\n<\/p>\n
For a family like mine with two children, S$1,000 covers groceries, diapers, school supplies, enrichment classes or a month of childcare-related expenses.<\/p>\n
Yet the fact that many parents had not spent or claimed the credits struck me as surprising, because I often hear fellow parents say the same thing: raising a child in Singapore is expensive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When my husband and I contemplated having kids, we considered the obvious financial expenses like pregnancy check-ups, delivery fees, infant care and milk powder, among other things.<\/p>\n
But now as a mother of two, I’ve realised that when questioning whether a couple can afford a child, the answer isn’t a simple mathematical calculation of tallying the long laundry list of expenses.<\/p>\n
Sure, necessities and enrichment costs do add up. But there’s also the potential cost of trying to sustain our pre-parenthood lifestyle with a child in the mix.<\/p>\n
How willing are we to adjust our regular routines? Can we still save, invest and afford a holiday or two alongside a baby?<\/p>\n
When people discuss the cost of having children, we often focus on the obvious financial expenses.<\/p>\n
Diapers. Medical bills. Childcare. Birthday parties. Family holidays. Domestic help. The list goes on and on.<\/p>\n
Beyond that, there’s also the cost of wanting our children to have the opportunity to be their better selves, such as signing them up for enrichment classes to broaden their horizons or tuition classes to help them keep up with the academic rigour of our education system.<\/p>\n
These are real costs, but they are only part of the picture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bigger adjustment is that the arrival of a child changes the financial structure and rhythm of a household.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
For a family like mine with two children, S$1,000 covers groceries, diapers, school supplies, enrichment classes or a month of childcare-related expenses. Yet the fact…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/68104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}