Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuan (30 years old, Nam Dinh) and her husband are both workers and have two children of school age. Every time a new school year starts, it is also the time when her family worries the most.
“The new school year costs all sorts of money, the lowest is 7 million VND, not to mention clothes and school supplies for the children. Even the lightest is more than 1 million VND” - Ms. Thuan confided.
With an average total income of 15 - 17 million VND/month, Ms. Thuan said that she still has to save from August to have enough to pay for her children's tuition at the beginning of the year. Because if she waits until September, she will not be able to pay in time because she still has to worry about many things.
“Even though it's in the countryside, everything is quite expensive. We still have to set aside an amount to pay the debt every month, so we don't have much left over. In August and September, we must limit living expenses otherwise we will be forced to borrow money at the beginning of the new school year to pay for our children's schooling" - Ms. Thuan said.
To save money at the beginning of the school year, Ms. Thuan decided to buy used textbooks instead of new ones. In addition, she also carefully sorted out and stored her children's school supplies right from the summer break to avoid losing them and having to buy new ones.
During the National Day holiday on September 2, the female worker shared that if she had a bonus, she would only buy food to cook at home or go to the beach near her house. The goal is still to save money to have enough money to pay for her children's school fees.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu (28 years old, Nam Dinh) - a leather shoe worker - said that since the summer vacation, she and her husband have planned to save money to prepare for their children at the beginning of the new school year.
“I have never attended a parent-teacher meeting where the beginning of the year fees were less than 2.5 million VND. This year, it will probably be over 3 million VND because there was an announcement that health insurance and tuition fees have increased by one and a half times compared to last year,” Ms. Thu confided.
Currently, Ms. Thu has two children, the eldest is starting 2nd grade, the youngest is starting 4-year-old kindergarten. Ms. Thu estimates the total cost for the new school year for her two children to be about 6 million VND.
To have money to pay for school fees at the beginning of the year, Ms. Thu discussed with her husband to save at least 2 million VND/month since June. Ms. Thu also minimized buying clothes and buying some items for the newly built house.
In addition, despite being pregnant, Ms. Thu still decided to work 8 hours of administrative hours (1 hour more than the regulation) to earn more income. This overtime helps her earn an additional 700,000 VND/month.
In addition, she and her husband also decided to send their youngest child to a public school this year to save money and make new friends. Compared to studying at a private school in previous years, Ms. Thu shared that she saved about 600,000 VND/month.
