Speaking of having babies, I don’t fucking understand why do people get the compulsion to ask if we’re going to have another child, as if having children is like a scheduled product launch from a fucking factory. If my wife and I are going to have another child, then wouldn’t they see my kid already? And why does it even matter to them? Fucking hell.
The truth is, it’s all about the budget. Life in the 21st century, does not actually warrant us to have multiple children unless one is making a lot of money. Some of you may not agree with me (and fuck you), but it’s true. At least from my perspective. Allow me to convince you :
First of all, we need to find out, how exactly much does it take to raise a child? There’s no definite answer to that but, we can work out a gross amount based on my daughter. But before that, a disclaimer – I do not intend to raise my daughter to become a lame-ass social garbage, so this calculation is based on an assumption that we’re dumping in a considerable amount of money, in our best ability, to give her a good quality of life.
Alright, first of all – the milk feed. We give her the best milk there is. Abbott’s Pediasure something something. A can costs about 105 bucks (at a discount), and would last approximately 2 weeks (she took more when she was younger). That’s about RM210 per month.
Solid food. She consumes porridge cooked with meat broth. Once a day at home. Twice in the weekends. I don’t exactly know how much it costs per meal but, let’s throw in RM100 as an optimistic figure.
Daycare. She goes to a daycare center so that my wife and I can go to work. The daycare makes sure she gets fed everyday, and also learn how to read/write there. It costs us RM450 per month, and another RM150 per semester, and once-a-year-each concert/excursion/holiday-camp events (which I’m not going to include). Roughly works to about RM475 a month.
Clothes and toys, we took a lot of used stuff from relatives and friends. Medical covered by our company (first child only). And miscellaneous. But still, we factor in about RM50 (this shall include – vitamins, pro biotics, orders at restaurants, stationery, books, foot wears, kiddy rides, birthday expenditure, etc.)
RM210 + RM100 + RM475 + RM50 = RM835. Give or take 10%. You ask any parent, this is actually not a very realistic figure because this figure does not include a lot of things like vacations, road trips, the amount of electricity it takes to keep the little human happy, conveniences to keep him/her clean, etc. The real figure could come close to RM1k (even more as the kid grows). But hell, for simplicity’s sake, let’s take the figure as it is.
We paid about RM4k for her vertical take off from her mommy’s womb (gonna be less though, if your child comes out the conventional way). So in all, that works to be like, a 10% downpayment for a Perodua Viva, and a monthly installment of about RM835. Not for 4 or 5 years, but for about 20 years (or until she finds a self sustaining job), and the amount is bound to steeply increase in the future (money to go bowling, movies, other co-curricular activities, etc).
Now, ask yourself, how many of THAT KIND OF Perodua Vivas can you afford, without the need of doing a drastic cost cutting measure at the expense of your child(s)’ well being, on top of what you’re already paying – mortgage, your real car(s), bills, fuel, food, parental support and what-nots. If your answer is more than 1, and still confident about being able to cough up that big lump sum of college fund for all of them, with your retirement fund still intact, then congratulations rich man. You rock.
(For the record: my wife and I are not having more than 1 child due to a few reasons, not only this).
And oh, I forgot to include these:
- confinement (first month – expensive like shit)
- tuition (school, college)
- dental checkups
- immunization (the amount’s also a bitch. Not covered by company)
- additional private classes (ballet, music, self defense, art, etc)
could be more
Jeez…..I pity mum and dad. I have 3 siblings and 2 of us are studying overseas now and non of us are working….mum and dad must have been really thrifty all their life. I think I’m not gonna have even 1 child in future Michael…too costly and I’m too stingy to part with my money like that!
thanks for changing my mind.
i don’t think i want to get married and make babies now.
-University fees up to Masters if she decides to do her studying one shot (Local or foreign?)
-Books (textbooks, fiction)
-Gadgets (Handphone is a must at least. I’m 21, and am on my 4th phone now since Form 3. So say, money for 5 phones at least?)
- Much much more.
I plan to have two or none at all. Two so that they have company for each other growing up and growing old, none because I know I’ll spoil the little bugger silly.
“Retirement” budget will probably last only a decade or so if I’m lucky. Kids have to take care of the old farts after then. I plan to be gone from the face of the world a few years into that though.
I remember you wrote about some kind of complications your wife went through when she was having Regina, I guess that’s one of the reasons for you not to have more than 1 child.
RM1k to raise a child is actually not very realistic figure, but sufficient to illustrate the point.
I still wonder how my parents raised 3 kids with combined income less than 1k.
quinn – You bet your ass, that your parents have all along been thrifty! (else it would have been even more difficult to bring up multiple kids). So, bake more of your awesome cakes for them! (give them to me if your parents think cakes are unhealthy – I’ll hoover everything on their behalf)
jen – I guess I’m a few notches higher than condoms when it comes to contraception huh?
electronicfly – Even for just a few years, the last thing you should ever do is hope that your kids are gonna take care of your withering old ass. I wrote this piece a couple years ago… might want to check it out…
bongkersz – Yeah man, that’s one of the reasons.
I’m also sticking with 1 kid. My missus and I already need to contend with having a home loan, a car loan (only 1 car loan as the kid and missus need to travel in style and safety. I refuse to part with my fully paid for piece of junk Proton Iswara) and all the other expenses we need to pay for to ensure that we have some minimal level of quality of life.
Oh, let’s not forget the govt’s ‘encouragement’ with their measly tax exemption for having a kid..
Thanks for the enlightenment! Now I’m going to do a similar calculation first before we decide to have a baby. Let me get yours into an excel file and safekeep for future reference……
Yeah Michael. I agree with you. Currently I have 2 kids and we decided we don’t want to have any other kids too soon or not at all. We spend about 1.5k monthly for them (milk, diapers, insurance coverage, medical bills, toys, savings and etc). When I read your post, I guess later I need to pay more when they go to school. Sigh.
Just referring purely to the monetary aspect of raising a kid, no doubt costs of living have escalated tremendously as opposed to our ‘parents’ time’. However, if we were to think about their expenses then, raising a child then was also as costly with their wages.
However, there’s always hope that along your career journey, you may get promoted, a pay rise, etc. As you climb up the corporate ladder, you will be able to earn a decent income to support a bigger family and live a comfortable life. Not everyone starts off being rich. More often than not, it comes along the way with hardwork and opportunity.
But your career grows along with your child too. Promotions, annual increment, a higher pay with a different company and all that. It’s not like you’ll still be where you are 5 or 10 years down the road in company X.
kumar – I wouldn’t expect too much from the chicken shit rebate from the government.
sweewon – All I was saying is, it requires a little bit of planning, that’s all.
rzmie – You’re the man bro.
coconut / danny – There are of course a lot of factors which I did not include. But by merely looking at it on the cost of raising a child’s perspective (nevermind the inflation, nevermind how much growth in your career you can get), it is no doubt something to be reckoned with. (oh, btw, in case you guys don’t know, the ideal age to procreate, esp for females, is below 30 years old. After that, it’s going to be all about risks… ask a doctor. Ergo, I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on ‘the older the better bandwidth’ thing here…)
Why ppl keep bugging married couples to hv a kid (or 2, or 3) – It’s so typical of ppl to ask, damn sien hearing that Q as well. It’s like to them, if you get married, it’s mandatory to hv children. WTF wei. In today’s world, it’s not necessary to hv kids, it’s more like whether you can afford them (of cos if you really want them as well). For some, maybe they want one but due to circumstances which are only known to them, they don’t hv kids yet (which wl open a whole new can of worms, and that’s another story). Sometimes when it comes to children, it’s also a matter of, whether you hv that luck too.
Finally! we can comment!!! YAAAAAAAAAAYY sorry unrelated comment. hehe
Aiyo, that’s not what i meant (waiting till you hit the big bucks before having kids). Of course starting out you will need to fork out a hefty some (like you already mentioned 4K for the delivery etc etc). But by the time she enters secondary school and college (6 to 10 years later), you’ll most probably be a project manager or some big shot engineer in the company. Don’t tell me having a good salary is not one of the factors that you were thinking when you decided to take up engineering.
But yeah, i understand what you’re trying to say. For the average joe, having a kid (or two) requires careful planning. =)
olivia – An ovulation kit will improve the odds greatly…
xes – “-_-
Danny – I know what you meant. But still, it isn’t really wise to assume that you’ll be well-off enough to support your children’s education in the future. Not everything will go as planned all the time… if you get my drift.
Yeah the cost is fucking high.Thats why im sticking to dogs rite now