Frugal parenting is about proper money management to ensure the family is well taken care off. It also includes proper planning that takes into account future expenditures and allocating the necessary funds for them. For example, if you have children, you may want to set up an education fund immediately right after they are born. Below is a family acquaintance (names have been changed) and this is a story on their lifestyle.
Meet the Tang family who are in their late 30’s. They own a house, which is partially paid for, and a car that is already settled in full. Both Mr. and Mrs. Tang are working where Mr. Tang is a teacher in a Chinese primary school and Mrs. Tang is a secretary in a private firm. They have 3 children, the eldest is an 11 year old boy, second is an 8 year old daughter and the youngest is a 5 year old boy. All the children go to the same Chinese school where Mr. Tang is teaching.
The Tangs’ combined salaries is RM3300, barely enough to cover their monthly household expenses. Mr. Tang supplements their income by giving tuition during the night time and over the weekend. By doing so, he is able to bring in an additional RM2000 per month. Mrs. Tang is talented in cake baking but having to work and take care of the household chores leaves her very little time to pursue her interest.
The busy lifestyle keeps the Tangs occupied most of the time and does not leave much time for leisure. Hence, they seldom go out to the shopping mall unless there is a necessity. Every weekend, Mrs. Tang goes to the wet market and supermarket to get her weekly supplies of groceries, vegetables, fish, chicken, etc.
The Tangs live quite near the market and place of work including the school and hence their petrol or fuel expenses are very low. The house location was their main consideration when they bought the house 5 years ago in addition to the affordability. However every other week, they do travel to Mrs. Tangs parents’ house which is located 60 KM away. The whole family enjoys this visit as they get to bring back local fruits that are in season like rambutans, mangos, pomeloes, durians, bananas and papayas from the family owned fruit orchard.
Their simple lifestyle enables the Tang to live comfortably on their income. Mr. Tang also manages to put aside some money each month for his children’s education fund. The children do not complaint much at this stage on the simple lifestyle as their parents continue to teach and remind them on the value of money. An earlier posting, “Simple Ways to Teach Your Child the Value of Money“, gives useful ideas on how to do this.