How a Family Can Spend on Daily Necessities & Score $80 Cash Back

This post was written in collaboration with Citi Cash Back Mastercard. While we are financially compensated by them, we nonetheless strive to maintain our editorial integrity and review products with the same objective lens. We are committed to providing the best recommendations and advice in order for you to make personal financial decisions with confidence. You can view our Editorial Guidelines here.

---

If you’re the sole or co-breadwinner of your household, managing your finances each month is probably a top priority. You have a budget for food, groceries, petrol and other expenses such as education, insurance, entertainment and even travel (or staycays at the moment).

All the more reason to focus on ways to maximise your savings and stretch your dollar.

Here’s a tip: To make every cent of your everyday spend count, one smart way is to look for a credit card that offers a good cash back rate — and perhaps additional perks.

For example, the Citi Cash Back Mastercard® helps you net cash back up to $80. Read on to find out how to optimise this cash back.

 

The Citi Cash Back Card in a nutshell

Let’s take a look at the key features of the Citi Cash Back Card:

Key Features of the Citi Cash Back Card
Base Rate	0.25%
Groceries (all supermarkets, including RedMart)	7.75%
Dining (restaurants, cafes)	5.75%
Petrol (all stations, with bonus savings of up to 20.88% at Esso & Shell)	7.75%
Monthly cash back cap	$80
Monthly minimum spend	$800

At first glance, it may seem difficult to achieve the maximum cash back cap of $80 (you’ll need to spend at least $1,000), but it’s totally possible with a family’s typical monthly expenditure. 

Let’s use our persona, Ben, to illustrate how this works.

Ben is a sales manager and the sole breadwinner of his family of 4. Due to the nature of his job, he needs a car to travel to and from business meetings. Let’s see how Ben can utilise the Citi Cash Back Card to enjoy its full benefits.

 

Citi Cash Back Card: Groceries

Ben and his wife both love whipping up home-cooked meals (she prepares lunch, he makes dinner) and they cook at least 2 meals on a daily basis. Aside from meal prep ingredients, Ben also purchases the family’s household supplies, as well as health and beauty needs from the supermarket or gets delivery from RedMart. 

One of the best features of the Citi Cash Back Card is that it awards 8% cash back on grocery spend at all supermarkets, including RedMart.

Assuming Ben purchases groceries on a weekly basis and spends about $80 per trip/order:

Citi Cash Back Card: Groceries category
Monthly spend	$80 x 4 = $320
Base cash back (0.25%)	$0.80
Groceries category cash back (7.75%)	$24.80
Total cash back	$25.60

At the end of the day, Ben earns $25.80 of cash back on the grocery spend category when using his Citi Cash Back Card.

If you, like Ben, love grocery shopping but hate to do the heavy lifting, RedMart is also included under this category of grocery spend. So you can sit back, relax, order your groceries online and accumulate your cash back!

 

Citi Cash Back Card: Dining

We all know how tiring it is to juggle multiple priorities as a family. So we can fully understand if you want to give your home kitchen a break and treat yourself and your family to a cafe or restaurant meal from time to time, just like Ben!

With the Citi Cash Back Card, Ben gets 6% cash back on dining — it’s great for taking the whole family out for a meal (and observing Covid-19 restrictions) or when he makes payment for a business lunch.

Here’s what Ben spends on dining out in a typical month:

Citi Cash Back Card: Dining category
Monthly spend	$500
Base cash back (0.25%)	$1.25
Dining category cash back (5.75%)	$28.75
Total cash back	$30

Psst! For those who enjoy the “liquid diet”, bars and nightspots don’t count towards dining spend. So if you still want your tipple, you can head to a bistro or atas restaurant to get the best of both worlds.

 

Citi Cash Back Card: Petrol

Last but not least, Ben also needs to maintain his car and keep it “well-fed” with petrol. His Citi Cash Back Card allows him to earn 8% cash back when he fills his tank. On top of that, he can also get up to 14% discount when he pumps petrol at Esso or Shell stations. This means that if Ben pumps at Shell or Esso, he enjoys up to 20.88% in petrol savings.

Since Ben’s job requires him to drive around often, let’s look at how much Ben is spending on his “second wife” AKA his car. Let’s assume Ben is pumping petrol on a weekly basis at $95 before discounts are applied.

Here’s what Ben spends on petrol in a typical month:

Gross Petrol Cost (per pump)	$95
Esso/Shell site discount (14%) per pump	$13.30
Amount paid for petrol after discount (per pump)	$81.70
Total monthly spend on petrol	$81.70 x 4 pumps = $326.80

Now let’s take a look at how much savings (discount + cash back) he is getting just from petrol alone:

Citi Cash Back Card: Petrol category
Monthly spend	$326.80
Base cash back (0.25%)	$0.81
Petrol category cash back (7.75%)	$25.33
Total monthly petrol savings	$53.20 (Shell/Esso site discount) + $0.81 + $25.33 = $79.34

This would mean that after the discount AND the cash back, Ben pays about $300.66 for 4 pumps of petrol a month. That’s about 20% of total savings on petrol alone!

 

Start earning up to $80 cash back with the Citi Cash Back Card

Let’s sum it up. In total, here’s what Ben spends on groceries, dining and petrol in a month, and here’s how much cash back he can get:

Category	Monthly spend	Cash back
Groceries	$320	$25.60
Dining	$500	$30
Petrol	$326.80	$26.14
Total	$1,146.80	$80*

*Cash back is capped at $80/month

 

There you have it: Spending $800 per month is definitely not a tall task if you are spending it your family. Buying groceries, driving a car and dining out on occasion will easily meet the monthly minimum spend. Why not put that expenditure on your Citi Cash Back Card to get extra savings?

The great thing about the Citi Cash Back Card is that you don’t need to spend all $800 in a single category — you’re free to mix it up like what Ben has done in our examples above; cash back will be awarded as long as you spend on 1, 2 or all 3 categories — Groceries, Dining and Petrol. Other eligible spend outside of those 3 categories can also contribute to the $800 total spend (you will still earn 0.25% base cash back on non-groceries/dining/petrol spend).

One thing to note: The $80 cash back cap applies to your entire spend, across all categories. Therefore, while Ben has accumulated $81.74 in cash back value, he will still receive $80 cash back as that is the cap.

What’s great is that the cash back is automatically credited to you on a monthly basis, so you don’t have to fret over redemption or expiry.

Start earning your cash back now. From 7 to 21 July 2021, sign up for the Citi Cash Back Card via MoneySmart to enjoy a 1-year Accor Plus membership or $350 cash. If you’ve missed it, there’s still the welcome offer: Receive S$120 cash back* when you spend S$1,200 in the first 3 months.

Find out more about the Citi Cash Back Card Mastercard here 

 

 

Terms and Conditions

• *Applicable for new Citi Cardmembers only.

• You will receive cash back of 0.25% on all retail purchases, additional cash back of 5.75% on Dining, 7.75% on Groceries and/or 7.75% on Petrol transactions worldwide, if you accumulate a total retail spend of S$800 or more in a statement month. The total cash back you can earn is capped at a combined S$80 across all retail spend per statement month. 

• 20.88% savings at Esso includes 5% Esso site discount, 5% Esso Smiles Card discount, 4% Citi Card discount and 8% cash back with Citi Cash Back Card (on nett purchase after Esso and Citi discounts). 20.88% savings at Shell includes 5% Shell site discount, 5% Shell Escape Card discount, 4% Citi Card discount and 8% cash back with Citi Cash Back Card (on nett purchase after Shell and Citi discounts).

• Cash back amount over S$50 will be automatically credited to your billing statement. 

• Click here for full Terms and Conditions on the Citi Cash Back Mastercard.