Singaporebrides | Weddings 101
February 2023
5 Tips for Newlywed Budgeting
Learn hacks to earn rebates with your wedding purchases, save on honeymoon travel insurance, and more!
Money management as a married couple often begins with the wedding planning, when you budget for the first big expense you’ll shoulder together. Similarly, you’ll also need to plan how much to spend on purchasing and renovating your first home. To help you navigate these big financial milestones easily, here are five tips for wedding and newlywed budgeting. Learn hacks to earn rebates with your wedding purchases, save on honeymoon travel insurance, and more!
1. Earn Cashback on Your Wedding Expenses
It’s no secret that a wedding can cost a lot of money. In fact, the average Singaporean couple spent between SGD30,000 to SGD50,000 on their wedding, according to our survey in 2020. It may sound like an enormous sum to fork out, but paying for your wedding expenses could actually be an opportunity to earn rewards. Most couples spend 9 months to over a year planning their wedding, so you’ll have plenty of time to rack up those rewards.
While some couples may prefer accumulating miles points towards a dream honeymoon, or points to redeem dining or spending vouchers, cashback is the most flexible reward when it comes to planning your wedding budget. Using credit cards to strategically pay for your wedding expenses is a hack that could contribute to a lot of extra money to your overall budget, if you maximise your cashback wisely. When you’re swiping your card to pay for all of your wedding expenses, you’ll feel better knowing that you’re earning cashback to put back into your wedding budget, or go towards hefty upcoming purchases like your honeymoon or new home.
HSBC Advance Credit Card is a great credit card for weddings, as it offers up to 3.5% cashback on almost all categories of spend (retail purchases both locally and overseas, and online transactions). If you spend SGD2,000 and below per month, you earn the base cashback of 1.5%, while spends above that will earn you a cashback of 2.5% with a cap of SGD70.
You could even earn an additional 1% cashback (capped at SGD300)on your credit card spending. Simply qualify for the HSBC Everyday+ when you save and transact with your HSBC Everyday Global Account and HSBC Advance Credit Card respectively to earn an upsized cashback of SGD370 instead of SGD70 each month.1 Maximise your rebates by timing your purchase through the months.
1T&Cs apply. SGD deposits are insured by up to SGD75,000 by SDIC.
Up to 2.5% Base Cashback + 1% HSBC Everyday+ Cashback = Up to 3.5% Total Cashback
2. Break Down Your Wedding Costs
Having a good idea of average wedding costs can help you make a realistic wedding budget. How will your SGD30,000-SGD50,000 budget be split up? Of course, every wedding is unique, and a lot depends on the number of guests you invite (the more guests, the higher your venue costs!). According to our 2020 survey, the average couple spent 47% of their budget on the venue, 15% on their wedding outfits, 10% on their photographer and videographer, 8% on catering, 4% on the flowers, 4% on the hair and makeup artist, and the remaining on miscellaneous vendors such as wedding stationery, wedding cake, entertainment, and others. Budgeting for each wedding vendor category can help you allocate your funds.
With so many different categories of spend across your wedding vendors, it could be difficult to reach bonus reward tiers for most credit cards. Luckily, HSBC Advance Credit Card doesn’t require you to monitor which categories you’re spending on. Any retail purchase or online transaction qualifies you for cashback, so most of your wedding purchases will earn you up to 3.5% cashback!
3. Maximise Your Monthly Rebates
An overall wedding cost of up to SGD50,000 is a very daunting figure for most young couples, but breaking down the costs into more manageable amounts each month will help. You won’t have to pay for everything all at once, so you can manage your savings and cashflow by staggering your vendor deposits and payments. Plus, you’ll also be able to maximise your rebates by not going over the monthly cashback caps!
Sure, there are caps to your cashback, so a great wedding savings hack is for each of you to individually apply for a credit card. With each of you paying for wedding deals with HSBC Advance Credit Card, you could earn up to SGD370 in cashback per month.
For many credit cards, spacing out your vendor payments means you lose out on bonus rewards when you don’t hit minimum spending on various categories. It’s also a hassle to bear in mind the maximum caps on each category as well as the overall maximum cashback. HSBC Advance Credit Card takes away the stress of tracking categories of spend, making it easier on couples who have enough to worry about. If you’re renovating a new home at the same time as planning your wedding, don’t forget to use HSBC Advance Credit Card for up to 3.5% cashback when purchasing furniture, appliances, and electronics.
4. Save on Travel Insurance on Your Honeymoon
Your honeymoon is your chance to explore an exotic dream destination together with the love of your life. You’re an old hand at earning up to 3.5% in rebates from your honeymoon expenses on your HSBC Advance Credit Card by now, but did you know that you could save hundreds in travel insurance as well? When you charge your honeymoon flight tickets to your HSBC Advance Credit Card, you receive complimentary travel insurance coverage of up to SGD500,000 against flight inconveniences and personal accidents.
5. Manage Your Monthly Spending
Getting married is an exciting milestone that brings with it multiple heavy financial commitments at the same time. From footing the wedding bill, to purchasing a new home, to renovating and furnishing that new nest—all of these big commitments can stretch a young couple’s budget very thin. When you need to make many big financial commitments in a short period of time, a personal loan can help you manage your monthly payments, and allow you to repay the loan at a comfortable pace so you’re not strapped for cash every month.
The HSBC Personal Loan offers one of the lowest interest rates from 4.0% (EIR7.5% p.a.) for salaried Singaporeans earning a minimum of SGD30,000 annually. You can borrow for one to seven years, so you have flexibility to plan out your financial strategy as a couple. Get a 1-minute in-principle approval3 on your HSBC Personal Loan application, with no processing fees.
You can also get a cashback reward of up to SGD3,000 on approval of the HSBC Personal Loan with their current promotional offer of 1.5% cashback on a minimum 3-year tenor personal loan and minimum approved loan amount of SGD10,000, when you apply online.
Budgeting for your wedding and home at the same time can be a very daunting task for newlywed couples. Use our tips to earn rewards with HSBC Advance Credit Card, and manage your monthly commitments with the HSBC Personal Loan. Plus, receive a Samsonite Prestige 69cm Spinner Exp with built in scale worth SGD670 or SGD200 cashback, with a successful application of HSBC Advance Credit Card, and marketing consent provided with a minimum spend of S$500 of qualifying transactions within qualifying period, and receivean additional cashback reward of up to SGD3,000 on approval of the HSBC Personal Loan, from 01 January 2023 to 31 March 2023!4
31-minute approval in-principle does not apply to applications submitted between 12am and 7.59am.
4T&Cs apply.
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