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.

Wise parents ensure that they plan carefully in order to give their family a stable home and all the basic needs are met. Loving and caring for the children dos not mean giving them the best of everything and spending money unnecessarily. The cost of living is gradually rising and raising a family is no longer cheap. Hence, money management is important when you have a family to support.

The following is about a family living frugally on a single income. The Chan family has two young children to support (1 and 2.5 years old). Mrs. Chan is 32 years old and stays at home full time to take care of the children and the household responsibilities. Mr. Chan is 35 years old and works as an engineer earning roughly RM3500 per month.

They live in a bought apartment right after marriage and Mr. Chan had no problem paying for the loan then. However once the children arrived, Mr. Chan realized that his single income could barely support his family. He even had to trade in his Toyota Vios car to the more affordable Perodua Myvi. Mrs. Chan has to be very careful with the household spending and really plans her groceries for the week to ensure it stays within the budget. The budget must also cover milk powder and disposable nappies for the young children.

photo credit: Dan4th

The Chan has stopped going out to eat altogether and mostly eat at home. Mr. Chan even has to pack his lunch most of the time from home and the food outside is getting more expensive. He is worried whenever there is an emergency in the family. For example, if a member of the family falls sick or if the car breaks down. The small amount of money he puts aside each month will be used up then to meet the unexpected expenses. The Chan know that it is important to save some money now as when the children gets to school going age, there will be school expenses to worry about.

Mrs. Chan is already thinking of finding a job once the children go off to school. Her other option is to do a part-time job to help boost up the family’s income. The good thing about the Chan family is they do not have any other debts except for the mortgage and car loan. Although Mr. Chan has a credit card, he uses it sparingly ensuring that he clears the balance each and every month.

I will be posting similar stories in the future based on the idea of “Frugal Parenting”. You are welcome to post your comments about the subject.

photo credit: foundphotoslj

I am one of those women who would love to stay home with the children. Building a career and climbing the corporate ladder lost its appeal when I had my first child. However, as much as I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, I have to postpone my decision due to various reasons.

The main and critical reason is that my partner and I are unable to support the family on one income only. Although we lead a pretty frugal life, one income is still not enough to support the family’s monthly expenses.

We decided that it would jeopardize our future financial stability if I were to stop working at my current job unless there are other sources of income to replace the lost one.

For other parents, their reasons may be one or more of the following:

• They want to safeguard their careers and do not want to jeopardize their career prospects. For a lot of people, they have worked hard to build up their careers and letting it go is not easy.

• They are afraid that being a stay-at-home parent may result in boredom or loneliness. Yes, it does happen as I have heard this complaint from friends who opted to stay at home with their kids. In addition, feelings of low self-esteem may arise due to the lost career status.

• They hold a belief that they will be unhappy staying home and prefer to go out to work.

• They like the rewards of going out to work and the perks that often come with the job. In addition, they want to be able to socialize and apply their talents or skills.

• They believe that their children will benefit from going out and mixing with other children. In other words, their kids will improve their social and development skills as well as their communication skills outside of the home.

If you have faced a similar situation before, what was the deciding factor in helping you to make your decision?

At one time or another, a parent would have asked the question ‘When is a good time to start teaching the kids about money?’. Teaching your children on the value of money is an important area and there is no one answer that fits all. It is all up to the parents and each family unit is different. So, a method that works for one family will most probably would not work for another family.

A good place to start

Where do we start? As parents, we have gone through our childhood and grown up to be adults. Compared to our children, we have definitely learned more things, good and bad, what works and what does not work. This is a good way to start teaching your children about money, by sharing your own experiences.

You can start from when you were young, when you started schooling, the amount of pocket money you received back then and when you started to earn money by yourself. You can share your savings method, if you had one. Maybe you used a piggy bank and had a savings account to deposit all the gift money, extra allowances and extra pocket money you did not used. You can relate your difficult experiences, on how it was tough in the old days to accumulate money. I believe your children would love to hear your experiences and stories regarding money.

About my parents

I know I did. I loved to hear my mom’s own experiences when she was young. It was a tough life for her back then. Having a higher level of education was certainly a great advantage during her time if you had one. Unfortunately, my mom did not manage to even reach Primary One (Malaysia’s education system) due to financial constraints and general life hardship. My mom’s contribution to the family’s finance was by doing things she was able to do. She took up a job as a cook (a basic life skill), she washed other people’s laundry (another basic life skill) and she even took a job as an office cleaner.

My father managed to complete Primary Six and that was good enough to ensure an office job throughout his life. However, it was still a tough life and a struggle for both my parents to build a comfortable life for themselves and their family.

What I learned

What did I learned from my parents experience? I learned that for some people like my parents, money was not easy to come by. When they had money in hand, they tend to safe-guard it carefully. Generally, I prefer to lead a frugal life just like my parents did. I learned to appreciate money for what it is, as a means to a comfortable life. Money is not everything but to have money is better than to have none. Nowadays, it can afford you better education, better health-care, better living environment, etc.

Now that I have children of my own, I love to tell them stories about my own upbringing and my experience with money. Their grandmother still loves to tell her own stories about her life when she was young. I hope that my children do learn something from all these life stories but I am confident that they will as I did too.

Therefore, it is a good way for you to start as well. Your children can learn from your mistakes and continue to practice the methods that work for you. Who knows, they would want to past it on to their own children and grandchildren and so on.