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3 Days in Singapore for the Aggressively Frugal: Hawker Stalls Over Hotel Bars

You can do 3 days in Singapore, hit every icon, eat like a king, and still spend less than one cocktail at Marina Bay Sands costs. Here's the hawker-and-MRT plan that proves it.

If you want the whole thing mapped out, see the how to spend 3 perfect days in Singapore.

Singapore is the most expensive city in the world, and I did 3 days in Singapore for less than a single rooftop cocktail would’ve cost me at Marina Bay Sands. How? I ate where Singaporeans eat, I took the train everywhere, and I refused — REFUSED — to pay S$28 for a drink with a view I could get for free.

This is the aggressively frugal version. You’ll miss nothing important. You’ll eat better than the people in the hotel restaurants. Let’s go.

Buy a Singapore Tourist Pass at any MRT station for about S$29 for three days — unlimited rides. The MRT is spotless, air-conditioned (crucial, it’s basically a sauna outside), and goes everywhere you’d want. Taxis and Grab will quietly bankrupt you. The train is your whole transport budget, sorted.

Start at Maxwell Food Centre in Chinatown. Go to Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice — yes, the one that’s been Michelin-recognised, and yes, a plate is still about S$5.50. Get there before noon or you’ll queue behind every office worker in the district. It’s poached chicken on garlicky rice with chilli sauce, and it is one of the best cheap meals on the planet.

Walk Chinatown off your lunch — the temples (Buddha Tooth Relic, Sri Mariamman) are free to enter, just dress modestly and take your shoes off where asked.

Afternoon, take the MRT to Gardens by the Bay. Here’s the frugal move: the outdoor Supertree Grove is completely free to walk through, and the Garden Rhapsody light-and-sound show runs free every night at 7:45 and 8:45. The paid conservatory domes (Cloud Forest, Flower Dome) are lovely but cost around S$53 combined — skip them if you’re counting cents. The free show is the famous one anyway.

Breakfast in Tiong Bahru, the lovely art-deco neighbourhood. Tiong Bahru Market upstairs has chwee kueh (steamed rice cakes with preserved radish) and a famous lor mee stall — full breakfast for under S$5.

Train to Little India for the colour and the smell of jasmine and incense. Tekka Centre does a banana-leaf thali (rice, curries, the lot) for around S$7. Eat with your right hand if you’re feeling authentic, or grab a fork, nobody’s grading you.

Late afternoon, walk the Marina Bay waterfront promenade — it’s free, and you get the full postcard: the Sands hotel, the Merlion spitting into the bay, the skyline. You do NOT need to go up the Sands SkyPark (S$32). Just stand at the bottom and look up like the rest of us frugal legends.

Dinner: Lau Pa Sat hawker centre, and after 7pm the street alongside it (Boon Tat Street) closes to traffic and fills with satay grills — smoky chicken and mutton skewers, about S$0.80 each, peanut sauce included. Sit at the plastic tables in the smoke. This is the meal you’ll remember.

Two options, both frugal.

Budget option: take the MRT to HarbourFront and walk the Sentosa Boardwalk over to the island for free (the cable car and monorail cost money; walking doesn’t, and it’s a nice covered stroll). Once on Sentosa, Siloso Beach is free to lie on. Bring your own snacks. The beach bars will charge you island prices, so don’t.

Even-more-frugal option: ferry to Pulau Ubin from Changi Point (about S$4 each way), rent a clunky bike for a few dollars, and pedal around the last patch of old-school kampong Singapore. Wild boar, mangroves, zero malls. It’s the antidote to the glass-and-steel city and almost nobody on a short trip bothers.

End your trip back at a hawker centre — maybe Old Airport Road Food Centre, a local favourite, for char kway teow and a final sugarcane juice. Total damage for the day’s food: maybe S$15.

Three days, every icon seen, eaten three excellent meals a day, and I never once paid for a drink with a view. The view’s free if you’re standing on the ground looking up. Singapore wants you to think it’s only for the rich. It’s lying. The hawker centres are where the real city eats, and they’re cheaper than anywhere you’ve been.

Skip the hotel bar. The S$5 chicken rice has a Michelin nod and the cocktail doesn’t. Your wallet already knows who won.

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