One of the more painful rites of passage into adulthood is sorting out your insurance and investments. Are you protected? Do you have enough for retirement? What’s the difference between an Index Fund and a Mutual Fund? It’s enough to spark an early midlife existential crisis.
Then there’s the other pain of friends-turned-agents calling you incessantly, pushing coverage plans that you don’t understand or simply aren’t ready to commit to.
It turns out there’s an easy way to manage all of this by yourself, on an app.
SNACK by Income understands this pain, and gives you just what you need in bite-sized pieces.
Investing in SNACK-able Bites
How does it all work? For starters, you may have been putting off investing because of your lifestyle. It’s tough setting aside money for savings and investments with a growing list of expenses and bills.
Yet, you can, if you believe that small steps can go a long way.
On SNACK you can get started with just S$1, with no additional fees required. It’s your piggy-bank for days when you’ve got ‘change’ left over from lunch – just drop it in the app and build your fund.
Even if you don’t understand the financial market, you should know that it dips and rises over time – kind of like our appreciation for skinny jeans. SNACK protects you against this market volatility using the concept of Dollar Cost Averaging, and before your head starts spinning, it simply means that your consistent investments help minimize the impact of market fluctuations over time.
If you’re still nonplussed by the seemingly small sums and find yourself asking: “Will this amount to anything? What’s the point?” Keep in mind that having some investments is much better than no investments at all, and the earlier you start, the more time your investment has to accumulate.
The premiums you contribute into SNACK Investment buys units of the Asian Income fund, which focuses on Asian Equities and fixed income securities. If you’re not new to investing, this is also a great option for diversifying your portfolio.
If it’s not a great month for investing, or if you need some funds for say, a holiday, SNACK allows you to stop, pause, or withdraw your funds at any time with no penalties.
Pro tip: Turn on the SNACK Investment autoinvest feature. This helps you contribute the unused amount of your weekly cap to your investments, so you continue to build your portfolio regardless of your spending activity.
Photo: SNACK by Income
SNACK to Protect
Here’s a revolutionary idea: You’re getting coffee to kickstart your day, having a burger for lunch and ordering dinner via foodpanda. What if you could get free insurance coverage just by linking these purchases to SNACK?
With SNACKUP, any purchase at participating brands like foodpanda, Sarnies, Market Fresh, and many more, automatically gets you free insurance coverage (a minimum S$100 insurance coverage per transaction).
It’s not just food and coffees. Collect free insurance coverage as you visit the Wildlife Reserves, buy outfits sustainably with Swapaholic, or even as you make charitable contributions via platforms like DeeDa.
SNACK as you Go
You’ve been moving your life online and into your phone for some years now. Most of your transactions are cashless, and you’re buying more things online than ever before.
SNACK is sitting there in your pocket this whole time, making your purchases work for you.
Let’s see how simple this is in practice.
The first step is to register your Visa cards on the SNACK app. The next step is simply… to go about your daily activities as usual! If you spend at one of the SNACKUP partners, you’ll automatically be issued free insurance policies. You don’t even need to open the app – though you can always check back to see which transactions have been logged in your account.
Taking the train or bus? Even your EZ-Link card can be connected to your SNACK account. This turns your daily commute, normally just about watching something on your phone while you bump up against your neighbours, into an investment and insurance exercise. You build your portfolio and insure yourself, while you travel. They’ve also partnered with Garmin (coming soon) and Fitbit to turn your steps into gold, by helping you purchase a micro-insurance or investment policy each time you hit 5,000 steps. You won’t really have an excuse not to exercise now.
For insurance, you can choose from Term Life, Critical Illness, and Personal Accident, all underwritten by NTUC Income. Premiums start from S$0.30.
You’ll find it easy to forget that you’re investing and insuring yourself, without missing a beat in your daily lifestyle.
Now you’ve got micro-insurance policies for protection, and micro-investment policies that will continue to grow and grow until perhaps you’ll be holidaying by a beach somewhere exotic in the future, amazed that your tiny contributions became something worthwhile in the end.
Start your journey by getting the app here.
PROMO:
SNACK Investment Welcome Promotion
Get complimentary $30 Investment credits when you start Investing on SNACK now
T&Cs: bit.ly/snackinvestmentlaunchtnc
SNACK is also providing $3,000 free coverage until 31st Dec 2021 ($1,000 per insurance product)
T&Cs: bit.ly/SNACK3000
SNACK Investment Christmas Promotion
All SNACK users will get 1-for-1 (up to S$80) on every dollar they invest on SNACK Investment from 1 Dec to 26 Dec 2021.
T&Cs: bit.ly/si-xmas-tnc
