I have a habit of putting my family expenses in categories and then project our family budget for the following year to be as pragmatic as possible. (Aiya basically a very kiasu Turtle lor)
Reasons for doing so, I want to know exactly where we were spending money on and how much we need to sustain the current lifestyle in the event if one of us loses our active salary/job. I am a "kiasu" (conservative Turtle).
Note: Family expenditure exclude personal expenditures of Turtle and Turtle Wife, ie parental allowances, workday lunches and misc spending on individual enjoyment. Only pure family related expenses are being recorded. Why? I don't think my wife wants me to know her budget on shopping, hahaha. She earn her own upkeep so she will be responsible for her own spending as long as she contribute to the family budget on a monthly basis.
2019 Breakdown as follows:
| Category | Amount (SGD) |
| Children (2x) | $ 15,605.32 |
| Car | $ 10,290.83 |
| Foreign Domestic Helper | $ 9,901.30 |
| Holidays | $ 9,114.65 |
| Grocery | $ 4,736.76 |
| Festival Celebration & Gifts | $ 2,872.70 |
| Misc Spending | $ 2,636.83 |
| Utilities | $ 1,669.41 |
| Eating Out | $ 1,600.91 |
| Fengshui Consultation | $ 968.00 |
| Home Insurance | $ 795.46 |
| Town Council | $ 589.00 |
| Property Tax | $ 64.00 |
| Annual Total | $ 60,845.17 |
| Monthly Average | $ 5,070.43 |
Historical Annual Family Expenses:
| 2019 | $60,845.17 (Increased by 8%) |
| 2018 | $56,265.71 (Increased by 30%) |
| 2017 | $43,315.44 |
How is our annual household expenditure compared to average Singaporean's household spending?
Source: https://www.businessinsider.sg/the-average-singaporean-household-spends-s4900-monthly-with-the-most-going-to-food-and-transport-survey/
Based on a new report on Aug 2019, the average Singapore household expenditure is $4,900 monthly or $58,800 annually. Compared to them, Turtle family spent $5,070.43 monthly and $60,845.17 annually. From this aspect, I think we are doing average which is good as we are not high income earners.
Holiday spending was inflated by around $5,000 as we prepaid for our Australia vacation in 2020. But since I am true to myself for all the spending in 2019, I will choose to include as well. 2020 expenditure should be greatly reduced in terms of vacation since this was prepaid.
Nett annual expenditure should be around $60,845.17 - $5,000 = $55,845.17 or monthly $4,653.76.
Top 3 Highest Spending
2 x Children
Majority of the spending were spent on their education, pre-school (4 hours PCF) and extra enrichment classes like swimming, art and craft, Taekwondo, dance class and Chinese language lesson.
I don't think we will add on anymore lessons for the kids especially on the academic side even if many had recommended us to start maths and phonic lessons before they enter into primary one.
I like them having exposure to life skills and interest classes rather than academic lessons. They have 20 years ahead of them for academic so should we start to stress them out before they enter primary school. Old Turtle and Turtle Wife got the same understanding on this matter which is good so we have one less argument over the children's matters. (Hope my wife don't read my blog, LOL)
As much as possible, we will not cut spending on children related expenses even though it was the highest expense for the past 3 years. I am pretty sure all parents readers will understand my view and they will give their best to their children like how our parents treated us when we were growing up irregardless how poor they are.
Car
High depreciation asset, I called it an asset because I had fully paid up the car since I never like to take loan for a "liability type of asset". My car has got leftover value based on the COE that I had paid to extend the car life by 5 more years.
Me and wife used the car daily to commute to and fro work as we worked in the same area so expense per person is relatively lower than one person using the car. Well still higher than public transport, no doubts on that.
We get time savings with the car as we worked in the city and stayed in North Eastern part of Singapore, one way travel takes around 30-45 minutes depending on traffic condition. We usually get home by 7 pm, have our dinner and start engaging the kids before starting to put them to bed from 9pm onward.
Basically we are paying for the "extra time" saved with the car to spend more time with the kids as both of us are full time salaried worker.
We also enjoyed annual road trips to different parts of Malaysia, for 2019, we had traveled to Legoland, Hello Kittyland, Malacca, Desaru etc. It was very enjoyable and more cost effective as we do not have to pay for the flights (just imagine, 4 x SQ air tickets just on flight alone, phew, no joke!)
If both of us get retrenched together, the first thing we will cut definitely will be the car. No disputes on that.
Foreign Domestic Helper
3rd highest spending, actually just a little bit ahead of holidays/family outing spending. This is a need for our family since both of us are working full time without parental help from either side of the family. We are highly dependent on our very reliable helper to take care of the kids, cooking and household chores.
So far so good, she is our first helper and been with us for 1.5 years and will be returning for her first home leave in 2020.
Let's pray together to Guanyima (my god, I mean I pray to her literally at the temple, not OH MY GOD) that she will returned back to us after her home leave, heard so much horror stories that they go and never returned back. I will have big logistical headache if that happens and we have no plan B unfortunately.
Some will ask why it cost $9,901.30 annual and monthly $825 to maintain the helper when monthly salary is only $500-$700. This is because I factored in all the related expenses for the helper and technically she is my employee, I do give her annual cash bonus like how our company that we are working for would give us, red packets for X'Mas and Chinese New Year and small gifts here and there to make her happy like my own family member.
Do remember that helper cost is not only the monthly salary, there are many small components like their home leave (flight), MOM levy, bi-annual body checkup and insurance etc. These small numbers do adds up significantly.
I believed if we treat people with respect like how we would treat everyone else, the person will do the same to us and even if she don't reciprocate, she won't harm us. I pray to Guanyinma again on this aspect which I have no control on. I can never imagine why would any employers torture their helper, they are human after all. Read many of such news in Singapore and I am very disgusted by their actions.
Conclusion
I do hope that the annual expenses had reached it's peak finally and maintain at this level or around $4,500 to $5,000 a month for the next foreseeable future. Will it drop significantly? I doubt so if we maintain the current lifestyle.
As usual, as long as my family is happy, Old Turtle will be happy even if I have to continue to work until my last breath. Choy Choy Choy !!!!
Hope this gives you a bird's eye view of our household spending of 5 including 2 pre-schoolers for your own family expenditure tracking and planning.
As long as we spend within our means, we should do fine for ourselves and for our family.
Happy New Year 2020.
Hi Turtleinvestor,
ReplyDeleteCan check if your children's expenses can be deducted from their CDA accounts? Or are you using your own cash?
Thank you.
Hello, for CDA, I am using it to deduct the pri sch fee. For pre school, we use cash.
Delete