How to Stretch Your Dollar on Groceries with Your Credit Card
Being a parent of a 1-year-old baby is tough financially and it has made me more eager to stretch every dollar. Here I am going to compare some credit cards to see which will give me the most rewards or rebates. As a family, my main expenses are usually spent on these things:
1) Groceries – Household items, wet wipes, snacks, fresh ingredients to cook at home.
2) Online shopping for groceries – Bulk quantity is cheaper especially for milk powder and diapers, and I can easily get free shipping too!
Dining rewards are not especially important because we rarely eat in restaurants. My preference is cash rebates because the rewards are usually quite limited and sometimes inconvenient to redeem them. Using the comparison table on Getcardable, I sorted out the cash rebates for groceries and did a comparison:
From here, I can see that OCBC Frank card is the best for online shopping at 6% while ANZ Optimum is great for just groceries. I used the Amex True Cashback card for my hospital charges during delivery. I paid the deposit for my stay in the hospital during my baby’s delivery to get the 3% rebates for the first 3 months and I think it’s a good deal.
Comparing only credit cards nowadays is not enough. I have also compared the different bank account interests and they are also tied up with the credit card spending. If you have OCBC 360 bank account, Frank or OCBC 365 card would be great. If you have UOB One account, UOB One card is the only choice. Standard Chartered Manhattan would be suitable for those will the Bonus saver account so we can't just change credit cards now.
For me, I am using UOB One card as I have the UOB One account. It does not look that bad with at least 2% interests from my UOB One account. I can also get up to 2.43% from my UOB One account bank interests.
Just don't forget to monitor your bills closely to hit the minimum spending for the relevant credit cards. Otherwise, the cards without any minimum spending would be better for you!
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About the Writer: She maintains a blog at SimplyJesMe and shares regularly on personal finance, free and easy travel, and recently, pregnancy and family topics. She hopes to influence others to turn their thoughts into actions, and live a life without regrets. She is also a co-founder on SnackFirst, which offers free shipping for all snacks.
This post first appeared on GetCardable's blog.
1) Groceries – Household items, wet wipes, snacks, fresh ingredients to cook at home.
2) Online shopping for groceries – Bulk quantity is cheaper especially for milk powder and diapers, and I can easily get free shipping too!
Dining rewards are not especially important because we rarely eat in restaurants. My preference is cash rebates because the rewards are usually quite limited and sometimes inconvenient to redeem them. Using the comparison table on Getcardable, I sorted out the cash rebates for groceries and did a comparison:
From here, I can see that OCBC Frank card is the best for online shopping at 6% while ANZ Optimum is great for just groceries. I used the Amex True Cashback card for my hospital charges during delivery. I paid the deposit for my stay in the hospital during my baby’s delivery to get the 3% rebates for the first 3 months and I think it’s a good deal.
Comparing only credit cards nowadays is not enough. I have also compared the different bank account interests and they are also tied up with the credit card spending. If you have OCBC 360 bank account, Frank or OCBC 365 card would be great. If you have UOB One account, UOB One card is the only choice. Standard Chartered Manhattan would be suitable for those will the Bonus saver account so we can't just change credit cards now.
For me, I am using UOB One card as I have the UOB One account. It does not look that bad with at least 2% interests from my UOB One account. I can also get up to 2.43% from my UOB One account bank interests.
Just don't forget to monitor your bills closely to hit the minimum spending for the relevant credit cards. Otherwise, the cards without any minimum spending would be better for you!
_________________________________________________________________________________
About the Writer: She maintains a blog at SimplyJesMe and shares regularly on personal finance, free and easy travel, and recently, pregnancy and family topics. She hopes to influence others to turn their thoughts into actions, and live a life without regrets. She is also a co-founder on SnackFirst, which offers free shipping for all snacks.
This post first appeared on GetCardable's blog.
Jes
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Hi Jes,
ReplyDeleteThe best card for online shopping is the SCB Singpost Card at 7%, rebate is also capped at $60 a month.
Maybank F&F card has 8% for groceries at Cold Storage / NTUC with min $1000 (5% if only $300 spent). UOB Delight has 8% for Cold Storage / Giant / Marketplace with min $800.
Citibank SMRT has 5% for groceries (NTUC, Giant, SS) with a min spend of only $300. Citibank Cashback does have 8% for groceries too, but that is capped at $25.
Both Citibank cards are better for daily drivers due to either a lower rebate level in exchange for a lower monthly hurdle, or a capped amount on a higher rate.
The Maybank and UOB card is more suited if you have higher grocery spending and know that you would be able to meet the spending criteria.
SCB is a good choice for online spending, but it's hard to stay within the sweet spot of $600 (to quality for the 7% cashback) and $858 (maximum amount eligible for cashback with the $60 monthly cap).
Hi GMGH,
DeleteWah you are really the expert. I used these cards because they were the ones listed as the best credit cards on their comparison website.
I didn't know about SCB Singpost, that's pretty cool. Maybank and UOB delight looks good, their high cap is perhaps a pity and not so applicable to me. I have the Citibank SMRT card but only used on transport for the auto reload, haha.
However, with the bank accounts interest rate tied to credit cards, I think it's difficult to change. I am struggling to meet the $500 spending even now.
Appreciate your sharing which is very useful. Thank you so much! :)