How much does it cost to have 3 children in Singapore?

Many Singaporeans seems to 'stop at 2', perhaps due to Finance. What is the most cost-effective way to have 3 kids? What is recommended - wife to stay home, or both parents working. What should be the expected Income to support - and also assuming you can pass down clothes from one child to the other.

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Vicki Chng

05 Dec 2019

I say both parents working. Double the income, less xiong on one party, lesser resentment from the one being the sole breadwinner. If anything happens to the working partner, you'll be in big trouble.

I don't think raising kids has to be really expensive, it also depends on what sort of lifestyle you're giving them. Check out the Radford family, they have I think 23 kids and counting, and they managed.

Closer to home, there are families with 5,6 kids, earning probbably much less yet they managed well too. It's not about how much you earn, it's about how you spend .

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Hwee Kian

04 Dec 2019

Hi Anon,

That's a tough question. I think it depends on household income before deciding whether mum stays home, both parents working etc.

TL:DR (summary extract from https://singlife.com/blog/what-it-costs-to-rais... )

Pregnancy: At least $8,000
Age 0 to 2: At least $60,000
Age 3 to 6: At least $40,000
Age 7 to 12: At least $70,000
Age 13 to 16: At least $70,000
Age 17 to 19: At least $16,000 (JC) or $35,000 (poly)
Age 19 to 22: At least $40,940 (private) or $118,000 (local university) or $232,000 (overseas university)

Total add up is around $670k for one child. So assuming if one can save a bit from hands-me-down stuff including clothes books etc, for simplistic calculation I'll just use 0.8 (apply 20% on total costs), total costs add up to 1.6M?

Of course the above calculations would not be accurate, because of relevant subsidies etc, so I'm more conservative with the figure above. :)

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