Raising a child in Singapore can be expensive, how about delivering a child into this world?

Singapore is an expensive place to live in. We has been dubbed the world's most expensive city to live in for the fifth year running. We are even ahead of New York, London and Los Angeles in the Economist Intelligence Unit's(EIU) Worldwide Cost of Living 2018 survey. Which really surprises me and possibly you, if you have ever stayed in New York for a while, either as a tourist or for work. 

No doubt, Singapore can be an expensive place to live in, just check out the cost of owning a car! But… as a citizen, I actually do not really think we are that expensive a place, at least for locals, to live in. There are certain assumptions in the survey that makes us the most expensive place for the 5^th year running which I will share more about in another post. 

Meanwhile, I like to share a little about the delivery related cost in Singapore, based on our own experience.

Before going into the cost per se, I just like to share while having a little one does indeed incur cost, the joy you get from raising your little one will far outweigh this monetary cost by a mile, or more. There is nothing that can replace the joy you get from seeing your little one grow and become more responsive to your actions and words. No words can describe the joy… So I shall not waste more words trying to… 😀

Our delivery was generally uneventful, which was a great thing! Mama’s water bag started to leak in the middle of the night (2 nights before EDD) and we took a Grab down to NUH. We entered the delivery suite at around 4am and by 430pm, Little Singa (LS) arrived into the world! 

For the delivery related cost, I guess we have little control over what we will / need to consume. We heard of a couple of our friends who tried natural birth and then had to do an emergency cesarean when things were not going right, hence incurring higher cost. All we could do was pray to have a smooth delivery. In the 3-4 months prior to EDD, we did increase our frequency of long walks on weekends morning, hoping it will help provide a smooth delivery. Thankfully, things went as per planned and Little Singa (LS) was delivered naturally, with epidurial.

I know there are some who regard natural delivery without epidurial as a badge of honor. Some say the pain is the rites of passage for a mother, which I personally think is hogwash. We are not some tribal people who need to prove that we are man / mother so we undergo some genital mutilation / tattoo nonsense or deliver without epidurial. If you did not use epidurial and delivered naturally, good for you, you have high pain tolerance. But on the flip side, there is absolutely Zero shame to use epidurial during a delivery.

All mothers out there are amazing, no matter delivering with or without epidurial. Our gynae gave us a piece of sound advice: use epi if you need it, do not use if you feel there is no need. There is no badge of honor for you not using when you need it. The only one to suffer is yourself. While I admit to be pretty frugal (to stingy) sometimes, this was one occasion where I was more than happy to spend the money. I personally find tooth extraction a pretty scary thing already and I feel giving birth is probably 10x scarier! So yea, whatever that can help reduce the pain during this experience, so be it.

I feel it is also important for Papa to be there in the delivery suite to support Mama both physically (though not much the hubby can do physically) and mentally (more so in this area). That, and also to witness the arrival of your little one!

The moment when LS was delivered was simply surreal. Words cannot describe how I felt and I could honestly say there were tears of joy at the point in time. Despite LS being still slimy and all, there was nothing you could love more in the entire universal (sorry mama 😆).

We did all the tests which the hospital required LS to do but there was the Newborn Metabolic Screening Programme which was optional, but we did anyway. I was hesitant to do this Metabolic Screening as it was very rare for the test to be positive (which is a good thing) and which means it will be a waste of money (cost approx. $150 if I did not recall wrongly.) Some parents might say this is small money for a test, but after hearing from all my friends who did the test for their newborn and 100% turned out negative, I was pretty sure the test would return negative (which it did) as well. The test essentially screens for rare but potentially serious disorders such as phenylketonuria (PKU), cystic fibrosis, and congenital hypothyroidism.

To be honest, the NUH bills were itemized but it was quite complicated and there were like interim bills and final bills a couple of week later, so I am actually not too sure of the final exact amount. I will usually look bills carefully and flag out any possible mistakes, but in this case, i think in the feel good moment of it all, we were just happy to pay the bills and bring Little Singa home with us! Besides, I like to think NUH will not overcharge us on purpose. 

All in, we paid about $2000 (cash) + $4000 (Medisave) for the 2 nights stay (One bedder) in NUH for natural birth. Notwithstanding, I note there are friends of ours who spend about $10,000 out of pocket when they deliver natural + e-cesarean. So the amount spent would definitely vary, depending on the procedures and level of complexity. But for a relatively straight forward case of natural birth for private ward class, I think an out of pocket cost of $2000 and $4000 from Medisave is still reasonable, given the quality of the medical care in Singapore.

What are your thoughts? 

Signing off for now!
Frugal Singa

CPF- Yay or Nay?

This would be the first of many CPF-related posts, simply because i think CPF is an important and prominent part of a Singaporean working adult life (whether we like it a not). At the ripe old age of 32, I have only recently started to realise that CPF is not such a bad deal for Singaporeans after all. The following is my personal opinion. I am happy to hear alternative views as well. 😀 

As a young adult, many of the things we learn about, we learnt though social media. And social media thrives on controversies. Controversies are called controversies for a reason, because they stir up emotions and bring out strong opinions. Many times, the loudest (not necessarily the correct- correct in my opinion at least) get heard and people can get convinced or confused accordingly.

In June 2014, it was reported about 2,000 people gathered at Hong Lim Park to hear speakers talk about CPF and demanded the government return CPF monies to citizens. That event certainly generated a lot of publicity / spotlight on CPF and talks if it was being misused. I personally gave it some thought but finally personally decided that my CPF funds are in good hands. Or rather put it in another way, would you know if there are better hands out there whom we should hand our CPF monies to? 

Four years ago, I was even more ignorant about CPF than I am today, but thankfully, I have learnt a bit more about our CPF systems along the way and have also grown to trust it more.  

It is sometimes thought that many people (especially our parents' generation) did not have the luxury of being financial trained and are hence not financial-savvy, given a huge amount of money at 55 years old, would they know how to deal with it? For those who are more risk adverse may choose to put the funds into banks saving accounts which pays out peanuts compared to CPF interest rates which could be =>6% for those older than 55, which bank would be able to pay such high interest rates? 

People say that "Its their money, let them deal with it themselves." which is fine in itself, but if after their money runs out, who would these people turn to? I am not saying they would definitely turn to the government but there is a high chance they would look to the government for handouts. If their children do not support them as well, then who would these people turn to? Though it seems like a rather pessimistic point of view to take, I would rather be pessimistic and be proven wrong then optimistic and proven wrong, cos then, there would be a much higher price to pay for both government and citizens. 

Singapore is not quite a welfare state as compared to the Scandinavian countries (which comes with high tax rates correspondingly). I am not saying which is the better systems but they are fundamentally different systems which different governments have adopted.

My views on CPF:

• Yes, 20% of our monthly wages is not a small sum, but your employer also needs to contribute another 17% to your CPF as well. So it is like bonus of 17% each month. So effectively, if your salary is X (for cases where X=<$6,000), you are effectively getting 1.17X monthly, just that you do not get them all in cash in hand. Putting in 20% for an extra 17%, I think it is still alright for me personally. I feel I should be able to survive on 80% of my salary, basing on a fresh graduate (normal local uni degree) starting salary.
• The returns on our CPF monies is (nearly) risk-free with government's backing. Should something major detrimental happen to Singapore government / economy, I personally think there will be bigger issues for us to worry about than our CPF returns. Granted, CPF is still very important to all of us and in no way I hope to see anything unfortunate happen to it. 
• Interest rates are quite decent ranging from 2.5% to 5% (<55 yrs old) and 6% (>55 yrs old). No banks / insurance company out there can provide this guaranteed risk free high interest rate.
• The minimum interest rate of 2.5% for OA and has been there since the beginning of CPF, I am pretty assured it should continue for the foreseeable future.
• Assuming one starts to work at about 23 (for females) or 25 (for males), one is able to make use of CPF's favorable interest rates (compounded) to their advantage for a good 30 plus years. Assuming you contribute just $500 to your SA which pays you 4% interest, at the end of 30 years, you would have almost $350,000. From your investment of $500*12 months*30 years= 180,000, you would have almost doubled your money. [This is a conservative estimate since you would earn an additional 1% on your first 40,000 of your SA funds.]

• If you are able to double the contribution to $1000/ month, you would end up with $700,000! That is more than half a million!  Granted this is provided you do not use your CPF to buy your house, which many of us in Singapore do, me included. Regardless, these figures made me pause and forced me to re-assess my then decision to pay for my home using CPF back then, though that is another post for another time.

Therefore, at the age of 32, with a tinge of regret, I did not realise the eighth wonder of the world earlier (in my 20s). I am now trying to make it work for me to the best of my abilities by transferring my OA to SA and am also considering if i should make Early repayment of my HDB loan to inject some spare cash on hand into my SA. Some might say it is a drastic move, but missing out on the 4% interest compounded over many many years is also pretty drastic as well.

A neat tip for those who have just started working. If you do not have need to use your CPF for housing, you could starve your OA, and stuff your SA for additional interest. 

E.g if you had 20k in OA (earning 3.5%) and 40k in your SA (earning 5%). But if you starve your OA by transferring your 20k in OA to SA (20+40K=60k) you will have 60k in your SA earning you 5% instead of part 3.5% and part 5%. Do bear in mind that by doing so, you "lose" the usage of the 20k for your housing and can possibly only touch it at 55.

I will touch on CPF for housing in my next post. Do stay tuned. 

Frugal Singa

Save water, Save Money

While Singapore is an island, water security has remained a huge concern for our existence. Late Mr Lee Kuan Yew recognised this and once said: "Water dominated every other policy. Every other policy had to bend at the knees for water survival." 

Water and electricity are the two main cost components of our monthly utility bill in Singapore. I will share tips on using water efficiently and more on electricity saving tips in another post. 

Our government has tried to build up our water supplies sources (currently four sources- Local catchment, imported water, NEWATER and Desalinated water) and also raise awareness of this vulnerability though its pricing (up up and up) of water. With the recent tariff increase in July 2018, the average household living in a public flat will pay roughly $9 to $15 more monthly.

Like many other government policies, while we are unable to change them, we can tweak our behaviour to adapt accordingly. I am what economists would call a rational entity (or i like to think so), so Singapore's government policies, which are often based on incentives (or sticks sometimes) to tweak behaviours, would work for people like me. 😋

So how do we save money when price of water is going up? We can try to use less. To see how we can use less, we should first consider our main water usage areas in a typical household. 

Credits to PUB who have done up excellent info graphics and tips on water saving.

The biggest "drinkers" in our homes are the shower, laundry, kitchen and flushing. In these areas, PUB has estimated we could possibly save ~140L a day if we took shorter showers, use a mug when brushing teeth, half flush, use containers when washing vegetables and buy a water efficient washing machine. 

So how much is 140L anyway? A typically bathtub can hold 80 litres of water, so 140L is about slightly more than 1.5 bathtubs of water, or if you could imagine, approx SEVEN cartons of 12*1.5L Ice Mountain Pure drinking water. I did a double take on the figure of 140L a day and checked again. 140L is based on the assumption you use the washing machine everyday which not many people do. Otherwise, the other activities are pretty much daily. 

Credits: Redmart

And if we really do save 140L water a day, how much money could we potentially save? 

Credits: PUB

Most typical households (perhaps excluding landed houses) should fall within the 0-40 cubic meter tier so it should should be $2.74 per 1000 litres (post July 2018). 

If we saved 140L a day, that is approx 140*28 days = 3920L saved a month. It will translate to about $10.70 saved monthly which is about $128 a year, which i think is pretty decent for simple tweaks to your lifestyle and buying habits. 

In addition to PUB tips, additional water saving tips include:

• Check for leaky taps/ pipes / toilet. While it may seem like a few drops to you when you see it, it is still constantly dripping when you are NOT seeing it. Little wastage like these will add up! If you do not know how to DIY repair, hire a plumber, it will be cheaper in the long run.
• Use water which you used to wash your vegetables to water your plants thereafter. 
• Defrost frozen items in large bowls of water and not run them under the tap. 
• For parents with babies, babies' bath tub water could be used as mop water thereafter since babies do not get that dirty after all. 👶
• Buy a front load washing machine rather than a top load. While front load washing machines are sometimes more expensive, they should pay off in the long run as they use less water for each wash.
• Use the washing machine only with full load.
• Get a lower capacity toilet bowl or one with dual flush.
• Choose Low-Flow Bathroom Fittings, cos low flow = low wastage
• Install water thimbles for your taps and shower heads (these are available free from PUB). They are really easy to install and are reported to reduce as much as 5% of your monthly water consumption.

Small changes everyday can and will significantly impact your water consumption. 

If you have additional water saving tips, do share them in the comments section. 

Save your water and money today! 


Frugal Singa

Wake up earlier, save some money!

Credits: SMRT

Unless you drive, you would probably be like me who have to squeeze in the MRT (or bus) every morning to get to work and squeezing in trains ain't too fun. 😒

This is an old article, but the 50 cents discount for pre-peak weekday for MRT travel is still valid, until the end of 2018 at least. 

The government had previously also tried other schemes, i.e. Free Pre-Peak Travel scheme, which allows those who reach any of 18 MRT stations in the city area before 7.45am to have free rides. However, it was rather localised within the city area and tapping out before 7.45am is no easy feat. Therefore, i believe the new (ok not so new now) scheme should work better, considering it is applicable to all 157 MRT and LRT stations and you just need to tap in before 7.45am.

Assuming you tap in before 7.45am each morning for Mon-Fri, you will save $2.50 a week which means you could save about $130 for 52 weeks. Not a terribly big sum but if the government gives you $130 in 50 cents installments for a year, do you not take it?

If you are already travelling at around 8am, why not try setting out 15 mins earlier and get a 50 cents discount? It is like if you set off 15 mins earlier, you will definitely find 50 cents lying on the ground for your taking. 😜 Ok, besides the 50 cents, there are also many benefits of getting to work early e.g. leaving work earlier (hopefully you are not those who only can leave after your boss leaves), already cleared your inbox before your colleagues even walk into office, have a quick breakfast in office. But all that aside, it makes for a better travelling experience because the trains are considerably less crowded before 7.45am. Don't take my word for it, go see check it out yourself. 

Sometimes we don't see it, we don't feel it. Wonder it will work even more effectively if we had MRT staff standing at the gantry giving out 50 cents to everyone entering before 7.45am, though that that would go against our push towards a cashless society and push up cost cos we need extra MRT staff. haha...  

Not this 50 cents...

Hopefully the government see enough benefits of de-congestion that it outweighs the cost and the scheme will be extended, cos i think it is not a bad scheme actually, though Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan said it was not sustainable for taxpayers to subsidise the increasing costs of the public transport system and I believe many of you would have seen a more recent article sharing that bus and train fares may rise by up to 4.3% next year. 🤑

While we cannot do anything about the proposed increase in fares next year, we can go get our 50 cents each morning still at least for the next couple of months till Dec 2018.

Gotta catch'em when they last!

Frugal Singa