Finance Smiths

I’m still on leave. Took this week off to help my wife train the helper. We have been getting her used to the baby and to observe us on the primary tasks of taking care of him. Meaning the changing of diapers, feeding, bathing, wipe down and putting him to sleep. As well as the secondary tasks of washing the bottles, pump parts and the baby’s clothes.

It’s a steep learning curve because the helper also has to pick up on household chores such as cleaning the apartment and the washing, hanging and ironing of our clothes. She’s learning how to cook the dishes we like too. I know it’s tough on her especially when all of us lack sleep and are tired from handling the baby. This is made worse when he kicks up a fuss and makes our lives difficult.

The good thing is that the helper is willing to learn and we have been able to gradually handover more and more tasks to her. Which frees up our own time to rest, relax and recharge. Then we step in to assist so she can do the same. If any one of us fall sick or burns out, all of us will get into trouble. But if we spread the workload out, it drains each of us less individually so we remain strong as a group.

My wife is scheduled to return to work in Apr 2020 after 4 months of maternity leave and 1 month of annual leave. But we reckon 5 months is still too short a time for her to spend with the baby. As I have mentioned in my earlier posts, she’s thinking of extending her time away from the office by taking 1 month of unpaid leave.

We have 2 more months for my wife to make the decision but feel it’s better she decides earlier so she can inform her manager. That way, her current cover staff in the team can be prepared to continue managing her workload for another month. Rather than get hit unexpectedly later when they are already planning to stop the cover work.

While we can afford for my wife to take 1 month of unpaid leave, I have to admit that it’s going to hurt. She’s the higher wage earner and our income for that month will be reduced significantly. There’s no way to soften the blow so we just have to take the hit together. But I rather she spends more time with the baby because that’s what she wants. And it’s important she goes back to work in a better state of mind. Should help with her adjustment to a new life as a working mum.

We still have no idea how the baby caregiving arrangements then will be like. There are a few options but they are all dependent on as many of us within the direct family knowing how to take care of a baby. So we are trying to spread the knowledge out and let them practise as much as possible. Hopefully, we can avoid sending the baby to infant care.

By the way, we haven’t been keeping up with world events because we have been so focused on CNY visits, taking care of the baby and training the helper. We know the Wuhan virus outbreak is causing all sorts of issues and it has even been affecting the financial markets negatively. We hope that everyone stays safe, people recover and the situation improves.

I’m still on leave and it’s nice to stay at home as a family recovering from the CNY visits. My wife is watching the Australian Open tennis, helper is cooking lunch and the baby is sleeping. A good time to post about this letter from IRAS that we received.

It was to notify us that we qualify for the Qualifying Child Relief (QCR), Working Mother’s Child Relief (WMCR) and Parenthood Tax Rebate (PTR) for the YA2020 – 1 Jan 2019 to 31 Dec 2019. Reason is because we now have a child and the Government knows it. Always convenient for IRAS to pick up on this and automate our qualification for the QCR, WMCR and PTR in the upcoming tax filing season.

The interesting thing about the letter is that IRAS split the QCR and PTR portions as 50% – 50% to keep the benefits equal between my wife and I. Only my wife qualifies for the WMCR. However, IRAS asked us to make changes to the proportion online on their Tax Portal if need be. Which can be difficult since we don’t have estimated figures from IRAS on the total earned income, deductions, reliefs and rebates that we already qualify for.

The good thing is we already did up our own estimated figures so we know how to optimise the proportion split of the QCR and PTR between my wife and I. Otherwise, this would have been inconvenient since we are not sure what the process is to make further changes to the proportion split later during the actual tax filing.

We amended the proportion split of the QCR and PTR to be 100% for my wife and 0% for me. She has a much higher earned income for YA2020 and it would be good to reduce it as much as possible with the reliefs and rebates. Even after this, her chargeable income and tax payable are still likely to be higher than mine but there’s not much else we can do to reduce it. Probably do more of the CPF cash top-up tax relief to her CPF SA.

It’s been a busy long CNY weekend with visits to our families and relatives. And our first CNY bringing along a baby as well. We couldn’t make as many trips as before because it’s difficult coordinating the visits with the baby’s feeding and sleeping schedule. Plus there’s so much stuff to bring with us every time we head out.

However, we reckon it’s still important to practise going out with the baby. So we get used to the things we need to pack and how to coordinate all of our schedules. As I write this, we will need to start preparing for a trip out to a relative’s place for lunch. The baby is still sleeping, so I might as well sneak a quick post in.

One major perk of having a baby with you during CNY visits as a married couple. You start receiving more hongbaos then you give out. A nice unexpected reward for all the crap we went through. Haha. We even took a photo of the baby with all the hongbaos he received and he was smiling away happily.

What the baby doesn’t know is that we are planning to deposit the cash in his hongbaos into our bank accounts. Not his bank account even though he does share one with my wife. We are going to spend the money on him anyway so no point having the cash in his bank account. And he doesn’t need the savings at his age while we do.

Anyway, another good thing that happened this CNY is that the helper came in early on the eve. She was ready to come back to SG from Philippines to work but her flight was scheduled for after CNY. My mother-in-law paid more to reschedule her flight earlier to CNY eve, the same day our confinement nanny went back home to Malaysia to spend CNY with her family.

The timing worked out because the additional support from having a helper around with the baby is useful. We are still training her with the household chores and getting her used to the baby. But she’s willing to learn so we just have to be patient and give it time. Not going to lie. The night routines with the baby are a lot tougher than the day routines. Especially when it’s our first time doing the full night routines with the baby as well.

We made a lot of mistakes with both the baby and helper but they get less with each day. Everyone learns together and hopefully we will grow up together and closer as a family. Happy CNY 2020!