I love free things and you most likely do too. Most of us, on a month-to-month basis would surely incur these 3 expenses. Let me know if you don’t as I would like to know what planet you live in. (Living with parents is not counted)
- Phone & Broadband
- Groceries
- Electricity
Now flip it. What if a basket of SGX dividend payers quietly covered those bills for you instead? I ran the maths on 3 companies most of us already deal with every week and results are oddly satisfying. They are also a sneaky lesson in why your yield, not the size of your bill, decides how rich you need to be to pull this off.
1. Singtel (SGX: Z74): Phone & Broadband`
The number: about 5,200 shares.
The capital: about $22,900.
Say your mobile plus home broadband runs you $80 a month.
That’s $960 a year. Singtel pays roughly $0.185 per share for FY26, a yield near 4.2%.
Divide $960 by S$0.185 and you land at around 5,200 shares.
Park $22,900 in Singtel and the dividends settle your telco bill.
You’re basically paying Singtel with Singtel.
Singtel is a regional telco with stakes across Asia, and management has leaned hard into returning cash. The FY26 figure includes a Value Realisation Dividend on top of the core payout. Worth flagging. That extra slice may not repeat at the same size, so don’t assume 4.2% is locked forever.
2. Sheng Siong (SGX: OV8): Groceries
The number: about 31,600 shares.
The capital: about $101,700.
Groceries are the most everyday expense on this list. They’re also, plot twist, the most expensive to cover.
A small family spends maybe $200 a month on groceries. That’s $2,400 a year. Sheng Siong pays about $0.076 per share, a yield around 2.5%. To generate $2,400 you need roughly 31,600 shares, which is about $101,700 parked.
Yes. Over a hundred thousand dollars so your dividends can buy kaya and eggs.
Sheng Siong runs a tight, profitable supermarket business with steady cash flow and a habit of paying consistent dividends. The business is reliable.
3. Sembcorp Industries (SGX: U96): Electricity
The number: about 5,800 shares.
The capital: about S$37,600.
Average 4 room HDB electricity bill, call it $120 a month. That’s $1,440 a year. Sembcorp pays about $0.25 per share for FY25, up from $0.23 the year before, a yield near 3.9%. You need around 5,800 shares, roughly $37,600.
Park that, and your power bill pays itself out of your Sembcorp dividends. Nice symmetry, given Sembcorp is in the energy game.
Sembcorp has pivoted toward energy and utilities with growing renewables exposure, and it’s been raising its dividend. That rising payout is exactly what income investors like to see.
The Real Lesson
Yield does the work
Look at the capital figures. Singtel $22,900. Sembcorp $37,600. Sheng Siong $101,700.
Groceries is the biggest bill, so of course it needs the most capital. But notice how much more. The bill is 2.5 times the phone bill. The capital is 4.4 times. Capital grew faster than the bill.
That gap is the yield doing the work. Sembcorp and Singtel yield about the same (3.9% vs 4.2%), and their bill and capital scale together. Sheng Siong yields just 2.5%. Lower yield means every dollar of dividend costs more capital. The lever is yield, not the bill.
Add it all up and you’re looking at roughly $162,000 in SGX shares, throwing off about $4,800 a year in dividends. Phone, groceries and electricity, handled.
CDC vouchers? A single top up each year. A dividend stream, if the companies keep paying, shows up year after year. Different animal.
One curveball. Grab is the app half of Singapore taps daily. Guess how much it pays in dividends. Zero. Growth stock, not income stock. Know the difference.
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