Household incomes are up. So why does the receipt still sting?

At the checkout, the basket looks innocent.

Eggs. Bread. Vegetables. Something for tomorrow’s dinner. Nothing in it says treat yourself. Then the self-checkout screen gives you a total that makes you pause, just long enough to wonder whether the machine has quietly counted somebody else’s groceries too.

This is the part many official charts struggle to hold. A household can be doing better on paper and still feel more anxious at the cashier.

Singaporeans are not imagining the squeeze. We should also stop treating a small home income as either a desperate move or a cute hobby. For some households, it can be a sensible backup plan, especially when the skill already lives in the home: baking, tutoring, sewing, cooking, hairdressing, careful work learned over years.

The maths nobody feels in a straight line

The optimistic reading is real. SingStat’s General Household Survey 2025 found that median household market income grew by 3.2 per cent a year in real terms from 2020 to 2025.

That is not nothing. It means the middle household, as measured officially, moved ahead after inflation. Many of us know families who held steady through discipline, extra hours and the quiet habit of making do.

The broader price picture also improved after the worst of the spike. MAS and MTI reported that headline inflation averaged 0.9 per cent in 2025, down from 2.4 per cent in 2024. But lower inflation is not the same as lower prices. It means prices are rising more slowly, not that the receipt goes back to how it felt before. And this year the pace has edged up again: MAS Core Inflation rose to 2.2 per cent in August 2026, with headline inflation at 2.3 per cent.

And the memory of being squeezed does not vanish when a chart turns kinder. MOM’s figures for individual workers, a different measure from household market income, showed that real incomes fell in 2023 for median workers and those at the 20th percentile because of high inflation.

A parent buying groceries knows which fruit can wait. A young couple knows which renovation item can be postponed. An adult child helping parents knows the quiet mental arithmetic before every clinic visit, festive meal and utilities bill. Nobody announces this at the dinner table. They just adjust.

Little wonder cost of living remains politically and personally hard to file away. In the IPS Post-Election Survey 2025, 74 per cent of citizens surveyed said cost of living was a very important election issue, up from 47 per cent in 2020. It was the top concern, and the highest ever recorded in the survey.

The backup plan we hesitate to name

Singaporeans are cautious for good reason. We ask what happens if the orders stop, if customers complain, if relatives judge, if the children need us, if the job contract says no outside work. Caution has kept many families safe.

But caution can harden into inertia.

Most of us know someone with a skill that keeps being called on but never priced: the auntie who can turn a tray of kueh into neat rows before sunrise, the retiree who can still repair what others would throw away, the tutor who can hear panic in a child’s voice before the sums even begin.

Some skills carry memory. The question is whether they can earn a little without swallowing the person’s life.

Here is the link between the receipt and the side income people whisper about. Income figures describe the middle household, not yours. They matter, but gains arrive through the labour market, the firm, the economy and timing. A skill-based home income is smaller and less certain, but it is also more direct. You can test one item. You can take one student. You can stop before it becomes too much.

That matters when the household buffer feels thin. If the payslip is fixed and the bills are not, people naturally look at what they can control.

In Randstad’s Workmonitor 2026, a recruitment firm’s survey, 37 per cent of Singapore workers said they plan to take, or have already taken, a second job to cope with rising economic pressures. A second employer is one route. It is not the only one.

Planning, of course, is not doing. “Earn more” is easy advice from people who are not doing the extra work. After a full day, nobody needs a pep talk. They need a sane way to test demand without renting a shop, buying too much stock or turning the family home into a factory.

A small home business can be that test, if it stays small enough to protect the person doing it.

The rules are not the enemy

The rules are less mysterious than they first look, but they deserve to be read before a single order is taken.

HDB says flat owners may carry out small-scale home-based business activities to supplement income without HDB’s approval, within its conditions. Its examples include small-scale baking, hairdressing, manicures and tuition for up to 3 students at a time. It also sets conditions such as no non-resident employees, signs or posters.

URA says residents of private homes may also carry out small-scale home-based business activities without its approval.

For food, SFA says home-based food businesses currently do not need an SFA licence, though there are clear restrictions, such as no catering and no selling at temporary fairs. ACRA explains that you do not need to register a business if it uses only your full NRIC name, but a home-based business under a brand name, such as cakes or tuition, must register.

There is tax too. IRAS has pages on whether you are considered self-employed and on the filing responsibilities of self-employed persons. One concrete marker: IRAS says you must file a tax return if your annual net profit from self-employment exceeds $6,000. Read the official pages for your situation. And if you are employed, check your employment contract before taking paid orders.

A backup plan should reduce stress, not create a new problem.

When small is the point

Some people should not start anything now.

If you are exhausted, caring for someone, in debt distress or barely sleeping, taking orders may only add to the load. If your skill is still rough, customers are not practice targets. If you dread every message from a stranger, selling may feel heavier than the money is worth.

That caution deserves respect. Home businesses are not magic. They still involve pricing, rejection, late replies, awkward relatives asking for discounts, and the small shame of posting something online while wondering who is judging.

But waiting for perfect confidence can become its own trap. Confidence often arrives after the first small test, not before it.

Start with one tray for the people who already ask, or one child whose parent already trusts you, at a price you have thought through and a limit you will keep, and say plainly what you can and cannot do without apologising for charging.

The useful question is modest: can a skill that already sits inside your life give your household a little more room?

That room may be financial. It may also be emotional. It is the feeling that your household is not waiting helplessly for the next bill, the next uncertain month at work, the next difficult month. It is the comfort of knowing that your experience still has value outside the usual payslip.

When the time feels right, Homegrown can help with a simple shop page, chat orders and exact-amount PayNow. Homegrown’s pilot is free for the first 30 home businesses, and it will be there when you are ready.

A skill of your own does not make the receipt painless. It changes how tightly you have to hold your breath.

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