My husband and I are not well off. Just found out that I'm pregnant. What should I do?

Hello! Firstly, be HAPPY because it is truly a blessing to be able to conceive and grow a life :) being happy and healthy during this period will also help your baby to grow well, and hopefully reduce any complications that could otherwise emerge from a high-stress pregnancy.

To reduce costs on delivery, consider choosing a public hospital (eg. NUH, SGH, KKH) and opt for a shared room (eg. 4-bedder).

For infant care, the best way to save costs would be to take care of the baby yourself. You should be able to claim 4 months of maternity leave from your employer so you can stay home and care for your child.

Milk expenses: breastmilk is free, but can be painful for some mothers (like me). If your milk supply is good, you don't have to spend on milk powder. Otherwise, there are milk banks (donated breastmilk) that you can try, or affordable milk powder brands like NatureOne Dairy.

Diapers: some parents choose to buy from JB to save costs, but with the current pandemic this may be difficult. Otherwise, you can try shopping on Carousell for diapers as some parents buy too much and can't use finish as their babies outgrow them faster than expected.

Clothes, Toys, Beddings, etc can be bought secondhand from Facebook Marketplace or Carousell.

The bigger challenge may be post-4 months, where you need to figure out who will take care of your baby when you go back to work. If your parents/in-laws can do so, then you can save on caregiving / infantcare costs. Otherwise, these can easily add up to quite a significant portion of your salary.

Hope this helps, and congratulations on your pregnancy!

Hello there, thank you for sharing your question here and truly hope the community can give you some perspectives to consider!

I agree with Yang Teng, you can find quite good perspectives here: https://seedly.sg/questions/accidentally-got-my...

On very specific topics on saving costs, I realised our team has also written quite alot about these here:

• Cost of Delivery: https://blog.seedly.sg/cost-giving-birth-singap...

• Guide to childcare costs: https://blog.seedly.sg/ultimate-guide-to-childc...

• Where To Get The Cheapest Diapers, Baby Food, Bites, and Formula Milk: Retail VS Online VS Johor Bahru: https://blog.seedly.sg/cheap-baby-products-diap...