The Current Monetary Benefits for having a Child

As a soon to be father, I want to know the total amount of money I can defray off from my expenses with the current baby benefits implemented.

So here is the break down in monetary sense:

For the first child, you get a $6000 cash hand out with another $6000 to be used for child development which will be match dollar for dollar if you were to put $6000 in a CDA account.(can be used for child care centers, kindergarten, medical expenses, healthcare items at pharmacies, basically things that you will spend on anyway.). DBS, UOB and OCBC will be the CDA managing agents next year which means more convenience.

Besides the cash hand outs and dollar to dollar matching, you will also get a min of $300 monthly subsidy for child care programmes and a min of $600 monthly subsidy for full day infant care programmes. That is works out to be at least $900 worth of combined subsidies monthly. So if you were to enroll your child to a 1 year infant care center and after that a 2 years child care center, that's min $18,000 worth of subsidies.

Ignoring the numerous reliefs that can be deducted from your gross income tax amount, first child parents get $5000 in net income tax rebate. This amount can be shared between husband and wife and if not used up, can be brought forward to next year. I like how this one scales up as it doubles up progressively till the third child.

Additionally, each new born baby will also receive a $3000 grant in their medisave account. This amount can be used for medishield premiums as well as other healthcare expenses eg vaccination. Basically, money that you will have to spent on in the future anyway.

So in totality, that works out to a total monetary benefit of at least 6000+6000+18000+5000+3000 = S$38,000 

Not bad at all.