Given Singapore’s climate, it’s impossible to avoid keeping A/C on at all times. However, A/C is also one of the most energy-intensive consumer electronic devices ever, and therefore represents an opportunity to save massively on your electricity bill. One way of reducing your A/C usage is by using thick curtains or shades. These can block out light and heat from outside, thereby helping you maintain the temperature in your room.

Another way to do so is by spending as much time as possible outside of home. Most venues like offices, restaurants, cafes, classrooms and gyms have good air conditioning. If you can spend more time at work, school, gym or even socializing with friends, you can either improve your performance at school or work, or increase your overall happiness by becoming healthier and spending more time with your loved ones. At the same time, you will be saving a ton of money on your electricity bills.

Dryers are another set of electronics that consume a lot of energy. If you wash and dry your clothes once a week, you are probably spending at least $5-10 on your dryer every month. Instead, you could consider air-drying your clothes. This has an additional advantage of not buying a machine and dryer sheets.

READ MORE: 10 Genius Washing And Drying Tips To Make Doing Laundry A Breeze

Since the water bill accounts for approximately 40 per cent of your SP bills, this is another good place to start figuring out how you can save on your monthly bills, especially if you love to take hot, steaming showers that last 10 – 20 minutes.

If you just turn on your shower tap and plug your bathtub drain, you will be shocked by the amount of water that you are using while you shower. It’s estimated that a shower consumes about 8 litres of water per minute. If you can finish your shower within five minutes instead of 10, that’s 40 litres of water saved each time you take a shower. Depending on how many times you shower on each day, this could translate to a massive amount of savings.

These are smaller savings, but little savings can add up to a big sum over time. Using energy efficient appliances like LED lightings or water saving taps can can reduce your electrical and water bills over time. You can also opt for eco-friendly showers which help reduce water wastage.

The next big area of possible savings on recurring bills is your mobile plan. Popular mobile plans in Singapore cost about $50 per month, and includes about 150-200 minutes of outgoing calls, 1,000 SMS messages and and about two to three GB of data. Then, the most crucial thing you can do is to use your WiFi whenever and wherever possible to make calls and send messages to your family and friends. As you know, most places in Singapore have public WiFi available for free.

Given that going over your limit for calls, SMS or data can be hugely expensive, utilising WiFi can be a great way of making sure you never reach your plan’s limits. For instance, Singtel, M1 and Starhub charge about $10.7 for each GB that exceeds your data plan’s limit. Not only that, it can also help you get a cheaper plan with lower limits or easily share your plan with your family, which can help you save $15 or more every month.

Not only that, you can now make free calls on services like Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp or Skype, so you technically never have to use your minutes or SMS.

Check to see if your company, school or associations have a special discount available. Discounts might apply if you’re a civil servant, so it’s wise to take advantage of all these perks and benefits.

Another neat way of saving on your monthly recurring bills is to smartly utilise your credit cards. There are a number of cards in Singapore that provide cash rebate on recurring monthly bills from telcos and SP.

For instance, HSBC Platinum Visa card can save you 5% in cashback on your recurring mobile, cable TV and internet bills every month. Both UOB Delight Card and OCBC 365 Card can save 3 per cent on your recurring telco bills from SingTel, StarHub and M1. POSB Everyday Card is also unique in that it provides a 1 per cent rebate on your SP services bills, as well as other recurring bills like mobile and internet.

If you’re paying $20-S$100 on your cable TV, you should consider cutting the cord. Unless you are a huge sports fan, most shows that you would find entertaining are available online either for free or on Netflix for just $7.99 a month.

That is, unless you work from home or have elderly folk or a helper who need to use a landline. But more and more households are doing away with traditional phone lines simply because it’s much more convenient to use one’s mobile phone. You can save more than $10 a month!

READ MORE:
7 Clever Ways You Can Save Money On Beauty Products
These Shameless Tricks Can Actually Help You Save Money
Singapore Public Transport Hacks That Will Help You Save Money And Time

Text: Duckju Kang / Additional Reporting: Elizabeth Liew
Photo: Pixabay

A version of this post first appeared on The New Savvy, Asia’s leading online platform that focuses on financial and career issues for women. They empower women to make smarter financial decisions and transform their money relationships.