The Cost of Raising a Child in Switzerland, Singapore and Taiwan

Yasi: Hello everyone. Welcome back to Fast Track podcast. And in this session, I have a very special guest. Some of you may already know him. It’s Financial Imagineer Matthias Richter. Welcome back to Fast Track Podcast.

Matthias Richter: Thank you so much for having me, Yasi. It’s a pleasure.

Yasi: Yeah. And I invited you to this episode because I think for the topic, how much does it cost to raise a child that you might have a lot of experience because you have two children. You have lived in Singapore, in Taiwan, in Switzerland, so you know how much does it cost in different countries and I find it’s very interesting.

Let’s do a comparison. I also have families in China, so also for me, it is interesting to discover, relatively how cheap it is or how expensive it is in those countries, and hopefully we can also bring up some tips for the audience if you have children, some ways to optimize your family budget some ways to save more money, for investing. Yeah. So let’s get started, Matt. So my first question to you is, let’s talk about, maybe let’s start with Switzerland. Okay. Is a country that you are originally from, you also grew up in Switzerland as a kid. In general, what do you think are the most expensive items or the most costly things to raise a child in Switzerland, let’s say before primary school age.

Matthias Richter: before primary school. I think since my childhood, things have shifted quite dramatically. When I was a kid, there was no like daycare centers and things like that. And I think the costs heavily depend on your lifestyle, how you set yourself up as a family.

So if somebody decides to stay at home or it like an entrepreneur with a more like flexible time schedule. You can save a lot of money once again. But if both parents are working full-time, I think the great thing now in Switzerland is compared to 20, 30, 40, I’m 43, 40 years ago, back there, there was no daycare center, no nothing.

And now you have the whole value chain of of services. And I would say, For many people who become a adult like parents the first time, the daycare, like having somebody else to take care of the kids while you’re working, that could be one of the most expensive things at the very early stage.

However like I say, it’s, it depends on what you do. The other thing could be like activities or like doctor sessions. When the kids grow older, it will be like dentist issues. You wanna have braces or not. It’s maybe sometimes not a one a half or not; it’s you must have or not, because otherwise you will look bad.

So yeah it really depends on preferences there. But in a nutshell, the most expensive is usually. To have somebody look after the kids because the value or the cost of it. You can also look at it like opportunity cost. If somebody surrenders the job and say I stay at home, maybe you have one salary less, right?

But on the other side, you have people who work full-time, two people who work full-time, pay a lot more taxes, and then on top of that, they pay the daycare center. And then in the end, they simply make a lot of transactions and taxes for nothing . So it’s a very complex topic, as you can see. Sorry, there’s no straight answer for that, but we’ll dive more into the details now.

Yasi: Yeah. But undoubtedly, everybody says that the most expensive service that they need for the kid is actually the data care. , for the audience who are not leaving Switzerland, just give you. Idea. I found out that in the area where I live, the daycare cost for children under 18 month old it’s a little bit more expensive than for the children above 18 month olds because they need special care and a little bit more people to take care of the same number of children.

So the cost is about 165 Swiss. Per day, I think it might vary from 130 something to 165. So imagine if, let’s just say 150 per day and you have 22 working days per week. That’s almost 3,300 per month. Exactly. Yeah.

Matthias Richter: Yeah. I’ve seen some budgets on my side with friends that this was the number one outlier and somehow, yeah.

Anyway, I interrupted you. Sorry.

Yasi: Yeah, so now I was just saying that on this cost, that’s why you mentioned that, depends on if you choose to work like both parents work or one stay at home. Because imagine if you have two children, the cost is [00:05:00] around five, six K. It’s like the same monthly salary in for the Swiss standard.

So you can choose to work either full-time, pay for the daycare, or you stay at home, take care of the children yourself. Funny enough yesterday, I don’t know do you know the cost of the daycare in Singapore? Because yesterday I did some research online in the, oh,

Matthias Richter: I don’t have an idea directly, but our kids also went to some places there, and I think it’s cheaper there, but you can have cheap and very expensive in Singapore. You, you have some centers that focus on.

Like preparing the mind of the children with classic music and stimulating their creativity and all kind of things, that’s the expensive part. And then you have the cheap side where basically they’re just looked after that they don’t fall down, don’t hurt themselves, have enough food and can go to toilet if they need.

Right. . So it’s basically, you have the whole spectrum there. And again, you can choose, but it can be super expensive, but I think it would be in average, cheaper than here in Switzerland.

Yasi: Yeah, I just checked too randomly. One is in the, I think it’s Amur region like Central, central Singapore, central North in the neighborhood of where most people live not the financial center.

It costs around 1,800 per. Sing Singapore dollar. But the facilities looks great. The teacher children ratio is 1, 2, 3, and then I found the other one is in the financial center, C b D area. That. I think it costs two point 5k, something like that. Singapore dollar a little bit more, more on the expensive, higher upper scale.

But if you look at the galleries, it looks amazing. Like they make different food, they have a special chef and to make food for children playroom and the NAP area. But the ones I visit in Switzerland, they’re. Very simple. Usually it’s in old house. It’s like you have different rooms and just make sure the children don’t hurt themselves.

They just play there. I got the impression that the facilities in Singapore and daycare in Singapore, it’s a little bit more, how do you say? Like educational focus. That’s how I feel. A

Matthias Richter: very well chosen word, I think I, I would summarize it like that. I think in the western part of the world the kids are given more freedom for free play, right?

And they’re time not used for studying up or preparing yourself. Like in Singapore. If you enter kindergarten, I’ve heard from some friends, I didn’t have this issue with our kids, but some friends their kindergarten teacher came to them and said, we have a problem with your kid cannot read any it cannot read.

You have to teach the kid to read. I said, what? It’s kindergarten. Here. I think it’s it’s very different, right? So in the west the kids are given more free time to to develop their skills, to socialize, to have fun. I think the focus is very different, but that’s a cultural thing. Yeah. And then in Taiwan, again, I think there is even more focus on like training things and learning stuff,

Yasi: okay. Just comparatively, if I look at 1.8 k per month for a childcare service versus the income in Singapore, I think relatively is more affordable in than Switzerland. What do you think?

Matthias Richter: In Singapore, you do not have the child support payments, right? You can have a one-off deduction in your tax declaration when you have kids.

So you have a dependent; I think it’s 5,000 Singapore dollars per year you can write off. And I think in places like Switzerland, you can deduct the whole thing. So in the end to really compare it one by one, you would have to consider the tax situation of that person again. But so in Singapore you have less flexibility on that side, but definitely the upfront is cheaper.

Yasi: There’s also another element I think the cultural element is in Asia, the grandparents will help to take care of the children if their parents are working before primary school or before going to kindergarten. And in Switzer, Families do not usually think it’s an obligation, right? The parents will not think it’s obligation to help their grandchildren.

Do you think it says like this? So that’s why Swiss families need to be more independent and also need to have this expense for daycare.

Matthias Richter: I think this also depends from family to family. I’ve seen a lot of grandparents who also like to take care of their kids, which is great. And on the other side, It also depends where you live.

If you look at places like Singapore, usually it’s a city state. People live very nearby and it’s easy for the grandparents to come over. But the bigger the country get, the further apart from each other, you might live. And if you are just one or even two hours away like from your grandchildren, you probably will not just drive there to just look after them every once in a while.

On the other side, I also think it’s. Yeah, the independent and the being yourself kind of thing that pushes through. It’s a cultural difference, of course, like you mentioned, so that’s very big and that also comes with a cost.

Yasi: That also comes with cause, yeah. Yeah. At least in China, I know that it’s considered as a quote unquote obligation because the grandparents would feel obliged that it’s their responsibility to support their children by taking care of grandchildren if both of the parents are working.

So we often see that. They all live together like grandparents living with the parents and then the grandchildren, or they go to their places few times in a week to help out. I guess that’s why when, when I mentioned here in Switzerland you have the you send your. Kids like three month old due to Keita and then people in China, my family says, wow, so young.

It’s just a baby. Only three months you started to Keita, but it’s quite common here.

Yeah.

Yasi: Okay, so now we’re talk about childcare costs. The other cost I want to mention, which I personally find very interesting because it’s such a huge difference in terms of affordability, is activities like like learning, like dancing, or.

I dunno. Horse riding or football or swimming classes or this, yeah. Please tell us how is it like in Switzerland? What kind of activities children can participate? Is it affordable or not affordable?

Matthias Richter: You have the whole range again Our daughter, she goes to a kids theatre. She is very active and outgoing and eventually her big dream would be to be an actor.

And the great thing is there is a kids theatre nearby where we live and she can go there and actually just. Get training for free because they need young actors and they don’t charge the families whose kids wanna go there. But in return once the kids learn the whole play my daughter has to let go on 25.

Performances for one play, and she has to perform every single time. She’s away for three to four hours, and that’s all for free as well. But the theater then sells tickets and the money is to be kept by the theater. So it’s a give and take. And that’s, I think a beautiful example of a wonderful activity with professional acting.

Teachers that comes very affordable and actually gives a lot of value to both the kids and the theater. And of course there’s other things, like if you talk about team sports, you can go like play fo soccer, handball, basketball, all these things. It’s not so expensive because it’s a group and you need one ball and you bring your own gear and so forth, right?

So that’s cheap. But then if you go into the more fancy kind of things you can do, like horse [00:14:00] riding and no, you get it right then you need to have a horse for the whole time and you have to pay that somehow. Or the pallet class. I think it’s also something that is less expensive. For girls because you have one teacher with maybe 10, 12 kids and you just need a room that’s simple.

You don’t need too many other things and items. But it really depends. And in Switzerland they also have extremely cool stuff. One of my friends, he started to offer coding classes. , like robot coding classes and you can participate in things like that. You have the same thing in Singapore as well.

They even have centers where you can bring your four, five year old to coding classes as well. There they learn how to do a lot of stuff. But there probably the whole approach is a bit different. It’s more technical whereby in the West I feel it’s more learned by doing, make mistakes, try, adjust, find your way.

And also I think in Switzerland it’s more about finding your passion. So therefore, I have one more thing here to say on that. Like in Singapore, that, that was really cool. You have a place for sports where you can send your, And it’s like a police sport afternoon. And they will actually let your kid have 12 or 15 different sorts of sport in one afternoon.

And after that afternoon your kid come back and you will get like a result if your kid has any talent in any of these sports, right? Because this is important. When I was a little kid, I went to a tennis coach once and the coach after the first lesson just. To my mom. He said it to my mom, oh, this boy doesn’t have to come back.

He’s got no talent. And that was also the coach who actually later figured out Roger Federer has talent. It was the same man who also identified Pat Schneer in Basel. So it’s very interesting. So would be certain things like that you get selected whereby in Asia, I think. The actual coach of some team or activity will very hardly come back and say, your kid is not talented because they wanna keep the client happy and keep the business rolling.

So I think there you have a second layer of problem. It’s not just the passion or the joy, it’s also the business aspect of it. And I think in the West, that one is much less of a problem and I find it important for kids what activity you wanna do or not to figure out what you really like, what is something for your kids, right?

And then go and decide how to. But yes, you can spend a fortune on activities like scouts. Scouts is something in Switzerland. There’s also very; it’s a lot of sponsored things. They have very cool camps. I’m very happy. My son last year went to the Bundes Lagger, the Bula.

It one of the biggest camps in Switzerland ever. There were, almost like 40,000 kids. They built a city with tents in the mountains. It was spanning like eight kilometers, five miles across. It’s as big as the city of Zurich, with tents, and 40,000 kids there. And I think the cost was just two, 300 or something for my son when we subscribed.

So it was re how days?

Yasi: How many days?

Matthias Richter: That was

Yasi: 14 days. , wow. Two

Matthias Richter: weeks. Okay. Yeah, two weeks. So of course for scouts you have an annual membership fee, and then they have a lot of things where that’s one thing I really like about growing up in Switzerland is you go to the woods, you get dirty.

You do, you, you make a fire, you maybe cut yourself in the finger. You do some stupid stuff whereby, . Yeah. Just correct me if you think I’m wrong, but in Asia I think it’s much more well protected, the whole growing up thing. You are more in a classroom, you are more like reading books, listening to stuff instead of going out there and get a bloody knee or

Yeah.

Yasi: How, what’s your angle? How dot even know there’s this scout culture? Because when I grew up in China or even now , I’ve never seen it. , something like that.

Matthias Richter: Yeah, so it, it’s very strong and I believe it helps the kids pretty much to, to deal with a lot of things. If your kid goes to the scouts, they will walk like one afternoon in the rain and they will have to sleep outdoors when it’s.

Close to zero degrees in the mountains in summer though, but in the mountains. And they will freeze, but hey they will survive and they will come back and say, it was cool. It was a great experience. And if ever later you go out with your kids, they will be very prepared for anything that life can throw at them.

That’s what I like about it. It really makes them more independent because they will have to deal with certain things the.

Yasi. Yeah. I also like this concept very much. I like nature camping on this. Funny enough that on this particular topic, the cost for activities, I did some research and I ask my families in China, I also have nephew.

He is six years old, so he learns piano, he learns. , I’m not sure if he’s still learning basketball, but he learns like a piano and English at a site. So for piano classes one-on-one is twice a week. So once you learn something new and the second time you go there and to practice what you learned with the teacher together, so it’s 500 Chinese student per week.

So it’s about 70 Swiss. Per week. But let’s not convert the currency, let’s just say 500 in your currency per week and a month. It’s 2000, right? Just for learning piano. And on top of that I think he also has the English class once a week, something like that. It’s about 10,000 per year. And on the other, In Switzerland, my friend’s daughter learns tennis three times a week.

For whole year is 1,200 Swiss flag. So a month is 100, but you learn three times a week and you get to practice. You have the courts, you have the coach. And then she also learns skating. So skating is five, Franken procession and her dad is also helping out at the skating arena. I think it’s a volunteer.

So they waive the fee for her as well. I think , that’s why on this topic, I find there’s so many different activities in Switzerland that kids can participate, but it will not burn a hole in the parent’s pocket versus in China. And the horse riding is like, 25 Swiss Franc, if you don’t own Hor Horse, just go there with your kids.

Play 45 minutes, one hour. It’s like a 20 something plus.

Matthias Richter: I think that’s very true. Like I mentioned before, I think in Asia it’s much more a business aspect to it. And in the West it’s more you have volunteering parents, like you mentioned, or the theater I mentioned before. They wanna do something for the culture.

And they wanna train new artists, new actors, so they do this. because of more than just business. And that shows, and there, there’s such a wealth ofofferings here, which is just awesome. Yeah.

Yasi: That’s true. That’s true. On the other hand, also for foot was I think my friends kids.

Using a football club. They also play this tournament, against the other football clubs from other regions. Sometimes , she has to get up at the 6:00 AM and drive the kids there. I think it sounds like a 500 or something per year around there. I don’t remember exactly and the kids trains three times a week.

Yeah, it’s for me it’s really so amazing that, Switzerland makes so many activities affordable for children. Like you said, it’s also partially maybe for the cultural, for the society, there’s integration. I find it’s very nice. How about in Singapore? Do you have any idea?

Matthias Richter: I before we, we jump to that I just think you said something very interesting.

You say you think it’s very good how Switzerland makes these things affordable. I believe the point is all the parents are like the it’s like hobbies or people wanna help for that. So I think that’s how it gets so affordable. And I think there’s nobody like a central agency, but there’s in Switzerland, there’s Yugen, dun Sport, youth and Sports Association and all these.

I think they’re very good. Also, the Scout Association. There’s a lot of volunteering in there that make this possible. For Singapore, I think the, like I mentioned, it’s more a business kind of thing and the like. Yeah. You have, like you mentioned, the English learning. Then even in Singapore you have the Chinese learning that is very big because you’re not really in China and the kids in Singapore, they speak something well English, right with a s.

So some parents, they want their kids to be able to speak the Oxford English, the right and the correct and the pretty English. So they have even classes for that. And then you have the whole enhancement classes and I think it’s much more seen as something like to get ready for life.

In terms of get your, get like a diploma or get a piece of paper that shows you’ve done something then to gain life experience. On the other hand not saying one is better or worse than the other, but it’s highly interesting how these two are different. In Singapore, there’s all these things that.

Parents if they don’t participate, you will feel like you, you’re not part of the group , you feel like an outsider. Yeah. But in Singapore there’s also our kids they went to rugby class, so that’s also something great. That was the Australian and New Zealand immigrants who brought up a club like that.

It was also very affordable and it was a lot of fun for the kids. [00:25:00] So you also have that. , but the scouts there, I think they’re very different than the scouts here. How different, because in Singapore, you cannot just go to the jungle and make a fire. And I think, I wouldn’t even know if camping is allowed there.

So I have never seen these kids to just put up a tent somewhere, go in the wilderness because it’s just a big city stage. So they, they celebrate and do their things a little bit different, their activit. .

Yasi: Yeah. Okay. I, yeah. It’s also given the fact that in Switzerland there are so many mountains and the wild regions I think provides a lot of opportunity for outdoor activities.

For example, I, where I live is near a forest and. Some of the daycare centers, they bring the children once a week to the forest. They make a fire, they play around in the mud and then they use wood to make different instrument or shapes and the children can play with it. I find it so nice. It’s just like right next door and there are some other places, I guess where you live also near some like farm mountains, I don’t know. , if it’s near a mountain, that children’s can go there and play. .

Matthias Richter: Yeah, I mean there’s a lot of things about experiencing nature. Like you say in Singapore, I think there’s exactly one farm where you can go and see things.

It’s in the northern part of Singapore, but you have to pay admission and then everything is very commercialized. And then Switzerland, almost every farm. The farmer doesn’t really care if you come with your kids to, to show them the cows and look around. Maybe the farmer even welcome you and show you around.

And some farms, they even have like playgrounds attached or they have corn maze, seasoned if the corn is big and they have seasonal activities and it’s like a meeting point for villages sometimes. And that’s happening at many places in the country, which is pretty

Yasi: amazing. . Yeah. . So let’s talk about the next category.

What came to my mind is food. Food in terms of food for babies or toddlers.

Matthias Richter: Yeah. I think for food. If you look at Singapore to go back there probably. in the last few years, there has been a lot of more bio options available in Singapore. Before that was not so much the case before. It was more like you, you had to buy the canned and the things in glasses.

So it was, it felt like factory food. And we cooked the baby food ourself very often. So we would steam the carrots, we would steam the veggies and then make the pure out of it, , make the soups out of it. All of that. We did it ourselves. Because we felt at one point all these options are probably they’ve been cooked like 4, 5, 6 months ago.

canned with some conservatives, and then you have to be careful what you feed your baby, right? But luckily the kids grow up very quick and pretty soon they’ll get very interested in hard food. So for, from that stage there, they can join the adults eating what the adults eat. But before that this intermediary stage Baby food in Singapore is very expensive, much more expensive than the West.

And on the other hand, you can also say the milk, the powder, milk formula for those who need that is also much more expensive there because everything is imported. Everything has to come from somewhere. And the temperature in Singapore is quite high. So other places in the tropics or subtropics, you need to, you have to have warehouses that.

These things don’t melt together. Like it has to stay like dry and nice powder. You cannot sell it otherwise. And all this has to be factored in. So that, that’s the early stage food, right? In Switzerland, you have much more options. You have yeah all the bio food, you have even specialized shops for that.

And Yeah, it is just very, I think it’s much bigger selection, much more fresh. Because another thing is Singapore as a city state is there’s just one farm like I’ve mentioned. So you cannot go to the farm and get your fresh stuff. Also the veggies and that everything has to be imported.

Yasi: I’m just checking. This brand Aptamil, I think is just most commonly known brand. So for a can of 800 gram, it costs about less than 30 Swiss Franc. It’s even cheaper in Germany. And here for a can of, I think it says 900 gram is more, I think it’s the same for the infant stage. In Singapore.

It. 63 single, so it’s. 50 Swiss bank .

Matthias Richter: Exactly. Yeah. So what is it? 50 what we used

Yasi: to do. 14. Yeah.

Matthias Richter: I was regularly traveling Singapore, Taiwan, I was basically in Taiwan every month for a week or two. And I traveled I did the shuttle life between Taiwan and Singapore and In Taiwan, the milk powder was cheaper than in Singapore, which is very funny.

So whenever I went to Taiwan, I would fill my suitcase with milk powder and bring it back . And now we haven’t spoken about Hong Kong. Hong Kong , the milk powder is even more expensive than in Singapore. And Hong Kong had another very big issue, I think inside China. There was like a scandal with milk powder once.

And I think the people didn’t trust their own milk powder brands because there was some issues with the quality. Yeah. And As a result, a lot of people they ventured to Hong Kong and they bought off all the shelves, so there was no more supply in Hong Kong until the people in Hong Kong got so angry about that they made a rule.

It’s forbidden by penalty of prison and or 500,000 Hong Kong dollar. It’s almost a hundred thousand US dollar to. Baby formula abroad. And there I was. I came with the airplane with a suitcase full with milk formula from Taiwan , Chinese Subscribe, like signatures on it. And I was waiting for my luggage at the airport, and then the loudspeaker said, you will be fined, da.

Like with the prison and with the money, fine. if you take out that stuff. And I knew I’m just gonna be there like a day. And I got really scared because I suddenly felt like I’m a baby milk formula smuggler at that moment. And so I went to the first time ever in Hong Kong. I went to the authorities there and I showed them I actually import this now from Taiwan, and the next day I will bring it out again.

And they gave me a piece of paper to confirm it. I was so happy, . That was really nice of them. Because really that’s like supply and. and yeah, Nestle is very big in that. And if you look at Switzerland, you can, Nestle is from Switzerland. You mentioned Germany before. It’s usually cheaper because it’s bigger market and so on.

We, we have a lot of supplies from that side in, in these countries, so there’s no. Not such a big issue with the price. , but you see [00:33:00] there, if you compare it later with the, with your salary that you earn it’s a very different kind of hole. These things eat into your pocket depending where you

Yasi: live.

Yeah. Actually, when I was living in Netherlands many years ago, . My aunt, like she is close to my age. She had a baby and she was asking me to buy milk powder for her. So I think a couple of times when I, back when I went back to China, I got some supplies for her from Netherlands. So funny now you mentioned that.

Matthias Richter: Yeah. And the milk powder can be very expensive. And of course some parents, they, we also did the breastfeeding thing. That’s only good as long as the, as long as you can provide the quantity and the kids get older. And when we had the second kid the first kid still wanted and needed some milk, then you have to get creative, right.

and beyond that for food difference. I think once they join you to eat at the big table, I think there you can, it’s can say, it’s not like you have a kid, you have to add one portion because you will have the. The, how to say, like at advantage of scale, how to say that? Economy of scale.

Yeah. Sorry, , yeah. Cut out. So if you have the kids join you at the big table, you will have the economies of scale, right? So Yeah. Yeah. You can buy the family pack and you can buy the big piece of meat and and stuff will not get bad so quick because you eat more, but you pay less for it.

So there it’ll get interesting. eventually, if you wanna be more economic you don’t have to have one sausage each half a sausage each can do if you wanna save some money and eat healthier or you can share instead of having a steak on each table. We sometimes do two steaks and cut them off, and then you can have a few pieces each, but you don’t overeat steak.

depending on how you look at it. So it’s enjoy enjoyable, but you don’t do the quantity. You go for quality. Yes. And then yes you simply have more salad, more bread, more something else and it will not lift the cost. Yeah. The same way like one on one because you have one more head to feed.

I think that’s very interesting.

Yasi: Yeah. Also I was thinking maybe in some fa in the case of some families of two people, Sometimes we waste food because we cannot finish all the salad on time. Yeah, maybe at the end the incremental cost is not that much. And back to the, actually, back to the cost of the meal powder.

I just have a quick check. How much does it cost in China? So for the same brand APTA meal can 900 gram for stage one like infant do you know how much does it.

Matthias Richter: You said now Singapore is roughly 50 Swiss Franc, right? Single. So let’s say a Singapore, 60 Singapore dollar, you said. So let’s say China.

I just add a bit more. I’m not sure whether I would say 70 to 80 Singapore dollars. .

Yasi: Okay, so I just quickly check on top of, this e-commerce platform in China per can, if you buy six, it’s about 2,200 something per can. It costs 375 Chinese win. So if I divide it by the exchange rate of Singapore dollar, yeah, 72 Singapore dollar.

Super more expensive, much more expensive. Cannot. , how many cans does infant need per month? Do you still remember ?

Matthias Richter: I don’t remember, but I remember, it’s like you buy the big pack of toilet paper. They just go away. , they just disappear. Yeah, but I don’t remember the math of it.

Okay. But we had a lot of these hands at home. .

Yasi: Yeah, because just look at the scale, like the quantity in terms of numbers. Like 2,200 something Chinese year for 6, 375 for one, and then you have maybe 700, 900 to a thousand per month just versus the income. It’s, and in Switzerland it’s like a 30 or 20 something.

versus the income. It’s really expensive, but I think there are a lot of domestic choices, but it depends if they, if the parents trust the brands or not. Yeah.

Matthias Richter: Yeah. That’s the price of that brand. And I’m sure there’s different options, but because the people don’t trust it, the price may be lower,

Yasi: but.

Yeah. Yeah. I the, there are so many different choices you can buy domestic brand, which are much cheaper. You can buy imported ones, depends on the income of the family. My cousin, she told me when, I think six years ago she bought all the milk powder, imported milk powder, several hundred per can, and she also bought the imported.

diapers from Japan is also few hundred per bag. Wow. Here, I dunno, how much does it cost? 10 20 per bag for diapers.

Matthias Richter: Now we also had imported diapers from Taiwan and Japan. Oh, exactly. We did that. We did that too.

Yasi: But in Singapore, Do they produce diapers? I don’t. In

Matthias Richter: Singapore, . Oh. They import everything.

They import everything. And then certain qualities are better than others. So you have to see what you like. Yeah. And of course if you buy the cheaper stuff, it may not hurt your wallet so much, but then later youhave to do more cleaning. .

Yasi: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So in terms of cost, like food yeah, milk powder is a big cost.

I think relatively to the income in Asia in Switzerland. Don’t know how people look at it, but if I compare to China and to Singapore it’s relatively much more affordable. Yeah. Okay.

Matthias Richter: For more, how to say, like for diapers, you can also in Switzerland, you can also go like across the border.

And diapers is something you can buy in big quantities way ahead. You can buy, you can fill your car with diapers for six months with one carload, right? And that will be very well worth a ride somewhere where it’s cheaper. people do that. Yeah.

Yasi: I also I like Germany very much because they are, in a way, in this society, I dunno if it’s society or culture-wise, they’re very environment friendly.

They’re very, prone to nature, organic bio. So even the brand, how you say, the brand from supermarket. They’re also very good, like baby stuff from supermarket, very affordable, high quality, and it’s organic. I was really impressed by that. Yeah, very true. Let me think what will be the other cost associated to raise a child?

Yeah, clothing. I think clothing is interesting. Clothing. So it depends on the families, because I grew up in the city, so usually my parents just buy, they bought cloth for me every year and then for some relatives living in the village. So they be remote, they take the passan handle, handover close.

I think in Switzerland, from my experience, all people are very environment friendly and are also very very open just to share clothes and pass on friends, exchange with each other, and they’re all in very good condition. So what’s your experience in Singapore, Taiwan and Switzerland? I

Matthias Richter: think in Taiwan, maybe I in Taiwan, Within the family, people are okay to share clothes, but I think if you go somewhere, it depends in what kind of circles you, you move around.

It’s not very well seen if clothes are like . You have to be someone you represent. Yeah. The face value. If the face, in the Chinese concept of giving face, showing face. So I believe that’s, that costs something. Because if you have have all new and buy all the, everything new, it’s on one side.

Like you mentioned the environmental friendly thing. If you buy a t-shirt and six months later you outgrown it, so what will you do with it? You will throw it away, donate it. . In Europe, I think it’s more easy to share it or to have it like circulating. My sister is very good with that, so she circulates with her friends, a lot of things, and it’s very economical because you have sometimes very good clothes that have barely been worn by others, and you get them for free and in exchange you give something away that you anyway don’t need anymore.

So it’s a give and take kind of thing. In Singapore. I think the lucky thing is it’s so hot there, so it’s, you don’t have winter, you don’t need a winter jacket, it you don’t need pullovers. There’s a lot less things you need there. You also don’t need so many socks or what long pants, you can keep really simple.

For the first two years, the baby dress is basically, You have diapers and you maybe have a t-shirt, and then there’s maybe one jacket. It because the air condition is very strong, but from that point of view, you can save a lot of money on clothes in Singapore at the very early stage and in places where the temperature goes up and down, you need a bit more.

And then’s, you can also not prepare too much because your kids are growing sometimes faster, sometimes slower. So if you get the next bigger winter, check it and your kid doesn’t grow in it, and then later it grows through it from summer , then you are screwed again. So you have no, you cannot time

Yasi: it right?

Matthias Richter: It’s not so unpredictable. But that’s the funny thing. And in Singapore it’s super simple. You basically, in the morning when you get up, you have three p three piece of clothes, you have underwear, shorts, and t-shirt. That’s it. Yeah. You don’t need sock. And then maybe slippers and maybe a hat and sunglasses.

But yeah, your clothing style is very simple there. Yes. You don’t need to have too many clothes except you go to work. But that’s been something else. Yeah. And in school that’s another point in Taiwan and Singapore, they have school uniforms. So a whole other problem is solved in a way because you have to be looking the same like everyone else.

So you still don’t need that much money. In Switzerland, it could be sometimes a bit challenge, like to look cool to have the branded clothes. Not so much I think as it used to be when I was a kid. I feel personally, but that, that’s something. So if your kids like a competition, if your kids don’t have the shoes or the clothes that are cool, they may be outsiders.

And because of not saying it’s a better system, but if you have uniforms and so on, then that’s exactly knows, that’s zero an issue. Nobody will talk about what clothes you have.

Yasi: Yeah. Also one thing. , one thing, don’t forget. Is that, I think most Swiss families, they go ski in winter, so you also have to prepare ski equipment and the clothes

Matthias Richter: Oh yeah we sometimes, Come back from Singapore before until we wanna go to ski. Yeah, luckily my sister has a lot of kids at different ages, so we could always borrow something. And I also know they have these church in the church. They have the clothes sales. In some villages, they have these cloth exchanges.

They have it sometimes for spring, for summer, for winter, for autumn. They have four times a year and. Yeah, you can actually it’s even a business like instead of giving your old clothes away of your kids, you go there and sell them. And you can usually find good stuff there.

Yasi: I noticed the two types of shops, or two services I really like in Switzerland.

One is the secondhand children’s secondhand clothing shop. Oh, I saw that in so many places. Like cities, towns, village, mountain Village US parents, you can actually put your clothes there, but they have some requirement, like there’s no stain. It’s not broken, there’s no hole. So it literally looks. New, it looks very good.

You can put it there and then they will sell it for you and Usually, I dunno, 1, 1, 2, 5, 10 Swiss, something like that. Or if it’s not sold after half a year or something, they’ll return to you. So that’s one thing I really like. The other thing is the toys. My friend told me there’s a place called Lud Tech.

It’s like a bi tech Oh yes. Library, yeah. Yes. It’s also everywhere in Switzerland. , you have membership fee. By year or by month. It’s 10 Franco or something like that. Yes. Yeah. And then you can borrow

Matthias Richter: toys. Some places are, it’s 20 Frans a year. , and it’s and then some libraries you can actually borrow.

Computer games, like for Nintendo or PlayStation, even that. So you don’t have to buy them. You borrow them for one month and then maybe after that the kid will think it’s boring. I want another game. Yeah. So you don’t need to resell it. You pay 20 and you’ve got a full subscription and you can go, you bring it back, you take the next one.

Yeah.

Yasi: And you can keep rotating different ones. Yes. Depends on the development of the kit. The other day I was in the bookstore. . There was some children’s book, with a lot of illustration, one to two sentences. And I flip around, I look at the price I like, ah, 37 Swiss Fran, which I can finish in three minutes just to tell the story with the kid.

Then I really like the library and this little tech concept,

I think. So to conclude estimated cost to raise a child, like before primary school in Switzerland, in Singapore, in Taiwan. I know it’s very hard, let’s just say like average family. What do you think would be a reasonable range?

Matthias Richter: Ooh, . Yeah. It really depends. , that’s the only thing I can say, but,

That’s so hard. I’ve seen super expensive, super low. It’s really hard to give a number in Taiwan. I know that some, I think it’s even an issue with Taiwan that some people don’t want to have kids because they think it’s so expensive. And That’s an issue why Taiwan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.

So the population is shrinking. I think per woman. have less than one child at the moment. I think Italy and Japan are similarly low, but it’s super, super low. And this is not because the, they don’t want to have kids. It’s simply because they think they cannot afford to have kids and. Basically there the whole system is they have both parents have to work, childcare is expensive, food is expensive, all that.

The whole thing will push through. And in other countries, like when we discuss Switzerland, everything seems more expensive. But like you mentioned before, in terms of salary, in percentage terms of salary, maybe it’s much more

Yasi: afford. I read this survey from, don’t remember which website is like a Swiss news platform, and then the other one is axa, it’s the insurance company.

They did a survey. It says four children from zero to six years old. The cost for the family is about 1,350 Swiss Fran per month, but that also, 500 something. 520 Swiss Fran as a housing cost. Because just imagine if you don’t have children, you don’t have to buy a bigger house. You can live in a small apartment.

So they also calculated that. And of course, the more children you have, the marginal cost will decrease. But overall, I think for one children is both 1.3 K per month. But in reality, there are many ways. Actually save the cost, like you mentioned, just to maybe get secondhand cloth from your friends, you exchange with each other, or borrow toys and books from library instead of buying new every time.

What are the other. Money saving tips. You have for parents, they go to Germany or

Matthias Richter: something? No. You can actually start with working together with other parents. I think that’s one thing. Of course, you mentioned grant parents, but I think that the easiest way is to find like-minded people.

I believe in Singapore. That’s so nice. Where we call home, the water arena the place there, it’s such a nice community of families with young kids and kids, so they’re so easy to make friends with others, and you can help each other, you can help each other look after kids when somebody wanna go out.

You don’t need a babysitter. You can also like exchange lunches. You bring the kids of someone else to your home and then you do the same thing the other way around. This can also save money in other countries, right? If your kids come home. Some people I heard in Switzerland, they say it’s very annoying.

The kids always need to come home for lunch. Very simple. You don’t have to have them for lunch every day. You can say at certain days they go somewhere, they go to your other friends, together with their school friends. So let’s say you have another family. One day, let’s say Monday, they go to your friend and have lunch there.

Tuesday they all come to you. Then maybe Wednesday you take care of them. Thursday you do it with another family, and Friday they come back. So basically at the end you have two lunches where you cook for more kids, two lunches where you don’t have kids come home and one lunch that is just normal.

And then in the end you basically, Only do really a decent lunch twice a week. , you have to cook only twice a week, the full thing. But because two kids more, it doesn’t really. make such a difference. If you, just an example, if you cook spaghetti, doesn’t matter if you put in 400 grams of pasta or 600 grams of pasta in the boiling water and the soup, the sauce, you can easily cook a little bit [00:53:00] more.

The, so the marginal cost will not. Makes so, so much of a difference and that’s how you can actually save money again by simply hacking a bit and working together with other parents. I think that’s the lowest hanging fruit. And I think in Asia, maybe that’s a bit more common at least in Singapore, from what I could tell of a lot of expats and other people that are away from home.

And it depends on finding like-minded people who are open to explore these things because it, and also it save time. The money part. Yeah. It’s save time. It’s not the money part alone. Like when , so you later can be more free again. And the alternative is sent them to to daycare five days a week and depending where you live.

One kid can maybe be 30 bucks for just the lunchtime. If you have two kids that’s 60 bucks times five you’re like 300 bucks per week. Times four, you’re at 1,200 that you save by doing that. Yeah.

Yasi: Okay. Yeah. I’m not a big fan of cooking.

Matthias Richter: Yeah. Cooking is a big hack, A life hack. And you can pre-cook until. Yeah. So yeah, growing your own food, cooking your own food, preparing your own food, that’s all things. You can save a lot of money, but it needs time. You need to invest time.

Yasi: Yeah. One thing I forgot to mention because in Singapore you can also have A helper Yes.

At home. Yes. Like a made full-time. , which is very affordable compared to having wine in Switzerland. You don’t have to send your kids to daycare. Maybe this woman can help you take care of your kid. Yeah. ,

Matthias Richter: that’s true. That can be a budget saver again, but they’re have to have the right person to help you.

We had two different people helping us. They were both great. , I’ve, we have seen others who had helpers who were not like looking after the kids the way they should. Like the, it’s always hard to find the people you trust enough with your kids. And we were very lucky with that aspect. And it’s very convenient, especially the cost for the helper.

It’s for them it’s a great chance to go abroad to earn some extra money. And for you it’s a helping hand that you can make use of. . Yeah, that’s in places like Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, that’s quite common.

Yasi: Yes. Alright, so I hope this session is helpful for. Young parents out there who are thinking about how to optimize the cost or might consider moving to another country, get some more experiences or g r b charge.

In a way, I find this topic is very interesting for me because I see such a huge. Difference between how it is like in Asia, how it is like in Switzerland, and also the concept, how people look at it. Like the activities are very different. It’s more commercialized. They’re in China and Singapore here. They encourage family activities, they encourage children to experience this.

So that’s provides a lot of opportunities for kids to experience different stuff. Yeah. So thank you so much for being. Financial. Very happy. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I will put some links in the description and also don’t forget to check out the website. Fast Track the live financial imagineer.

Dot com. And also we have this money course. If you are interested in learning how to consolidate your finances, build up a future for yourself and also your family and maybe even your children check it out. I think it’s very helpful. So for now Let’s close this episode. Maybe we’ll do more like this in the future.

If there’s any topics that you are interested regarding investment, personal finance, feel free to write to me and I will put them in the agenda. Okay. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

Matthias Richter: Bye.