Money Talks Podcast: Making the most out of Budget 2025

Budget 2025 was chockfull of goodies – from top-ups in CDC vouchers, increased support for workers looking to upskill themselves, and more incentives for Singaporeans to have larger families.

In this week’s Money Talks, Navin Sregantan, financial literacy specialist at DBS Bank tells Andrea Heng how we can make the most out of this year’s offerings.

Here's an excerpt of the conversation: 

Andrea Heng, host: 
What do you suggest people can do to maximise and make (the CDC vouchers) go even further? 

Navin Sregantan, DBS Bank: 
I think it does help that now there are two tranches ... There'll be one coming in few months from now, right?

Andrea: 
S$500 (worth of vouchers) in May. 

Navin: 
Yes, and that's on top of what was already given to us recently. Having two tranches does help me budget it out ... at the same time, it doesn't mean that you should rush and spend them immediately which some people might do. 

Andrea: 
I know of some scenarios where they would spend on slightly more (luxury) items. So say, a butcher in the neighbourhood that accepts CDC vouchers. You can go ahead and buy a S$200 wagyu rump or something like that. And that's it. S$200 gone. 

Navin: 
So again, it comes down to affordability ... and this might represent different types of families or different segments of society. If you're someone who's not been having much savings month on month, CDC vouchers might actually be something you can use instead, and you should spread them out maybe from the start ...

Obviously if you have all that settled ... I think it's up to you what you want to do with it. But if you don't, and you're trying to improve your financial standing, you want to set aside emergency fund, use the CDC vouchers instead of that cash. Maybe set that money aside, or it can go somewhere else.