Dear YW,
Don't worry about the comments made by "Aceman" and "Unnamed". I think that you are more generous towards your maid than most other employers in Singapore.
My husband & I are in a similar situation to yourselves. We are an expat couple without kids and have been living and working in Singapore for the past 3.5 years. Since both of us usually work long hours, we decided to hire a maid to help us to do the housework and cooking. Both of us are just too tired to cook dinner late at night after we come home from the office. We would also prefer not to spend our weekends vacuuming, mopping, washing and ironing so we thought it would be a good idea to have a maid.
When we first employed our current maid, we gave her the option of either eating the same food as us i.e. Western and vegetarian food or getting a food allowance and cooking her own food. All of our maids prefer to have a food allowance because they like shopping at the wet market and buying their own food. Also, they all seem to like eating deep fried fish and stir fried vegies with lots of chilli - dishes which my husband & I just don't eat.
My current maid spends about 2 hours a day cleaning the house for us. She also does the washing and ironing twice a week. She normally finishes her work by lunchtime and then goes to her room and either watches TV, listens to the radio or reads magazines. She doesn't have to do any more work until about 7.00 pm when she cooks our dinner.
I originally gave our maid $40.00 a week to buy her groceries from the wet market but for some reason, she never seems to spend any more than $20.00 a week. For $20.00, she can buy a couple of fish, some fresh chicken and pork, lots of fresh chinese vegies, lots of fruit and some tofu. On top of that, I buy her a large bag of rice every couple of weeks, a huge supply of mee goreng instant noodles (she loves them), a litre of milk every 2 days, a couple of loaves of bread every week, and eggs. I also tell her that she can help herself to tea, coffee, bottled water and milo and to our fruit and vegies. Our maid doesn't like the food that we eat because my husband eats Aussie food with lots of cheese eg. spaghetti bolognaise and macaroni cheese and I'm vegetarian.
I prefer to buy my groceries from Tanglin Mall and from the Organic Health Food shops in Orchard Road. I hardly ever shop at the wetmarkets because I like organic produce. I often ask my maid whether she would like any groceries from the supermarket, but she always tells me that she would prefer to buy her own food from the wetmarket.
