I knew something was up when my wife told me on Fri morning that she checked her payslip and the salary credit amount in her bank account. She doesn’t usually get this excited about her monthly pay. I guess she’s become more appreciative of her salary that continues to be paid even though she’s at home with the baby on maternity leave.
But I have to admit this time is different for my wife. It includes her bonus, back pay and maternity cash benefit on top of her increased monthly salary from the bank. A decent haul and timely given that she just had the baby last month, we were celebrating our wedding anniversary over the weekend and Christmas & NY are coming up.
Once again, the pay gap between us is expanding with her in the lead. I enjoy the chase and will make my move in the next few years to close the gap. I have positioned myself better now that I’m working in a different bank with a manger and senior manager that seem to be more willing to recognise and reward my efforts. We shall see next year when the remuneration outcome is released since I have just completed my performance review for the year.
The interesting thing is that this big pay day coincided with the same day we are paying off large credit bills. They are mostly due to the delivery expenses and follow-up appointments at the hospital and gynae clinic. Plus all the baby stuff and apartment redesign costs.
After clearing those large credit card bills, we celebrated our wedding anniversary by incurring another large credit card charge on a dining expense. And we will probably incur an even larger credit card charge when we go shopping for my wife’s gift. This is an all-in-one gift, for working hard at her job, 8 months of carrying the baby, going through the delivery & recovery, taking care of the baby, wedding anniversary and Christmas. Should be an expensive one.
More importantly, I have been working hard to ensure my wife gets all the support she needs to take care of the baby and eventually going back to her job as a working mum. This involves hiring a confinement nanny for 3 months and probably 4 months now that there has been a delay in the helper coming in. We are trying to ensure the helper can learn from the confinement nanny as much as possible on how to take care of a baby.
While I have been helping out where I can, the fact that I can’t be at home with my wife and baby on the weekdays means I’m just not there enough to be of substantial assistance. And there are so many things that can happen to them. So the least I can do is to build a support infrastructure around them that makes up for the time I’m not there. But that does require us to spend a lot more money to sustain it.
Anyway, it looks like we will have some cash savings from this big pay day. We are not in any rush to invest it since we might actually need it for next year when our living expenses increase again. Not to mention our search for a bigger apartment as our new home when the baby is older or if we have another one. This would require a massive downpayment and cash drain. Might just wait, see and do nothing for now.