Freshly baked Uni graduate (UK) moving to Singapore

[the lynx]

1. SGD500 will get you either a decent room for yourself in HDB (with shared bathroom, kitchen facilities etc) at far flung areas like Jurong, Bukit Panjang with one hour plus commute to Raffles Place. Or a dingy room for yourself in HDB (with shared facilities) at closer areas like Clementi, Ghim Moh, Queenstown and even Telok Blangah, that gives you 30 minutes commute time. Check with this forum's Classifieds for ad. Do not hire an agent as a tenant, but rather answer an ad placed by an agent representing the landlord.

2. Health insurance. Some companies cover for all of their employees so check with your HR. Otherwise you can try local ones like NTUC that are cheaper. Don't talk about BUPA, you couldn't even afford Prudential or AIA in your situation.

3. There are two possible arrangement for such rental in #1. You either live with landlord and his family, or live with fellow expats, with one of them as main tenant (which makes you a sub-tenant) and the landlord does not live with you. The best case scenario is to live with fellow young working professionals because you get more freedom without having a landlord around.

4. Cooking is expensive if you're looking into Western palate. A McDonald's cheeseburger is only SGD2. A bowl of fishball noodle or chicken nice can go between SGD2.50 to SGD3.50. A cup of local coffee is only SGD1.20. Having lunch in Raffles Place can be very expensive or affordable, depending on where you eat. There are restaurants but there are also hawker centres.

[aster]

I second the notion of getting some sort of health insurance, at least for hospitalisation cover. BUPA is probably the best out there when it comes to health insurance, but as mentioned watch out for co-payment limits.

Are there any local options that would be relatively cheap in terms of premiums but wouldn't force you to pay the first $1.5k or so of any hospital bill? Doesn't NTUC have something decent?

[singapore eagle]

I second the notion of getting some sort of health insurance, at least for hospitalisation cover. BUPA is probably the best out there when it comes to health insurance, but as mentioned watch out for co-payment limits.

Are there any local options that would be relatively cheap in terms of premiums but wouldn't force you to pay the first $1.5k or so of any hospital bill? Doesn't NTUC have something decent?

I didn't word my last email very clearly. With NTUC, you can buy a rider (S$83 for a foreigner aged 19-30) on top of the basic policy (S$135 for a foreigner aged 19-30), under which you co-pay 10% of your hospital bills up to a capped maximum of S$2,000 and with no starting S$1,500 'excess'.

If you can imagine what the hospital bill will be if, say, you get knocked down by a car, I reckon this is pretty good value for money.

[Brah]

Love the title of this thread.

There were times I was pretty baked as a college student as well.