Amidst considerations over the cost-of-living, there has additionally been extra authorities assist and money payouts this yr. Have you ever used up your advantages but?
As a part of the sandwiched technology having to assist a number of dependents, I’ve been paying attention to the varied advantages that I get this yr, significantly within the following areas:
- To assist battle inflation
- To buffer towards rising healthcare prices
- To stay aggressive within the workforce and upskill
- For my household, the younger and the outdated
The simplest approach to test your advantages could be to make use of this Assist for You Calculator to calculate the full estimated advantages that you just and/or your family might obtain from the Authorities.
Advantages for households
Dwelling in a HDB flat implies that we obtain U-Save rebates each quarter. With further rebates given in 2024, we may get between $550 to $950in complete to offset our utilities payments. Based on the federal government, in Monetary Yr 2024, the U-Save rebates will on common, cowl about 8 months of utilities payments for these residing in 1- and 2-room flats, and about 4 months of utilities payments for these residing in 3- and 4-room flats. After all, being aware of your electrical energy and water utilization will assist too.
HDB households will even obtain as much as 4 months of S&CC rebates altogether in 2024 to offset our S&CC payments.
We’ve additionally used our $800 CDC vouchers – which have been disbursed in January and June this yr -to pay for our meals at taking part hawker stalls, in addition to for groceries at taking part supermarkets and heartland retailers.
Psst, your $800 CDC vouchers expire on 31 December 2024 so don’t neglect to assert and use them when you haven’t already performed so! Singaporean households can even look ahead to one other tranche of $300 CDC vouchers that shall be disbursed in January 2025!
Below the Assurance Package deal Money payouts, my husband and I every obtained $200 through PayNow, whereas our mother and father obtained $600 every as a substitute as they earn a decrease revenue.
Advantages for households
My children attend full-day childcare at MyFirstSkool (an anchor operator), so I’m definitely wanting ahead to paying decrease childcare charges subsequent yr (which we’ve already obtained the notification for)!
Beforehand, I used to be unable to assert the Mum or dad Aid on my dad, as he labored part-time and had an annual revenue of $4,800. The annual revenue threshold for all dependant-related tax reliefs, together with the Mum or dad Aid, has now been elevated from $4,000 to $8,000. Which means for these of you supporting dependant relations who’re doing part-time work, this could enable for extra of you guys to assert the tax aid.
To assist buffer towards rising healthcare prices, there are the CPF MediSave top-ups from Price range 2024 and we now have additionally made additional voluntary contributions by ourselves.
My husband and I are supporting aged mother and father of their 60s – 70s, who every obtained the Retirement Financial savings Bonus (as a part of the Majulah Package deal) of $1,000 or $1,500. And since 3 of our elders are nonetheless working, they are going to profit from the Earn and Save Bonus to get $400 to $1,000.
Assist for mid-careerists to reskill
For those who’re aged 40 and above, you should use the $4,000 SkillsFuture Credit score (Mid-Profession) top-up for round 7,000 chosen coaching programs that meet trade and employment wants. The wide selection of programs contains each part-time and full-time programmes.
The SkillsFuture Mid-Profession Enhanced Subsidy additionally gives increased subsidies of as much as 90% after all charges for an extra publicly funded diploma.
If you’re seeking to make a profession swap and pursue full-time coaching, you may try the brand new SkillsFuture Mid-Profession Coaching Allowance, which offers a coaching allowance of as much as $3,000 a month for a most of 24 months over a person’s lifetime (computed as 50% of your common month-to-month revenue, primarily based on the newest accessible 12-month interval of revenue knowledge).
For those who haven’t been monitoring your payouts and rebates underneath the Price range 2024 Assurance Package deal, right here’s the timeline so that you can monitor again on:
A lookback at 2024
There’s little doubt that 2024 has been a yr of fast adjustments.
Macro elements together with international provide chain disruptions and the continued conflicts in numerous components of the world have led to inflation stress on economies.
And due to this, throughout the board, prices are typically rising, whereas we’re seeing extra job layoffs and retrenchments occur on the similar time. There’s additionally a really actual concern about whether or not synthetic intelligence will take away our jobs within the close to future.
In instances like these, we are able to make use of varied authorities assist advantages and payouts to deal with increased prices within the brief time period, whereas upskilling ourselves in the long term to make sure our incomes energy continues to climb.
Relatively than simply depend on authorities payouts, I’ve additionally shared numerous recommendations on lowering prices resembling saving with member reductions and slicing down on meals deliveries and snacks, and many others.
What’s extra, I’ve been persistently nagging my readers (on my Instagram) to construct further sources of revenue through aspect hustles to take care of increased prices all through this yr. Whether or not it’s from incomes Shopee affiliate commissions or doing paid authorities surveys on CrowdTaskSG, each little bit counts.
It’s now turning into more and more apparent that we must always all begin to look severely into how you can equip ourselves with AI in order to stay aggressive and be ready for the altering panorama of labor. I personally signed up for just a few AI courses this yr to discover ways to use instruments like ChatGPT higher, and am seeking to develop my repertoire to extra AI instruments within the close to future.
As I watch my buddies all over the world complain about rising prices of their nations too, it’s clear that the challenges we face is just not taking place in Singapore alone. My US buddies have additionally quipped that they want they get as many authorities advantages as we do right here, which was an important reminder for me to not take what we now have without any consideration.
Whereas the federal government assist measures have undoubtedly been extra beneficiant this yr, I don’t count on to all the time be spoon-fed so I’m taking it upon myself to hustle, maintain upskilling and earn extra.
Now, earlier than 2024 involves an finish, don’t neglect to make use of your CDC vouchers earlier than they expire! Declare your CDC vouchers digitally by visiting go.gov.sg/cdcv
Sponsored Message
Discover out the estimated authorities advantages it’s possible you’ll obtain by utilizing the Assist for You Calculator!
To test your eligibility for the varied authorities disbursement schemes for Singaporeans, go to this govbenefitswebsite right here!
Disclosure: This text is dropped at you in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance. All opinions are that of my very own.
