cashing in on the lunar new year?

during the first 2 days of the lunar new year, many consumers (including myself and my family) would have discovered that stalls levied a 'premium' for food and drinks purchased during this festive period.

just to cite an example, hot drinks like coffee and tea has been hiked to $0.90 to $1.20 instead of the usual $0.70 to $0.90. and simple meals like a bowl of noodles cost $3.50, or $0.50 more than the usual $3.00 during the non-festive period.

however, in an article by the free local tabloid, today, it was reported that even though the lunar new year (public holidays) are over, prices have remained high when prices are expected to return to normal when stalls resume business after the holidays.

one example is ltn food village at east coast road where 3 of the 10 stalls put up signs to indicate higher prices. another one is food xchange coffeeshop where drink prices were also raised by between $0.10 and $1.00.

some of the stallholders responded that suppliers had increased their prices also driving costs up by as much as 20% this month.

my comments:

whether justified or not, i feel consumers can still exercise their choice of whom they wish to do 'business' with during the lunar new year holidsay but i must admit the choices are rather limited during this time as many stalls remained closed.

on the other hand, our insurers do not and have never indulged in the practice of driving prices of insurance products up during this festive season or any other time to cash in on the timing of the season.

during my entire 15 years in the financial industry, i have noticed a clear trend of the repricing of insurance products to the benefit of the consumer and the community. this is particularly true of term assurance, both level term and mortgage reducing term assurance products.

even more recently, the cpf board has repriced their home protection scheme premium rates (effective january 01, 2012) to be much lower and in sync with the insurance industry resulting in huge savings of as much as 12% for cpf members.

and i'm sure that in an environment of high inflation (it was 5.2% in 2011), u will agree with me that every penny counts.