Women today are still grappling with the issue of either going back to work or staying at home to take care of their baby. There are pros and cons to consider what is best for you and your family. Below are some things to ponder to help you decide and to reach a mutual agreement with your partner.

Money

Top of the list is money. Is there a financial need for you to go back to work? If you are the top earner compared to your partner, then your partner may be the one to stay home with the baby or children.

Equality

Men and women are equal in many ways now and so it is with parenting. Giving up a good career does not have to be the mum. The decision must be in the best interest of the entire family.

photo credit: Cia de Foto

Personal happiness

Some women feel happy going to work as it makes them feel more confident and satisfied at home. They are happier going home after working at a satisfying job. Some reportedly have more patience upon reaching home and dealing with their parenting role.

Working outside part-time or be your own boss

Some women are addicted to the great feeling of working and accomplishing something. A possible solution is to do a part-time job that enables you to split the time between working and being a mom. The other option is to start up your own home-based business.

Precious milestones

Being at home means you get to see your baby accomplish important milestones. For some women, nothing is more important than their family and they are the happiest being a mom.

Personal time

It is important to have time alone or “me-time”. A working mom will find it difficult to have this as a large chunk of time is already spent at work and hence the balance is for the family. Being a stay-at-home mom makes it easier to slot in some personal me time.

Become a volunteer

A great idea to get the same sense of accomplishment as going out to work is to do some volunteer work. You can volunteer to help out in a school, church activities, etc.

What is your say on this matter?

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.

The eMoney Tips is a compilation of fifteen interesting money management articles written by various authors. If you are looking for new ideas on how to improve your financial situation or you wish to broaden your financial knowledge, download it for free below.

Download eMoney Tips April 2009 edition now. (right click the link and save file as)

photo credit: WTL photos

Do you agree with the title above? Your answer may depend on what is your definition of a good marriage and what is good parenting. The definition of a good marriage also varies with different couples. I am going to mention some requirements below and see whether you have other opinions or you want to add to it.

Having a good marriage means:

• You and your partner are emotionally and physically connected

• Both of you are honest with each other

• Both of you respect each other’s opinions and the differences in view points

• Both of you can talk openly about everything

• Both of you share common goals

• Both of you make time for each other, just the two of you

The above are some ideas that come immediately to mind when I think about what makes a good marriage. Personally, I believe it is important to have a strong marriage in order to be good in parenting.

My personal belief is that parenting is the responsibility of both partners. Each partner contributes positively in different ways to a child’s upbringing. Learn more about becoming good parents in an earlier posting entitled, “How to Become a Good Parent“ and “How to Improve Your Parenting Skills?“. I will be the first to admit that parenting a child or children is very complicated and requires a lot of patience. Hence, I am thankful to have a loving partner and we can work together as a team to fulfill all of our parenting responsibilities.

Therefore, it is important to solve any existing relationship problems quickly and strengthen the marriage foundation. Problems in a marriage may arise due to various reasons like cheating, misunderstandings, dishonesty, due to neglect, debt problems, etc.

Recently, I discovered a proven method or system created by a marriage expert that has a high success rate of close to 90% in saving marriages. The normal rate is about 20% only using the common techniques recommended by other marriage experts in the same field. If you think that you may benefit from this marriage or relationship saving system, you can get a free report here, “Save Your Marriage“.

Below are some unique features about this system:

• It can be applied even if only one partner is making the effort to save the marriage or relationship

• It can be applied no matter at what stage is the crisis, for example even after the divorce proceeding has started

• It can be applied for different relationship problems the couple is facing. For example, problems related to money, sex, dishonesty or cheating and many more.

Some couples stay together instead of separating for the sake of the children. However, this situation does not last long. In addition, it also affects the children in one-way or another. For example, the parents are supposed to be the role model that the children will learn from about relationship, marriage, respect, parenting, etc.

Therefore, having a solid and happy marriage means being able to carry out your parenting role more effectively and providing a positive growing up environment for the children.

What is your opinion about this subject matter? Please feel free to leave your comments below.

photo credit: pfala

In my previous article “The Top 10 Criteria to be a Wise & Successful Parent”, I mentioned that some of the criteria are to be able to provide the necessities in life (material needs), i.e. food, shelter and clothing and to provide a stable and comfortable home for your children.

Well in order to be able to fulfill that requirement, the parents have to be financially stable. One way to ensure stability is by controlling your finances, i.e. keeping track of your spending, eliminating your debts and building up your savings. Money that has been spent is gone and debts will take more of your money away due to the interest payments.

Money issues

It is a common fact that married couples with or without children argue about money or finances at one time or another. It is no secret that it is one of the sensitive issues for married couples and one of the top causes for couples to break-up or get a divorce.

As a wise parent, you know that it is your responsibility to ensure that the family’s finances are in good order. However, it is difficult to ensure this if both parents do not openly talk about it, do not want to acknowledge their financial problems or if only one parent is handling the finances or they just do not know where to begin.

Where to start?

If you have no idea where to begin, then I suggest that you watch the TV show “Til Debt Do Us Part”, hosted by a woman named Gail Vaz Oxlade who is a Canadian financial writer. In the show, she works with married couples that are facing financial problems and helps them to get their finances back on-track. She normally starts off by touring the couple’s home to see how well they live. She does a detail check on their actual spending and most of the time, the couples are caught spending way above their income, in other words, living beyond their means. It is not surprising then to see the high debt accumulation.

To help the couples, Gail will give them a few challenges or assignments that address the root cause of their problem. The goal of course is to improve their financial situation. To begin with, the couples are requested to live on a strictly cash budget and to record down all their spending. This is to encourage the couples to keep track of their spending and is aware where their money is going. The cash money is kept in jars allocated for various purposes like food, transportation, entertainment, clothing and gifts. Earlier on, she had confiscated the couple’s credit cards to ensure that there is no more debt accumulation. In one show, she actually freezes the cards in a container of water.

The are weekly challenges to be completed such as the ‘Life Lesson Challenge’, the ‘Budget Booster Challenge‘, the ‘Future Plan Challenge‘ and the ‘Relationship Rescue Challenge’. In one show, the couples are requested to move to a cheaper abode as their financial situation does not allow them to stay at their current home. In another show, the couple is requested to find ways to increase or boost up their income. In the relationship rescue assignment, the couple must work together and communicate with each other to complete the task given. At the end, the important thing for the couple is that they learn about their money mistakes and take control of their finances. Most importantly, they work together as a couple to address their problems and hence in the process become a better parent.

Successful ending

Finally at the end of the show, the couple will be rewarded with $5000 for successfully completing the challenges or assignments, which is used to help them pay down their debts. I have seen couples that only get partial of that amount when they were unsuccessful during the challenges. Overall, the couples would have learned to control their spending, to do budgeting, to have a debt repayment plan in placed and to have a long-term savings plan.

So if you want to be a wise parent and ensure your family’s finances are in order, you might benefit from watching this TV show. You can watch it on Channel 733 on Discovery Home & Health by the satellite TV provider, ASTRO (Malaysia). You may also check out Gail Vaz Oxlade’s website at http://gailvazoxlade.com where she answers questions from the public about money and finances.

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.