Our Public Libraries - Unlimited DVDs Rentals for $21 per year

It is a open secret that our public libraries are a economical source of knowledge, entertainment and resources. Reading can be both a pleasurable activity as well as financially rewarding as one learns new information, skills and hobbies that can turn into a future career. Since public libaries are funded by taxpayers and provided free-of-charge to residents, why not take advantage of this public resource to save money on entertainment.

Magazines and Periodicals
The library stocks many of the periodicals that one finds on the newstand. Instead of paying that $5.00 or $6.00 for that FHM or HERWORLD magazine, why not borrow these from the library using your NRIC (if you are already a registered library member)? Granted, the latest magazines would likely be borrowed but you can get hold of the last couple of months. Periodicals such as Fortune, Time, Newsweek are all available from NLB libraries.

CDs, DVDs and Movies
The library@Esplanade provides DVDs that we can borrow relating to drama serials, movies and science-fiction series. Boxed set of Star Trek, Cheers, Seinfeld and even Space 1999 can be found at this library. There is a catch of course! The borrowing period is 1 week and you need to be a Premier library member and pay an additional $21 per year, or only $0.06 cents a day to enjoy this privilege. Compared to paying $3-5 per rental for 2-3 days from VideoEZY or your neighbourhood video rental shop, this is a bargain. I particularly enjoyed following the first 2 seasons of Deep Space Nine (Star Trek spin-off) which was not shown on Singapore TV and hence it was good to be able to watch such series.

Novels
The fiction section of the library stocks most of the popular fiction e.g. Tom Clancy, David Eddings, Nadine Godimer, James Michener, Charles Dickens, JK Rowling etc. If you are really desperate to reserve one of the popular fiction books that were just released, you can pay $1.55 to make a reservation online through NLB's website and request to collect the book from the public library nearest your home. Talk about convenience!

Avoid library fines
We understand that Singapore is a "fine" city. If you are late in returning your library books, the NLB will levy a fine of $0.15 per book a day or $0.50 per AV item per day. You can register for sms or email reminder notification of your due date of books here so that you won't forget to return your library materials on time!

So for those who like me love to read and watch DVDs, make use of our public resource -- The Library and save your hard earned money for investments that will advance your goal of achieving financial freedom!

Fight inflation with Singapore Money Savers!

Bring your own portable hydration unit

Saving money is sometimes about pinching pennies, other times it is pinching pounds! :-)

One of the great money saving techniques which has a strong health benefit is to bring your own (BYO) water!

All of us have to drink water. H2O gives us life and 2/3s of our bodies are actually made up of water. Did you ever stop and count how many soft-drinks or coffee/tea that one consumes that makes up our fluid consumption? If we drink say, 8 glasses a day and drink 1-2 glasses of water, another 1-2 softdrinks and the remainder through milo/coffee/tea etc. How much would that cost is a typical work-day (assuming you have to pay for it yourself?)

2 glasses of water : $ negligible
2 cans of soft-drink: $1.20 per can = $2.40
4 cups of coffee/tea: $0.90 per cup = $3.60
Total daily expenses on fluids = $6.00
x 20 days a week = $120 a month
x 12 months in a year = $1,440.

Wow... That means we could potentially be spending about more than a thousand dollars a year on soft-drinks! The good news is that there is an alternative we can turn to, good old PUB water direct from the tap or from water coolers. Generally, water is "free" to the consumer if you get it from public water coolers or if your organisation provides water coolers for one to fill up one's bottle.

Invest in a good Lexan/Rubbermaid/SIG type of water bottle to the size of your preference and you are good to go in your quest to save money!

Hydrating yourself throughout the day makes you feel less hungry and you tend to eat less. Drinking water also helps moistern the throat and for those who need to speak a lot at work, this will help your voice last longer. Also, drinking water helps the circulatory and lymphatic systems and waste products in our body makes. The amount of money we save from buying softdrinks and coffee/tea would also offset our investment in the water bottle! It's a win-win-win strategy :-)

Of course, that does not mean we have to swear off softdrinks and hot beverages outside. Simply carry a water bottle around and reap the benefits of spending less money on purchasing them. When I was in New York, I realise most New York office workers actually walked around with their Evian/Dasani water bottles and it was part of their culture.

So let's bring out our water bottles and say "cheers" to the money-saving benefit of bringing your own water bottle.

Singapore Money Savers Blog is Born!

As part of exploring the themes of financial freedom in Five Cents Ten Cents Blog as well as Singapore Fixed Deposits blog, I thought it was also timely to create a blog that focusses on specific money savings tips you can learn day by day contributed by friends, readers of my blog as well as the Singaporean public at large.

Do send in your money savings tips and as always, be well and prosper (by saving money!) ;-)

PanzerGrenadier
(Helping you to make your money work HARDER for you!)