download the Common Application Form
2. Fill up the form carefully, specially the details of Fund, Cheque No, Bank Details, NRI Checkbox for NRIs etc
3. Write a crossed cheque of Rs.5000/- in the favor of "ICICI Prudential Index Fund" This is the minimum first time investment amount for ICICI Prudential Index Fund.
4. Take a blank cheque and cancel it. This is also an requirement for direct debit/credit for AMC. They need another cheque as a proof for MICR Code I guess.
5. Make sure you correctly write the IFSC(Indian Financial System Code) Code (This is printed on the Cheque normally)- This is required for RBI money transfer process.
6. Proof's to attach with application - Please go through the application form instructions.
1. Attested PAN Card Copy - If you are submitting the Form personally at the AMC, then you can show the Original PAN Card. For NRIs this is not a option, so you need to send an attested PAN Card Copy or Self-Signed would also do.
2. KYC Acknowledgment or Print out after verifying at CDSL Website
7. Verify all the documents and send by courier/post to the AMCs office in the City where your bank branch is located. This is important as they don't accept outstation cheques.
   
8. For NRIs, please make sure to use Registered Post. I used registered post from Singapore. It reached in 5 days to ICICIPru AMC.
9. The day your form reaches ICICIPru AMC, the first transaction is recorded and you get a Statement of Account in email !
10. Now you can create a ICICIPru Tracker Account to do Purchase/Switch/Redeem from ICICI AMC without any ENTRY LOAD :)
11. Steps to create the ICICIPru Tracker Account :
1. Goto ICICI PRUTRACKER Website
2. Follow the Activation process by having your Folio Number from account statement and a secret question!
3. IPIN is generated online and you can create a username/password with Prutracker.
12. Now onwards you can invest in all ICICI MFs without any entry load :)

The entire process for me took 8 days. Right from sending the Form and activation of Online account.

I will try to find out more about other AMCs and will post the steps for that too.

Happy Investing!

Indian Mutual Fund Strategy for coming months - Part I

I believe it is time to redefine the strategy for Mutual Funds for coming markets. I have been thinking about it for sometime now. I am not expert on this but I believe that one needs to experiment a bit in order to gain in this kind of market where nobody knows whether it is in bearish phase or bull phase !

For those who were lured by the Borkers/Agents/Advisors to invest in Indian Mutual Funds in last six months or in late 2007 must be thinking that this Mutual Fund boom is over. And one should not never invest it in again. Just get out of the current investment and go back to good old Fixed deposits ..that too with Nationalized banks only ;) :)

Well I have a different opinion here. There is no need to panic with markets or try to run away from it. Just because the bears are back and they are taking away your returns as never before :)

But at the same time having good strategy do helps. Here is mine.

• Stop all SIPs - Yes don't believe the Fund Managers and don't panic, but at the same time STOP SIPs for now
• Redeem all Funds with profits - If you are lucky and still have some profit left in your earlier investment, please redeem that NOW!
• STOP all Manual Investments - This is the most important point here. Many people have lost their profits just because they could not redeem the Funds as they were in a manual method. It was just laziness or ignorance which stopped them from redeeming E.g. Don't know what to do for redeeming, who is CAMSONLINE, Broker not available...etc
• Prepare Net worth Statement - You need to take stock of your investments as well as expenses and income at once. If you have never made a Net Worth Statement till date. Search on Google and you will find many sample templates for doing this stuff easily.
• Define Objective for Investments - If you had never done this. It is important that now we understand this concept of Investing with Objective and starting doing that. This will create lot of positive thought process in you - after going through this bearish phase - still counting though !
• Pay mortgage partly - If you have home loan or any other loan. Please pay little bit more than what you have been paying monthly as EMI. Not too long ago (2003-2007) advisors/brokers/agents used to say that invest first and pay loan later from profit. I believe we need to do both together to gain most.
• Start Online Investment with AMCs - In order to save 2.25% entry load, start investing with AMCs directly. Try do some research on this. Wait for few days and I will post something about it!

This is what I am doing for now. I will post more about how to plan the Investments in Mutual Funds and Stocks directly too in my Part II.

Happy Investing!

cheers
Sandeep

Related Posts

• Investing directly with Mutual Fund AMCs in India - Save Entry Load
  

Online Mutual Fund Services - be careful before you decide !

There is lot of trouble if you have taken account with Timeofmoney.com

They stopped BUY option from their website 3 months back. Now their website is out of sync for the NAV information. So you need to do look out for REAL NAV information in websites like http://www.valueresearchonline.com before you decide to SELL using their website ..well luckily the SELL option is still available !

So this is a good lesson learned for people who were looking for online options for MF services. So my recommendations would be :

• Go directly with AMCs - the biggest benefit is the Entry Load - I am yet to verify this !
• Better management of Funds
• You actually need 2-3 AMCs to cover all the BEST Mutual Funds
  
• Once you have done First Investment via the AMCs, they allow you to transact using their websites.
• Going with Banks and established portals like ICICIDirect, HDFC is better than choosing some Online Broker for your investments.
• I can't think of any other advantage at this point :)

Happy Investing !

HDFC Home Loan ...Excellent Online Transaction Services !

Recently when I got my HDFC Home Loan statement, I got to know that they have Online Services too :)

So went to the website http://www.hdfc.com and found out that they have excellent Online Transactions service for their Home Loan Customers. This is very good move by the bank. I am not sure which other banks have this service for their Home Loan customers, but this is very good. Mainly for NRI Customers where they need to get Income Tax certificates and other account statement online. No need to depend on the snail mail :) ..

Also the registration process is very simple. Just goto the web page : https://jogint0.hdfcindia.com/inet/ and provide your home loan account and create your online account with HDFC Home Loan. Immediately customers could login to the website and get all the required details for the Home Loan. Also there is a way to pay your Home Loan EMI via the website's secured payment gateway.

Only thing missing is the facility to pre-pay the home loan :) ..I hope they add that too in due course.

I know that ICICI Home Loan do have any such facility yet ...

Overall I like HDFC Bank. Their approach towards fairness in implementing policies is very good. Specially recently when one of my friend wanted to open Mutual Fund account with them. The relationship manager went out of the way to get the KYC done for the customer and activiated the MF account.

With all these nice things. They still need to more good job with their Interface design for the Online Mutual Fund web page! ICICI Direct is the best for the their Interface as well as providing all the Mutual Funds for subscription.

FAQ on Cost of Living for Singapore

I have been getting many queries from people around the world for cost of living in Singapore. It is tough to a answer to the question "I have been offers $xxyy, would that be enough for decent life for a couple?" ..Well answer to this is mainly tough as cost of living really depends on how you really live, spend your money in various things over a period of time.

If you are living frugally, you might save some money based your income and expenses. But sometimes this can get tricky ..for e.g. if you make a trip back to India or your home town after 6 months of stay here in Singapore. Your average monthly expenses is going to go up. So this is math.

I would still like to help my readers with their queries, wherever I can. So please if you are asking a specific question, leave your email-id like "xxvvbb at gmail.com" or "djhj at yahoo.com". This way I can reply back to you if time permits. Otherwise for somebody who is desperately looking for some answer, either they have to check back the blog back to see whether I have tried giving the answer. Also sometimes the question is asked in some other post of mine, while the query is related to the cost of living post! ..So you see this is tricky and time consuming for me to manage ..

My objective is to help people who are trying to get information about Singapore.

Again this is all my personal views and should be taken with caution before taking any decision.

Hope this helps ...with this I will try to put some posts soon to have some of the common queries.

Enjoy !

Mutual Funds for NRI Investors..Many questions !

I have been trying hard luck to do some mutual fund investment's of my own choice using Citibank. But it seems bank has decided its own way of giving choice of available Funds. They show all the AMCs but when try to select a Fund e.g. I wanted UTI Master Index. It is not available for me to select.

So I though I will email the realtionship manager to get the answer. The link does not work :(. So I am trying to search Google and trying to find if AMCs have any restrictions for NRIs to invest in particular funds only ? If it is ..is it listed somewhere by the AMCs on their websites ?

If anyone reading this blog happen to know the answer to above questions ..please help me understand !....this will help lot of people who are looking for a similar answer.

btw ..it seems ICICIDirect too allows mutual fund transactions online for NRIs...if anyone has experience with that ..please share ..

Update
After researching http://www.valueresearchonline.com for sometime I got to know that we can know about the Fund and its eligibility for NRI Investment. For example you can goto :

UTI Master Index

and then goto the "Fund Details" tab, there is a Eligibility column which tells who is eligible to invest and whether it is repatriable.

Now the question is why Citibank is not offering UTI Master Index but offering Birla Index ! ..As per valuresearchonline Birla Index has 3 stars whereas UTI Master Index has 5 stars. The only difference I could find out is the Expense Ratio and Management Fee is higher for Birla Index, apart from that the returns are almost the same. Which is expected for Index Funds in the same category and assuming similar tracking error.

Become aware of Medical Costs in Singapore

Become aware ! ..sounds like a yogi giving an advise. But this is something based on my experience so far. One must be aware of the costs involved whenever going for medical consultation in Singapore. When we are new in a country, we are not aware of how the charges are made up!. Let see this real life example :

I had been to a hospital here for medical consultation. My first visit to this hospital was 8 months back. Now when I went there again this time, I had changed the Dr. for some reason(basically I wanted to get second opinion and I was not convinced the way Dr. treated me last time). So when I was billed this time, the cashier gave me bill of $97 as against $75 for a patient for subsequent visit !. As I was aware of this fact as written there on the reception. I asked her why I am charged for $97 being a subsequent visitor to the same hospital. She said it is because I changed the Dr. :) ...I mentioned her very assertively that what difference does it make as it is still the same hospital .. She resisted a bit but eventually changed the bill to $75.

I was surprised to see this kind behavior from a reputed hospital.

Refer to : Saving on cost of Medical consultation in Singapore

Online Mutual Funds ...Customer service !

Today I receive a email from Timesofmoney saying that they are disabling the BUY option until further notice to enhance customer experience . The notice is given on 18th April 2008 . So now people who are using this service are stuck to go via the offline method the website offers ! ...

In this online world, I don't know how can a I company do this to their customers. They could have easily develop the enhancement(we as a customer don't what are the enhancements!) in parallel and do the switch when ready. This is a normal practice.

To me till date ICICIDirect seems to be the best in providing online mutual fund transactions. Their site provides access to all funds. There are many players in this online mutual fund portal business, but ICICI is one of the best in my opinion.

Lets see when this enhanced version of Timesofmoney.com comes LIVE !

Happy Investing !

Subscribing to mio TV from Singtel, ready for rough ride!

My last post was about savings on home entertainment. Well savings comes with a cost too!. I subscribed to mio TV recently and I am experiencing something which is never expected from technology solution like this. Well the reception quality of mio TV is good. One day i switched off the mio TV HD Box. After switching on it is not showing me TV Channels any more. It takes around 25 minutes to reset the HD box. It shows 1 Gear symbol first & then 2 gear symbols with some progress bar, but finally it shows red X and no TV channels :(

I called the mio TV helpdesk. The first thing he mentioned me is that I should try HARD reset of mio TV box. I did that too by pressing Power+Ok+down arrow button together. It did the same thing, again some progress bar, but nothing good after that. The Internet is working fine as well as the telephone line.

So I called the helpdesk again. This time he said that he needs to send an technician to my home to check the line. Also the appointment of the line man would be after 4 days :(. Wow ..what a technology.They don't know what's happening and most of the time they replace the HD box itself to correct the issue. This is not at all acceptable service level from a company selling technology solution like IPTV. One more thing, the help desk is immediately offering me the waiver for days when the mio TV is OFF. So that clearly means that they know this is a known issue.

Finally the technician arrived after 3 days. He is again doing the same reset procedure to understand the issue. This clearly shows the lack of technology know how with the support personnels. He is also calling the help desk to do some reset at their end.

So before you go for mio TV. Understand that this is a new service and could have teething problems like these. Be ready to expect some issues and do not switch off the HD box ever :)

I writing this post while the singtel technician is still at my place and the problem is still not resolved. I will update the post again about the outcome of the visit and waste of my 1 hour.

Update

Finally the mio TV is working fine as earlier. But in the process I lost 10 days of watching TV & they replaced 4 HD Boxes to get everything right :). Every time the technician came he wasted 2 hours of my time in running diagnostics on router & resetting HD Box. Also spent 30 minutes chatting with his fellows on backend support to pretend to do something!.

So next time you have issues with mio TV, make sure that it is not showing you progress bar or 1/2 gears on the screen and then red X at the end. If that happens it is most probably an issue with the HD box & get replacement immediatly rather than waiting long to diagnose it on your side and backend side :)

btw ..I could be wrong here in my judgment ..but hope this helps you next time you face any issue with mio TV!

Savings on Home Entertainment in Singapore

I thought of writing this post to help people to choose better Cable TV and Internet for their home usage. As with all services we must be careful with choosing the right vendor and package. As once we are into the contract, we cannot exit without penalty. Also you can only upgrade your plan from the existing one, no downgrade of plans possible !


Cable TV

We have two options for Cable TV in Singapore.

Starhub

Starhub is one of the major provider of Cable TV Services in Singapore. They have more subscriber base than their competitor Singtel MioTV.

• Starhub has all popular channels with them like Discovery, HBO, Star Movies, Sony etc
• It is more popular with Indians as they have Zee TV, Sony, Star Plus and Star Gold Hindi channels
• The cable tv is delivered via traditional Cable point in the flat..generally available in all HDB/Condo flats
• The quality of service is good.
• Hindi channels are International version of the same channel in India to suite timezone and interest.
• Around 6 local channels are offered free.
  

Cost

• You need to choose 3 basic groups plus any additional channels
• They have value packs to suite the needs to many people
• Hindi World value pack costs $44.94 at present which has Star Plus, Sony Entertainment and Zee TV
• The charges for other exclusive channels like HBO, Star Movies, Cinemax are higher.

Sintel MioTV

Recently MioTV is trying to compete with Stahub. Though they do not not have same channels as Starhub but do offer good price plans and other channels which Starhub may not offer.

• The delivery of MioTV is using ADSL Router!
• One needs to have Telephone line from Singtel too to have this offering.
• Quality is good
• Some good channels for Indians are NDTV 24x7 News channel, NDTV Profit and Zee TV.
• They have EROS Bollywood Movie(Video on demand) channel as well which offers 15 movies to view from!
• Again 6 local channels are offered free!

Cost

• Cost is very competitive
  
• The minimum charge per month is $16.05 !
• You can pay on per month basis too. This is something Starhub do not offer as of now.

If you are really not watching channels like Discovery, National Geo, HBO etc ..Then Singtel mio TV is best for you. Although you need to buy a telephone line in order to have the Cable TV, still the competitive price plan offered by Singtel is very cost effective. Specially if you are only watching news and also would like to get the good news channel from India like NDTV 24x7 you should go for mio TV. Also NDTV Profit is also a good channel if you like to keep upto date with Indian Stock Market and business!

I was having starhub for last 1 year and now enjoying Sintel mio TV!.

One thing you need to remember that for Starhub cable TV there is a minimum contract of 3 or 6 months. But Singtel mio TV is pay per month basis. So it all depends on your choice of channels to make the choice for Starhub or mio TV

Always check with promotional offers at the time of contracting..that really helps to cut the cost things like initial charges, set-top box or any other discounts they are offering.

The best thing is to get a connection transfer from someone whose contract is near to end!.

Hope this helps!

Saving cost on airfare to India from Singapore !

Everybody wants to save costs on airfare as that is the major cost when you are living away from your family/relatives. If you are visiting 1 or more times in a year to India from Singapore, its important that we understand what are the ways we can reduce costs on airfare. Also a better planning will help you to get the same preferred airlines of yours with reduced cost !

In order to understand airfares to various destinations from Singapore, goto http://www.airfare.com.sg. This website provides us good overview of all the types of airfares and airlines available for the various destinations. This is a starting point just to get an idea.

Other travel agents who provide competitive fares to India and other destinations are :

• Mustafa Air Travels
• Serangoon Air Travel Located at Tekka Mall @ Little India

I have used Serangoon Travels and my experience has been good with their service and competitive fares. But one needs to do this planning just before you are looking for the fares for which you have finalised the dates. This helps a lot as fares are dynamic and change due to seasonal requirements. e.g. fares are higher during school holidays.

Following are the airlines who offer flights to India on major destinations : Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Airlines, Jet Airways, Air India, Indian Airlines, Silk Air, Srilankan Airlines, Tiger Airways etc .

Some points to note :

• Most of the time Air India / India Airlines provide the best fares
• Lookout for deals from Singapore Airlines from time to time in newspaper
• Point to Point international flights are cheapest e.g. If you take Singapore - Hyd flight, it is cheaper, but if you book Singapore - Hyd - Pune it is expensive. Rather book Sin-Hyd flight from here & book the Hyd-Pune flight separately in India.
• Lookout for code flights schedule. e.g. Air India operates with Singapore Airlines. So you fly Singapore Airlines by paying Air India fare :)...this is the BEST TIP !
  
• Avoid budget airlines if your schedule likely to change later.
• Check for baggage allowance with airlines, as budget airlines offer less baggage allowance and no wavier most of the times.
• As far as possible keep one airline, that helps to build the miles and also frequent flying helps you in case of wait listing or priority boarding !
• Book in advance as far as possible to avoid paying higher fare for preferred dates(e.g. friday night flight)

Hope this helps ...please comment and share your experience with other people on saving cost on air fare and some more tips to manage air travel better !

Saving cost on furniture purchase in Singapore

Last weekend I spent almost entire day in searching for a good queen size bed plus mattress for our guest bedroom. I have never been to any furniture shop here in Singapore. My criteria for the bed was simple :

• Simple queen size bed frame
• Pocketed Spring mattress(this is the most firm type of mattress)
• Total cost : $500-600

My first step was to look in Salvation Army Stores . The only thing you can buy from here is the Bed Frame, that too if you are lucky to get a good one. As most of the stuff is second-hand, they are either old fashioned or not good. There is no point in getting mattress from here as they are very old. Well I was not lucky to find what I wanted :(

Then I went to a shop near by who was claiming upto 80% discount :). The furniture was good in this showroom, but I was not sure whether the prices were reasonable. Well here I got one tip from the showroom guy that it is tough to get King Size bed + mattress in Singapore in less than $1000 if you are looking for good brands like KingKoil (the most advertised in radio's here!). Also he explained me the difference between all types of mattress available & their relative cost.

After this my last stop was IKEA. As I know that the IKEA stuff is really nice and quality one. But whatever you like there visually, it is more than $500 just for the bed frame !. Also I did not find the type of mattress I was looking. They have pocketed spring mattress but I did not find them as firm I saw them at the other shop I visited earlier. I was really hoping that I could finish my search for good bed here :). I liked bed frame at IKEA. This is a very simple bed, which is priced at $99(just the bed frame). Whereas till now whatever bed frames I saw were in the range of $300-$500.

Well so my search for bed frame is ended. But I could not find the type mattress I was looking for in IKEA. So finally I went to the other shop I visited earlier for the mattress.

IKEA has excellent stuff for home furnishing. There bed frames with $175-200 tag too which are good.

Here are some of the Tips while you search for furniture in Singapore

• Decide in advance what you want(Bed size, frame type, mattress type) - This will save lot of time while shopping.
  
• Be firm on the price tag while you are shopping - this helps in bargaining and making decision faster
• Type of Mattresses are many and confusing :) ..So research for that first
• The most important part of the bed is the mattress ..so spend more on that rather than spending on the bed frame(I am not saying bed frame should not be good!)
• Bargain for FREE delivery of bed from shop. Also some shops give good discount on cash purchase
• IKEA charges $40 - $50 for he delivery and 5% of the cost for assembly. It is worth if you like the IKEA stuff.
• Try to look out for factory outlets(Like Defu Furniture(this shop has lot of variety for all type of furniture etc ) and SALE in malls to get an idea.
• So a good bed will cost around $500(Simple bed frame + pocketed spring mattress(this is the most expensive type ..apart from contour mattress :)
  

I hope this helps!

Please comment to help others...

Enjoy shopping !

Experience on opening NRI Account and Investment in Indian Mutual Funds

I was doing some research before I decide about opening an NRI Bank account with any bank in India. It is very tough to decide as I was looking for a NRI account which is also linked with Mutual Fund Account and I can do my MF Investments directly via online banking method.

My criteria for choosing the NRI Bank Account :

• Presence of branch in Singapore
• Good online banking infrastructure
• 24x7 customer care to access for any issues
• Easy way to remit money
• Any reference from which I can take any feedback
• Allow investment in Mutual Funds online
  

I looked at HDFC Bank, Kotak, Citibank, ICICI Bank, SBI etc. btw ..the research process took 2-3 weeks of time :)

But only Citibank was fitting into my requirements(which are pretty simple I think!). Specially the Online way of doing Mutual Fund Investments and branch in Singapore too. I know it does not matter in this internet world that we must have a physical branch here, but gave me an extra edge over other banks.

ICICI do not offer online mutual transactions. As per their website you need to contact them for doing the transactions.

HDFC does offer online MF transactions, but do not have presence in Singapore. Also I guess there customer care is not 24x7.

Kotak also offers MF transactions online, but they responded to my request after 10 days :)

SBI again offers MF transactions online but with some restrictions like you can purchase online, but cannot redeem :)

Finally I went for Citibank. The account opening experience was good. The account was opened in just 2 weeks. I am familiar with their online stuff as well. The only limitation I have found that the Mutual Funds allowed for investments do not cover all AMCs(which is fine ..as I knew this already ..only ICICIDirect offers all the AMCs!(again not for NRI may be)). Also the AMCs listed in Citibank MF Investment page do not show all the Funds from that AMCs. This is something I don't understand, unless the AMC is not offering that particular for NRIs..which I doubt.

If you would like to do just Mutual Funds using your exiting NRI or resident account(if you are in India). You can use TimesofMoney, their process if very simple and works well for some of the few AMCs again. But they have wider choice of funds. The process of opening an account is also pretty fast.

Please share your experience with on NRI Online banking and Investment specifically..I will be glad to hear them !

I remember my recent reading The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less ..excellent in this context where too much choice is available which makes our decision more tough than easier :)

Happy Sunday !
Sandeep

Saving cost on Passport photo !

I read about this @ The Stupid Passport Photo Ripoff . I have not personally tried the FREE service http://www.epassportphoto.com/ but I feel its worth a try. We always need passport size photo's of various size for different documents like banks, passport office, membership forms of clubs etc etc ..

In Singapore there are self-service booths which offers passport size photo's for $6(4 copies). I liked this service very much. You will find the booths in many convenient places where it is most needed. Also it is at most of the MRT stations ! The Photo guy also charges the same amount as these machines but takes 30 mins to deliver!. So only in case when you need more photo copies, its worth going to the shop for clicking the photo.

I use http://www.snapfish.com.sg to print photo's in Singapore. Its pretty good service. They charge 19c per photograph. Also you get 20 prints FREE when you first sign up and also when you refer somebody who sign's up their service!. If you are trying print photo's from shops in Singapore, they are expensive as they charge around 40 cents for upto 10-20 photos.

Cost of living in Singapore 2008

Update : Cost of Living in Singapore 2010

As the new year has started, I thought its a good time to update "Cost of Living" details about Singapore. I have been getting lot of hits on my "Cost of Living in Singapore" posts. I am glad that I am able to provide some idea to people who are planning to move in Singapore for short period or long term period.

So here I am updating my details on cost of living in Singapore. I will also try to address some of the common queries I have as comments from readers. I hope this helps !

Again as a word of caution here. The cost of living chart I am giving here is as a guideline only for a family of couple or couple with 1 child. For bachelors the cost will be shared, so it will be quite less in total on a individual basis.This is based on my own personal experience so far. As everybody knows that it depends on their lifestyle as to how much they spend on things they like. So someone may like to live in Condo rather than HDB for their specific needs, then the cost of living will go up. Also for HDB it depends where in Singapore you are trying for rental HDB flat. HDBs near to central/downtown area is expensive.

Rent: Rent has gone up overall. But for renewal HDB rentals what I have personally seen is that, if you have good relationship with owner, the % increase is around 10-15%. Again it depends on the area. For new HDB rental contracts you need to search and negotiate well to get good deal. Checkout the website : http://singapore.roomsdb.net/ to get an idea of rent in Singapore.

Grocery: Grocery is a variable expense. So can be controlled a bit though GST is 7%. I don't see a major change in our grocery bill. The key is to buy from shops like Mustafa, FairePrice, Carrefour etc.. as they offer discounts most of the times on many consumer products.

Furniture: If you need to buy furniture in Singapore. There are ample choices from low cost to luxury. Visit Ikea to get an idea on typical furniture costs. Ikea furniture is good at the same time having reasonable price tag for normal furniture items for your home. If you want to buy some old but good usable furniture like Sofa Set, Bed Frames, chairs etc ..have a look at the Salvation Army Stores. They offer good, but old furniture for very low cost. For example my friend got a nice 3 person Sofa for just $100!. Also the money given to Salvation Army is for good cause too.

School: Pre-school's are located everywhere in Singapore. So you can choose something near to you to avoid transportation cost(around $100/pm) and hassle for your child. The pre-schools with Montessori pattern are slightly expensive than others. For primary schools there is ample choice again. There are 2 Indian schools :

• Global Indian School
• DPS International School

Taxi: Taxi fares have gone up recently during the peak hours. But for short distance it does not have much impact. As with excellent public transportation, you can go anywhere using MRT, Bus and Taxi combination. So that way taxi usage is minimum.

Outside Food: If you need to eat outside food during office lunch hour. Most of the places will have food courts catering to every bodies need. You will get variety of food like veg and non-veg. In general the charge is i the range of $5-$8 depending upon your order. Most of the places you will find a Indian stall having south/north Indian food.

While comparing cost of living between different countries and Singapore. Remember that things are different in each country. In Singapore the public transportation is of great advantage. You don't really need a car to get around Singapore.

Overall I like Singapore for clean surroundings, green all around, excellent public transport, parks specially for kids and Indian food availability !

In my next post I will consolidate the queries I have had from my readers..

Do comment if you still have any doubts, I am glad to share my experience in order to help others !

Related Posts

• Cost of Living in Singapore 2007
• FAQ on cost of living in Singapore
• Readers Mailbag on Cost of Living!
• Cost of Living in Singapore for Bachelors
• Tips of Rental Flats in Singapore!
  

Investment Strategies in 2008 !

I feel 2007 was very good year for Investments in Indian Stock Market. Mutual Funds rocked as usual. If you bought good stocks, they all benefited from the Bull run which was too good in 2007.

Looking back at 2007, specially considering the mutual funds. In my personal opinion one can apply this simple strategy to maximize gains or invest wisely in 2008. This are my strategies to simply life in 2008 !

• Do not invest in more than 5 Funds of your choice based on ratings from http://www.valueresearchonline.com
• Do not invest in NFOs ..Its not worth in long term even though it looks great sometimes - e.g. Reliance Equity
• Do not play short term in Mutual Funds. Keep at least for 2-3 years
• Do not sell for profits, sell only when you have your objective met e.g. Planned selling only for a objective
• Do not invest in Equity IPO's.
  
• Many will disagree with me but for a small investor investing somewhere between 50k to 1 lacs, its simply not worth the time and money. e.g. Investing 1 Lac in IPO, getting alloted only 10k worth of stocks, money locked for more than 1-2 months. Refunds are no managed well sometimes. e.g. For CENTRAL BANK IPO in 2007 for many investors, the registrar issuesed a cheque via Speed Post for the refund money:)
• Invest regularly using SIP method
• Invest in bulk in the same funds when you feel market has come down a lot(benchmark of MF NAV's need to be kept for that)

My favorite Mutual Funds

• Fidelity Equity
• HDFC Equity
• Reliance Vision or Growth
• Magnum Contra
• HDFC Prudence
  

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