Personal finance advice often focuses on visible expenses. This includes bringing lunch from home, not spending on the occasional $7 latte and even tracking every dollar you spend.
While some of these habits can undoubtedly save us money, larger savings may be hiding in recurring expenses that quietly run in the background, such as mobile plans, subscriptions, broadband and insurance premiums.
Saving $30 here and $50 there may not feel significant, but across several recurring bills, it can add up to hundreds of dollars a year without requiring major lifestyle changes.
Here are five areas worth reviewing.
#1 Review Your Mobile Plan Against What You Actually Use
Singapore’s mobile phone market is highly competitive, so there is little reason for us to keep paying for an old plan that is expensive and no longer suits our usage.
We can start by checking how much data we actually use. If our plan gives us 50GB a month but we consistently use only 15GB, we may be paying for more than we need.
If we are also out of our contract period, we can compare our current bill with SIM-only plans from other providers. Switching from a $45 plan to one that costs $20 can save us $300 a year. If we multiple this by four family members, this is $1,200 each year.
#2 Check Whether We Are Overpaying For Our Home Broadband Plan
Our home broadband plan is also another culprit that may be worth reviewing, especially if we have been on the same contract for several years. Some of us may be paying for higher speeds than we actually need, while others may have moved off an introductory promotional rate onto a more expensive standard plan.
We can check what we are paying today and compare it with current alternatives. We can also ask our existing provider whether there are better recontract or retention offers available.
#3 Audit Our Subscriptions And Cut The Duplicates
Subscriptions are what businesses love and what consumers should be wary of, because they make it easy for us to keep paying without thinking whether we need the service anymore.
To fix this, make it a point to regularly review our bank and credit card statements and identify recurring charges for streaming services, fitness apps, cloud storage, productivity tools and other memberships. If we have not used a service recently, we should consider cancelling it. It is also worth checking whether we are paying for overlapping services that serve similar purposes.
Cutting even one $20 monthly subscription saves us $240 a year.
#4 Review Our Insurance Coverage For Gaps And Overlaps
The goal here is not to cancel essential insurance just to save money. Instead, we should review whether we are paying for overlapping coverage or policies that no longer match our needs.
We can map out what our existing policies cover and look for areas where similar protection appears more than once. For example, if we have critical illness coverage across several policies, we can consider whether the combined amount still reflects our financial needs.
The aim is to make sure every premium we pay is going towards protection that remains relevant and valuable to us, as opposed to just paying for coverage that may not be essential.
Read Also: 5 Ways To Reset Your Finances & Lower Your Cost Of Living In Singapore
#5 Use Credit Cards That Match Our Actual Spending Pattern
This does not reduce a recurring bill directly, but it can help us get more value from spending we are already doing.
We can review our spending over the past few months and identify the categories where we spend the most, such as dining, groceries, online shopping or transport.
Then, we can check whether our existing credit card rewards those categories well. If not, switching cards or using another card for specific spending categories could improve the cashback or miles we earn. The key is to optimise spending we would have made anyway, rather than spend more just to earn rewards.
Small Recurring Savings Can Add Up Over A Year
None of these changes will transform our finances on its own. But together, they can make a noticeable difference.
Saving $30 a month on a mobile plan, $20 by cancelling unnecessary subscription, $20 on a home broadband plan that is cheaper, $50 on unnecessary insurance coverage and another $30 through better credit card rewards adds up to about $150 a month, or $1,800 a year.
Most importantly, these savings do not require us to drastically change how we live.
Read Also: 6 Money-Saving Travel Tips Every Singaporean Should Consider Before Flying Off
Photo Credit: DollarsAndSense/Raymond Quek
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