Tag: app

Ez-Link deals and promotions

On By RistrettzIn Personal Finance Series1 Comment

You are probably no stranger to Ezlink. Recently, they have been trying to revive hard on their app and card usage and introduced a number of gamification tools on their app. But their marketing is way too quiet, probably because the rewards aren’t that enticing. Nonetheless, it is worth the effort if you have some time around doing this.

From 1 April 2022 to 26 May 2022, you can accumulate EZ-Link points to redeem those vouchers. These are limited by the way so that is first come first served.

Download the Ez Link App, use my promotion click on discover and Trivia. Key in my Referral code: 3197B5C and begin the daily login and daily answer to the questions. The promotion Tier will be:

30 Points: $0.50 Cashback

50 Points: $5 Fairprice Online Voucher

80 Points: $8 Fairprice Online Voucher

130 Points: $1 Cashback

250 Points: $3 Cashback

These cashback that is successfully collected will be credited to your Ez Link wallet.

All right then. Thank you for using my code in advance.

Disclaimer

If you decide to sign up to this, do remember to use my referral code: 3197B5C

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes for other services at Referral and Recommendations

These pictures were taken off Ez Link website for reference.

A New Service in Town – Goldback on Hugo

On By RistrettzIn Alternative Income, Deals, Personal Finance SeriesLeave a comment

With the internet, news and services get rolled out pretty at a light speed. Recently, the blog community and several other channels (likely paid/sponsored) has seen a new service in town. It isn’t your usual savings or investment account but instead a Goldback account. At at current, it looks really simple at this point in time. I’m not sure what they have in store for future development. (https://onelink.to/hugosave)

Hugo Save or Wealthcare

Savings are made made simpler through the Hugo Save App. How this works is through Roundups – every transaction on the Hugo Platinum Visa Debit Card is rounded up to the nearest dollar. This weekly Roundup savings are then automatically invested into real physical gold via the Hugo Gold Vault.

There are also other options such as:

1. Micro Investments – Grab Invest (Nothing Fancy but also nothing exciting). These have no lock-ins.

2. Micro Insurance – SNACK by Income. They offer small insurance benefits that build up over time. They can be a good source of insurance coverage for freelancers or folks who just came to employment.

3. With Hugo, they focus on savings and what more can they do to provide it as a platform to save eventually rounded into Gold.

a. You sign up with your details here at Hugo: https://www.hugosave.com/, click on the download button.

b. Fill and submit your details. I believe they have a pretty quick turnaround. Meanwhile, you will need a photo of your NRIC and selfie as a check.

c. Within the next business day, you should have your account setup and proceed into the app to get your physical card. This portion takes about 2 weeks minimally to obtain the physical card and start spending.

Each account is provided with an account number and a DBS Swift Code which is safeguarded within DBS Bank. You can load money via FAST to your account at Hugo

c. You can then explore to create moneypots (Savings) and if you spend on your card, there will be a round up function which will complete your micro savings into what they call Goldback.

Features

There are several features on the app:

  1. You can add money pots to create saving goals. (for example – different kid, PS5, new gadget) Take note though that there will not be any interest earned.
  2. Separately, there is a Gold Vault which you can:
    1. regularly invest in by setting a monthly date and amount to put into Gold
    2. Ad-hoc invest into the Gold account.

The Gold account in the Gold Vault is physical gold allocated against your investments. They are stored in an accredited London Bullion Market Association vault and insured by Lloyds of London.

Some Partnership links

It seems like HugoSave have a couple of partnership links that users can take advantage of:

a. From Circles (Telco): https://bit.ly/HugoXCirclesLife (minimum S$40 payment for 5 bills, get $S20 in staggered Goldback payment) You will need to be a Circles customers I suppose and looks like they have a promotion code to sign up too.

b. From Ohm Energy (Electricity Retailer): https://bit.ly/HugoXOhm (minimum S$40 payment for 5 bills, get $S30 in staggered Goldback payment) You will need to be an Ohm customer I suppose and looks like they have a promotion code to sign up too.

My Personal Thoughts

Pros

Good things first – When i first checked this out, the first thing that came to mind was a structured way to save money. This works for me in terms of setting saving goals for myself and pocket money for my kids.

The idea of roundups came in as a fresh perspective. Putting it into Gold was a little off-putting initially but i figured out that it is a safe haven so no harm to do so.

Next, I eventually thought about freelancers and people who say that they can’t really save every month. This put in to practice what you can really do now. Putting money pots and fix your savings without spending it.

With the increase and new generation into freelance work, this will help people in terms of educating savings. You have a fixed

Cons

I’m just thinking as a devil’s advocate. Should there be more than Gold as an option in this roundup function?

Next up, the physical card took rather long to arrive before I can use it. Perhaps, there can be consideration for spending on the numberless card before it arrives.

Are there any signup perks for customers? Since the objective is driven by savings instead of an interest bearing account. Considering that I can do the same via a Bank app, what is the edge other than purely savings.

Afterall, I’m pretty seasoned in this new app, new services stuff. They spend money to acquire customers, then roll a tight budget to stay sustainable. Nothing wrong in doing so, that’s just entrepreneurship and staying relevant.

Disclaimer

This is not a sponsored post. This is purely my own opinion after using their service and/or products. If you like what you are seeing, do remember to check they out and do your diligence. There is no one size fits all investment strategy.

Now, if what I am sharing does resonates with you, do use my referral codes here at Referral and Recommendations

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes for other services at https://atomic-temporary-178675883.wpcomstaging.com/contact/

The pictures were taken from Hugo Save’s website for this article.

AutoWealth Performance – March 2021

On By RistrettzIn Performance, Personal Finance Series, Robo AdvisorsLeave a comment

Here we go for March 2021 performance for another Robo Advisor. Different robo advisor really does things differently. They concept, the drive and the unique selling point are all different. Some just have more marketing power than others while some just like to lay low. It is a little like a new acquaintance to a friend and eventually to a close friend. Wondering if you made the right choice? I guess only time will tell.

Why Autowealth?

Every month, I’ll just to just remind myself why was I a friend of Autowealth. My two reasons for doing so is really just (a) try out one more robo advisor/segregate a portfolio to find out how they invest and what their model is and (b) Diversify my investment assets through different companies.

Against all odds, the costs of robo have set a bar in the local scene that they are one of the lowest cost solutions to build a portfolio. These options used to be only available to people who have access to unique solutions like private banks or high networth individuals. Then again, the manager takes a big cut from their investments by taking risks.

As Usual, overall market goes through peaks and troughs. Every time it drops, just pick some up and let the robots do the work on balancing and re-balancing. As long as fees remains low, the portfolio will grow over time and over a longer period. It should remain in the black based on some back testing. I like it that they have already breakeven into their third year so something is working right for them.

So far, no change in asset allocation. I think I have been rebalanced two times now. It’s a little like locking in gains due to the rising market.

 

Performance – Mar 2021

Looking at the portfolio, the last few months have been stagnant and I still feel that it will continue to do so through 2021. My investment horizon would be estimated to be 15-20 years. This is a portfolio which is set at roughly 40% equities and 60% bonds. The investment vehicles will be through ETFs. It does look like it can withstand long term peaks and troughs. What i really like is that i can switch between the SGD and USD currency performance portfolio as well as the impact on USD SGD forex on performance. USD has been steadily increasing versus the SGD.

 

Overall, since funding to date (in SGD currency) performance is +10.66% and I like this. (compared to Feb 2021, it is up +1.2%) The impact of USD on SGD is about -2.69% and by referencing the portfolio in USD, absolute return would be at +13.14%. No complaints thus far.

 

Looking into the details if I were to look at the portfolio value at $5334 (end Dec 2020) versus today at $5533. Some simple and manual YTD calculations below

YTD Performance[($5533-$5334)/$5334] x 100% = +3.73% (YTD 8 Apr 2021 and +1.4% as compared to 10 Mar 2021)

Disclaimer

This is not a sponsored post. This is purely my own opinion after using their service and/or products. If you like what you are seeing, do remember to check they out and do your diligence. There is no one size fits all investment strategy.

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes here at Referral and Recommendations

The pictures were taken from Auto Wealth website for this article. If you need a referral code, drop me a message and you can indicate my full name during registration. From there, both of us will  get $20 each to supplement the fees.

Big Pay (Digital Payment)

On By RistrettzIn Personal Finance SeriesLeave a comment

Another payment service has come into the picture. More apps, more interface and more complexity is added into the whole scheme of things now. It feels abit like delivery and food services in the yesteryears. I don’t know about you but I do feel like many of these are popping up as if they are the next super app. I choose to believe that they want the users in order to sell more marketing money to another sucker. But well, as long as there are benefits to consumers and data is kept confidential. Why not?

What or who owns BigPay?

As defined from the website, AirAsia founder and CEO Tony Fernandes officially unveiled BigPay, the budget airline new digital payments platform, at the Money 2020 conference in Singapore

BigPay offers a mobile wallet which can store up to 10 credit and debit cards, and has partnered with MasterCard to offer its own top-up cash card that can be used for payments and withdrawals worldwide. Users can view transactions in real-time on the app to keep track of their daily spending.

What set them apart? As they have claimed

BigPay allows you to spend in 150 supported currencies without transaction fees at Visa’s exchange rate, and also allows you to withdraw money from overseas Via, Maestro, or Cirrus ATMs. It also allows you to make international bank transfers. I’m not too sure if this is the best way to do this as there are so many other options that can also do this.

Rewards

The app has a interface that would reflect spending categories and that separation would be suitable for someone who appreciate such stuff to track their monthly expenses.

Of course, all wallets would have their rewards to keep you using their app for a pro-longed period until you are dependant on it. t

The reward: 1 BIG points for every $5 spent on payments only. I think that for now, they have not figured out the main touch points that people want for rewards other than implementing their own services. This will come unless the app decided that they do not wish to invest more money on this. So this is a very good way to measure how serious a company is when they start expanding their business.

The Deal – $5 for referrer and referee

The key benefits now: We’ll both get $5 credited to our BigPay wallet when you complete the sign-up process by activating the physical card that’d arrive in your mail. After that, you can refer your friends and so on and so forth. It doesn’t seem like there is any cap at the moment since they are new.

Easy transfer back to account

BigPay allows you to withdraw your balance in cash to your bank account. The thing to note is that it’s limited to $100 a day, $300 a month, and you have to pay $1 fee each time you withdraw as a transaction fee. Okay, that isn’t too great a news. Most people don’t even want to pay $0.01 for anything.

That being said, as my philosophy, don’t sweat the small stuff. Smaller or new companies need to pay their overheads and salaries so this mindset would take a least a decade for people to understand.

Sidetrack a little to those who think that saving every cent is considered thrifty. Don’t blame companies for raising prices or dropping interests.

  1. No one owes you anything
  2. It is a free world. Anyone is free to choose – Do not use what you determine as best to define good.
  3. Treat customer service with respect.
  4. Companies have overheads and salaries to pay. Directly or indirectly it saves someone a job and income so increased costs have to be translated back to consumers.
  5. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

Able to stack with other cards

BigPay can double stack with prepaid cards, which is also something that is virtually impossible. For now, you can still use your Grab Card to top up your BigPay wallet. Nice.

It also seems like the Razer Card (which is still in beta) works with BigPay for now.

Delivery

It takes about 4-7 business days for the card to transit and reach you via a registered courier. From there, you will then receive your card.

Conclusion

The Pros:

  • Works with some prepaid cards
  • Withdrawal can be done but at a cost.
  • Hard to find more

The Cons:

  • Low and limited withdrawal amount of $100 per day; $300 per month.
  • Rewards seems pretty and limited so I probably will not use it.

Disclaimer

This is not a sponsored post. This is just a tool and exploration to find out discounts and deals. It is never too much to learn and know more about.

If you like what I am sharing, use my BigPay referral code and both you and I will get $5 sign up bonus. Sign up with the referral code CQDU0PRU7X or tap on this link BigPay Referral now

This picture image was taken off BigPay website for illustration purpose only.