Monday mornings always provide excitement for me because it's grocery day. This morning I returned to my regular Cold Storage store at nearby Great World City mall because while I enjoy saving money at the other places around town, eventually I need to stock up on some American products and it's the best spot to find them.
Today's big find was canned pumpkin. Regular Libby's canned pumpkin. It's certainly not the time of year when one should need this product but I was concerned when I couldn't find it before. At some point I'm going to want pumpkin bread or a pumpkin roll so I hoped they would at least stock it in time for Thanksgiving. Well, today they had it for some unknown reason and I bought five cans. I'm probably set for our entire stay in Singapore.
At home, you can sign up for credit cards from just about any retailer around and they offer discounts. In Singapore, you get these discounts from bank credit cards. So, a Citibank card gets you 10% off your bill at Harry's Bar. A different bank card gives you a discount at a particular shopping mall. I'm not keeping track very well but I'd guess that I would need to carry no less than a dozen different credit cards from local banks to take advantage of all these savings. Individual retailers do not typically offer credit cards here. Instead they have membership cards that you can get after spending a minimum of S$200-300 in their store. So, places like The Gap have these offers.
I could have quite a bit of plastic in my wallet to "save money." I guess I'm not on the Asian bandwagon because I only carry a NETS card (Singapore's version of a debit card), my KrisFlyer Amex card (earns me miles on Singapore Air), my DBS Bank Visa card (because not everyone takes Amex) and my Bank of America Visa (maybe just in case I overdraw our DBS account?) I have to admit that I was excited when we finally received our Singapore credit cards. It's great to charge items and not worry about conversion rates. Plus it just helped me feel more like a "local."
The grocery stores have their own reward systems. At Cold Storage, for every S$30 I spend, I receive a little sticker. They have different promotions going on to redeem these special stickers. The current deal features Wedgewood fine cookware. At this point, I have about 105 little stickers in my booklet which will get me a grill pan or wok and a small nonstick skillet. What a deal! I have to spend $3,000 to get 2 "free" pieces of cookware. Of course, when a box of graham crackers costs S$10, it doesn't take long for it to add up. It's a bit alarming to realize that I have already spent this much money at one store for groceries. I don't even shop there every week and I usually buy meat and produce at the wet market. Anyway, I tried to redeem my precious stickers for the grill pan today but they're currently out of stock. Looks like I'm not the only one spending ridiculous amounts of money there...
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