I used a money insights app for 3 months – here's what I learnt

Writer finds she had hidden expenses, was not saving 'correctly' and should be investing

- Sue-Ann Tan

For years, I kept track of my expenses on a simple money app, keying in lunch costs, MRT ticket prices and price tags after shopping, checking how much I managed to save at the end of each month.

But lately, I have been experimenting with the OCBC Money Insights feature within the bank’s app, which allows me to set goals, break my expenses down by category, and set budgets for each one.

It even gave me projected savings one year from now if I kept up my spending habits.

Here’s what I learnt:

“Cai fan” — or economy rice — is the go-to buzzword for my friends and me when we feel broke or have spent a great deal of money travelling.

“It’s okay, I can just go home and eat cai fan,” my friend says when she has spent thousands overseas.

But does simply switching to cheaper meals work in the grand scheme of finances?

Using the app to track my food expenditure over three months, I realised that no matter what I did, food expenses remained roughly the same - at best, I saved less than $100 during the months I consciously scrimped on food.

Perhaps this is due to my own dining patterns — I usually cook my lunch and dine out only once or twice a week.

I also patronise mid-priced cafes or restaurants, rather than splashing out on Michelin-starred meals.

So when I tried to cut down on food costs — say, eating at the food court instead of a cafe — it hardly made a difference.

Going without getting bubble teas did not help much either; I bought juice to “reward” myself. Maybe eating “cai fan” would have made a difference if I was the kind of person who spends on fine dining every weekend - but no real trimming of expenses took place in my case.

A Straits Times survey of around 1,000 people aged 18 to 30 found that nearly one-third of a young adult’s spending in Singapore is on food.