Hello readers!
During my (Viv) Lunar New Year visitations, my grandma (aka my unofficial-walking-supermarket-price-tracker-system) lamented the increasing prices of — well, everything — from the price of toilet paper to fresh chicken breast.
Even our usual reunion dinner meal at Yew Tee kopitiam increased by a hefty 17% — from $338 for 10 pax in 2023 to $398 in 2024. That’s way more than a 1% increase in GST.
Jialat.
But turns out, this is pretty congruent with the data we’ve been collecting.
The TWS Millennial Index 2024
Two years ago, we created an unofficial, non-government-approved list on Google Sheets of what young adults would spend, and tracked how much they were affected by inflation. We called this the Millennial CPI (as opposed to the consumer price index).
(You can check out 2022 to 2023’s index highlights here.)
Here’s how prices are looking for 2024:
If you led a thrifty lifestyle, we estimate your monthly costs (without rent/car) would have increased by 4.8% from Jan 2023 to 2024.
If you led a median lifestyle, 5.94%.
And if you led an atas lifestyle? 6.43%.
Some highlights:
Ya Kun’s Toast Set went from $5.60 in 2023 to $6.30. That’s a 12.5% increase. For perspective: If you have it once a week, that’s an additional $36.40 spent a year.
Netflix increased their subscription from $21.98 for 4 screens in 2023 to $25.98.
Even sliced bread wasn’t spared from the price increase — it went from $2.05 to $2.30. It might seem like a few cents, but that’s a 10% increase in prices.
Housing rental prices seemed to have cooled down slightly — a 3-bedroom HDB in Yishun dipped from $2.8k in 2023 to $2.3k.
Here’s a full overview of everything that has increased since Jan 2023 to Jan 2024. Items in red are the ones that have increased, yellow stayed the same, and green decreased (yes, some things actually got more affordable.)
Where do we go from here?
If you’ve been following our page for a while, you’ll know our usual mantra — work on your earning power, and spend below your means.
And look, we understand that it’s frustrating that we have to accept increasing prices.
But inflation wasn’t a phenomenon that happened to Singapore only — it happened all over the world.
So the best way to thrive in a capitalistic society? To keep going up the value chain and ensuring our money in > money out.
Also, here are some resources that we found useful in navigating these increasing prices.
They’re not a magical solution, but a little bit of savings can go a long way:
Price Kaki App (to compare prices of groceries and household items)
BudgetMealGoWhere (to find budget meals across the country)
Olio (a local app to share and find items for free)
Carousell (to buy second-hand stuff; this needs no introduction)
We’ll catch y’all with another price increase update soon.
Here’s to a hopefully less expensive year ahead,
The Woke Salaryman Team
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Housing rental doubled last year.... not sure how the data says otherwise.
"Sound advice" - as usual, from The Woke Salaryman