The “Ask the Readers” feature has always been popular at Get Rich Slowly. It’s a great way for people like you to ask questions about money, and, best of all, it’s a chance to help others solve their problems. But there’s no doubt that the “how much do you spend?” questions get the most responses.
Maybe that’s why Kate wrote recently to ask a question that hadn’t ever occurred to me. She wants to know how much you spend on kids. Here’s her e-mail:
We’re thinking about starting a family soon. I realize there are a lot of costs when it comes to having and raising a child, from clothes to diapers to child care to toys to car seats. I also know that these costs can vary greatly, but having never been a parent before, I have no idea what the range can be. I’d like to hear from readers about how much they spend per month on their children. Are we talking an extra $100 a month — or an extra thousand? Under what circumstances? Do the costs go up or down as the child grows?
This is one of those discussions where I’ll have to bow out. I spend zero dollars per month on children because, so far, I’ve elected not to have any. (But isn’t that “so far” kind of interesting? I think so.)
So, I leave Kate’s question entirely in your hands, readers. How much do you spend on your children? Are kids more expensive as newborns or as teenagers? How would you advise prospective parents to prepare financially?
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Our son is now 7 months old, so the costs I know are for newborn/infant.
pre-baby: about $400 to buy new things. We were given a lot of hand-me-downs, so didn’t need to purchase many clothes or extras.
baby arriving: for us, these were costs for adoption-related services; for most, these would be costs for prenatal care/delivery/c-section if necessary/hospital stay.
post baby: We spend about $300/month on formula, diapers, medical care, and extras. Our formula alone is about $85/month, so if you’re able to breastfeed, you can cut that out. We also are a single income family, so we have not had to pay for child care, which can be crazy expensive.
random: We just spent about $1,500 to take our son to meet extended family out of town – a trip we definitely would not have taken otherwise, so maybe think about things like that as well.
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We have a 9 month old and have managed to spend very little per month. Her clothes are hand me downs and gifts, we have made her cloth diapers (which work great!) and between nursing and making her food we spend very little in the feeding department. Daycare costs $700/month and other than that we usually don’t dip into what we budget for baby costs each month.
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8 months old, and probably $100-$150 a month on baby food, clothes, and miscellaneous. And $95 a week for daycare (MS is cheap). We use cloth diapers and I’m still nursing, so no extra expenses there.
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Our family is right at the poverty line — the recession hit us kind of hard. We have four kids. They are all teens now. I don’t think we spend a whole lot on them because there just isn’t much to spend.
Folks are right that clothes get more expensive and it’s harder to find decent second hand stuff, but they do tend to wear things longer. I buy only one or two pairs of shoes per kid each year. Coats can last around three years if you get them a little big.
We have a minivan and it was nice when the kids were younger. Now that they are older all six of us rarely go anywhere all at once, so I usually drive the 2000 Ford Focus and it reduces how much I spend on gas by half.
The house we live in is larger than it would be if it were just my husband and I, but it’s still less than 1200 sq ft and we do just fine here — though we do have to be considerate about sharing one bathroom.
Food is our largest single expense. Part of that is that our sons have autism that causes some sensory issues with food, making them hard to feed. If I don’t want to eat the same thing all the time, I have to get them separate stuff they can make for themselves.
We don’t do lessons or private school or sports. The kids are missing out on some of those opportunities because of our status. They do participate in some of the low-cost stuff their schools offer, though.
Our oldest is attending a state college without any debt because she earned scholarships and she lives at home instead of the dorms.
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Zero. I have no children.
Do a piece on how much we spend each month on our pets.
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WOW, tough question. If you really want to know the cost, you may decide against children. They are terribly expensive. Mine are young adults now and they consume a massive amount of food. They do contribute to the food budget and their clothing. The misc. column is what can get you. But regardless of the cost, it is so worth every cent you will spend on them. You will never regret having children, even during the not so good times. I have two boys and I would not trade them for the world. I did take off several years when they were young to stay home with them which has set me back financially, but again worth it!! Good luck to you and please dont over think the cost.
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We live in a small town in Wisconsin and have a 2 year old and another baby on the way. As others have said, rummage sales and consignment sales are your friend! Babies don’t need brand new stuff (aside from cribs and carseats). We were lucky enough to get tons of hand-me-downs or be able to borrow things from friends/siblings, such as a bassinet, swing, etc. Plus, you get a TON of the necessities at your baby shower if you choose to have one.
The biggest expense for us is daycare, about $175/week (cash), and this is on the cheaper side from what I hear for our area. So that is $700/month, plus diapers are at least $50-$100/month, and formula that first year is about $150-$200/month. It saves some money once the child turns one and can eat table food.
As others have said, we definitely don’t spend as much money as we used to on going out, since you have to figure in an extra $50+ to your evening for a babysitter. Makes you think real hard about whether it’s worth it to go out or not. (Although sometimes scheduling a date night is a necessity!)
We are fortunate enough to have our only major expense be our mortgage. We have both vehicles paid off, student loans paid off, etc. So we are able to afford the costs associated with a child or two. I do wonder how some of our friends can manage financially when I know they have more bills than we do and kids as well (in daycare). It’s a tricky balance, but totally worth it!
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I find it interesting that only a few commented on your “so far” comment – which I caught on to immediately. That topic is so much more interesting than the cost of having children! I don’t know if that was one of the catalysts to the breakup (and I’m not asking for you to spill the beans either) but I know another couple that divorced for the exact reason. They remain friends but the husband has remarried and has children now.
There are lots of comments already about the costs of having children so I’m only going to throw my best advice out there. I have 2 kids, ages 5 and 2. If you both work now, try to keep your expenses low, live off one income and save money. Give yourself the option to have one parent at home if they want. A lot of things change once you have kids. Even if you think you will want to work, you might change your mind. Maybe not 1 year down the road, but 3 or 4 years in, or after a few kids. I wish someone had given us this advice.
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To my knowledge, a relationship isn’t going to work if one person is a “meh” and the other is an “absolutely not” on kids. The older you get, the more that “meh” turns into a “maybe” and then a “yes, and soon!”
Not that this is what happened with JD, I have no idea, and it’s none of my business. But it is I think good advice for those contemplating kids or entering relationships where it is a remote possibility.
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I have 2 kids – 3 and 7 years old. I also work full time and live in the Boston area where costs are higher than other parts of the country. Here is my breakdown:
Daycare: $1600/mo for my 3 year old. My son goes to public school but I have to pay $340 a month for “extended day” care since his school day ends at 2:30pm. In addition there are the many school vacation weeks and summer camps so in addition to the $340 a month for 9 months, I have to pay $4k for camps to fill the school vacations. Total cost: $26,220 a year for Daycare to allow me to work full time.
Clothes/Shoes/Diapers – these can be done cheap. I do a lot of second hand shops for clothes and garage sales and sales in general. I do buy new shoes although kid’s feet grow fast so I have to get them new shoes every 3-6 months. Diapers you can do cloth and wash your own or disposable. I’d say I pay $400/yr for clothes/shoes/diapers.
Food – hard to say as it is now part of the budget. Formula is expensive and can cost upwards of $50/month if you go that route. But now that my kids eat just regular food, it is hard to say how much is “just for them.”
But there are a lot of other little things too that sneak up on you. There are presents for kid’s birthday parties, there are the costs of entertainment for kids, once the kid is in schools there are PTO costs and fundraisers. Kids like books and toys and yes, you can go to the library and yes, you can buy resale toys but there are going to be times when your kid will convince you that you really should buy them “x” when you are at the store. There are also more copays and medications as kids tend to see the pediatrician more when they are young.
Overall, the biggest cost by far is daycare. If you are in the position to be able to have a stay at home parent, this will be a significant savings unless the loss of income is too great in comparison.
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We live in Boston area and have one toddler. Our annual costs are about the same as Meredith’s. The expense of clothes, toys, shoes, books, etc are relatively small, largely dwarfed by very high (and well worth it) childcare cost of $2000/month for a live-in caregiver. There certainly are less expensive options. Our childcare costs are higher than our mortgage (and that’s saying something in metro Boston). Still, no regrets, our daughter is the most fantastic thing that ever happened to us (I really can’t believe how blessed we are), and that is after I spend 35+ years being determinedly and resolutely child free
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Too much!
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By far the biggest expense for my two year old is childcare, and we have a sweet deal where our aunt is watching him. We still pay her though, but it comes out to $660 a month. For preschools in our area, we’re looking at close to $1k a month.
During the pregnancy year, we spent $10k, most of it due to the $2k deductible on my insurance plan. The rest was the gear, other medical expenses and such.
We’ve also moved to a two-bedroom, which brought up our rent an extra $200 a month.
We buy a few clothes but thankfully clothes and toys are few and far between because family gives us those as gifts, and we don’t really like buying our kid too many toys.
We go on family outings but definitely try to keep it free or inexpensive.
During the first year, I breastfed, so that saved a ton on formula, but I did have to buy the pump and bottles and such. We made homemade baby food so the cost for that was very low. Now he eats what we eat.
We spend $52 on 168 diapers about every month or month and a half.
Good luck to you! There are a few calculators online that help you set up a budget, especially for that first year. But yes, they’re expensive, especially if you live in a high cost area like me.
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I think if you look at children from a purely financial standpoint, you’d never have any. My children were unplanned, but never unwanted. Daycare was a big cost, but doable, even when I was trying to finish my degree, and we had one income. I don’t know how we managed when I start reading about all the expenses people have. We lived paycheck to paycheck, but so did a lot of people. If we could have done it differently (and of course we could have), I think having a healthy emergency fund would have been the key. But we muddled through and now we enjoy having our adult children visiting–not staying, just visiting.
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then again, from a purely financial standpoint, you could view them as a retirement investment. if that doesn’t pan out, then your sunk costs are *huge*. but the cost of day care pales in comparison to assisted living and nursing homes!
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There’s no guarantee that your children will be there for you – either emotionally or financially. Your kids can – god forbid – die in childhood or young adulthood. You can have disabled children whom you’d have to take care of for the rest of THEIR lives. You can have a very bad relationship with your kids through faults (or no fault) of your own. Even if you are on good terms, many kids see their parents maybe once or twice a year, or they live far away or just don’t make enough money to care for 2 households (their own and the parents).
I wouldn’t have kids with the thought that they’d “take care of me financially” when I’m old. My parents have already told me that they’d expect me to oversee their finances, but it’d be all the money that they have saved. In their opinion, part of the responsibility of being a parent is that you provide for your own retirement so that you don’t burden your children with your financial troubles.
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You can always put them to work at age 16. 14 if you live in a farm town.
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Can’t believe people actually have kids with the thought that those kids will be taking care of their parents in later years.
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2 Children Here – 16 months & 8 years.
Full Time Daycare for the 16 month old is $700 a month, plus before & afterschool care for the 8 year old another $150 a month in an In House Daycare. Corporate Daycare in this area of Arizona charges a good 20% more than that. IRS Says I’m allowed to deduct a max of $5000 a year, my Cheap childcare ran $6600 last year! lol.
Diapers for the young one $60 a month, we make our own Baby Food from Fresh Fruit & Vegetables purchased from a local farmers market (Cheaper than the Grocery Store), so save a lot of money there – but Fruit & Vegetables alone run $150 a month.
Another $300 a month in additional groceries over what we would likely buy without the kids.
Clothes, Shoes, School Supplies – $75 a month.
Luckily I work for an Airline, so vacations away from town are frequent and affordable, I’m not quite sure how a family of 4 working a regular non-airline job can afford a vacation tho.
Basically – It’s not cheap. But would I trade being a father for anything? Nope. Most rewarding experience ever. My 2 girls have me wrapped around their little fingers
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I’m due in September… it seems from my research that any costs pale in comparison to the cost of either daycare or not working.
In my area day care is about $1000/month. It definitely makes you wonder about working at a job that only pays $2500 or so after taxes. I mean, I like my job, but would I keep doing it if I had to take a 40% pay cut AND be away from my baby all day? Or if I do contract work and get paid $32/hour, but $10 goes to the babysitter, it’s not such a great rate all of a sudden.
Compared to that, a couple hundred for supplies seems negligible.
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My DH and I are in our late twenties and not quite ready for kids, but considering it within the next 3-5 years. I knew daycare was pricey but did not realize exactly *how* pricey until reading the comments and doing some quick research about costs in my area. Yes, with infant daycare running $1000-1300 per month, and my takehome running about $2600, I too think it would be very difficult to hand my baby off to someone else’s care all day while working for a 50% paycut. My DH makes only slightly more than I do, so my staying home would put us in a financial bind, as we’d need to make some big changes and sacrifices to even consider it. Not to mention the difficulty of re-entry into the workforce for moms who do stay home for a few years. Yikes.
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Plenty of other have chimed in on costs as the kids are growing – the one thing I’d like to note is that crazy stuff can sometimes happen medically.
Our 2nd daughter was full-term but ended up having to spend almost a month in the NICU (she’s perfectly healthy now, thankfully!). All told her birth, hospital stay, our travel to and from the hospital, and my lost wages (since I needed more time off than I had leave) ended up costing us around $10,000. And yes, we have decent medical insurance (our total bill without insurance added up to significantly more than the value of our house and all our possessions combined…).
Not to scare anyone – and admittedly our experience was rare – but definitely take a hard look at your insurance coverage before having kids!
Post-birth-related expenses, both kids have been fairly affordable in terms of actual costs – but there’s a major opportunity cost since my wife stays home with them instead of receiving a salary.
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Medical expenses have probably been the biggest surprise for us as well. We too have “good” medical insurance but we also chose home-births, not covered by insurance, which for three children cost us about $8000. We eat healthy which I know helps keep medical costs down and long term will benefit them as well. Our middle son, we’ll call him Tarzan, decided to jump out of a tree and broke his arm. Broken arms are not a huge expenses unless they break it in just the right spot, requiring surgery. Even with decent insurance our out of pocket on that was $1500. Not long after that our oldest son jumped off a huge boulder while at the park (what is it with kids jumping off EVERYTHING?) and spent the next couple days limping around before I thought maybe it’s more than a pulled muscle. $250 later (urgent care) we were told it was just a pulled muscle. Sigh. Don’t even get me started on dentistry and ortho. For 3 kids. But somehow they’re worth it…every penny.
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Our son (only child) just turned 12. He costs us about $2,500/month in various care/activities/school/etc. Here’s a rough monthly breakdown:
Food: $200
Healthcare: $150
Braces (after dental insurance): $200
School (private): $1,650 (and then there are always fundraisers, bake
sales, etc. – so add another $25/month)
Uniform: $25-$50
Other Clothing: $25-$50
Shoes (inc. cleats): $60
Sports Fees: $100
Sports Equip: $50
Sports-Related Travel Expenses: $75
Camps (sports and summer): $100
Other (movies, sitters, activities, toys, etc.): $75
And, of course, we are looking at around $200K for a decent college education.
Life with a child has gotten increasingly more expensive as he’s grown. More activities, more schooling, more food, giant shoes…!
Kids are expensive, yet they are totally worth it – oh, there are times you want to sell them to the next person who walks by – but, in general, they add so much to your life. I think things would be pretty boring around here without our son.
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As the parent of an 11 and 14 year old, I can definitely say kids get more expensive as they get older.
I remember the diaper and daycare days. And diapers can seem like a huge investment. But frankly, it will all depend on what you willing to spend your money on. There is a lot of “stuff” you can buy for kids. Or you can go second hand. Make your own food, or buy cloth diapers. Choices you make depend on your circumstances, income, and environment.
And while my kids are in school now (and I’m not paying for daycare) the things they “need”, sports, school costs, trips, camps and (soon to be) car insurance for a teen add odd and varied costs to our monthly budget. We don’t make a huge amount of money, but our kids have clothing, food, a decent house and reasonable amount of activities. They’re happy and pleasant kids. And, horrors, they don’t own a cell phone or PSP.
It’s not about the cost. You’ll make that work. And there are friends and grandparents and neighbors who would love to share or buy things for you. Once the little one is in your arms, your decisions will change again.
Everything can seem so rational right now. But suddenly the bargain diapers won’t work because they keep leaking and your poor baby won’t sleep through the night because his bed is soaking wet.
Children are a money pit. But you have them because you want to and you make it work.
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We have two teens and a toddler. We spend about $1000 a month on our two teens. This includes clothing, extracurriculars, education savings, braces, and paying for summer activities.
We also had a baby who is about to go into daycare. That’s $1800/month for the first six months, and when’s shes 18 months old in the fall, we’ll go down to $1200/month. We also put aside some money for education, and other baby-related expenses. So that’s about $2000 a month for her right now (we breast fed/cloth diapered, so there wasn’t much expense to that, and I’m just wrapping up a year long maternity leave, so we haven’t had to pay for child care yet).
I guess we’re around $3,000 a month for kids. I’m really scared in two years from now when we’re going to have one in post-secondary education and one in child care at the same time. Shudder!
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I have a 3 month old at home. The financial costs are actually less than I imagined. Formula, diapers, clothes, and random other stuff is maybe $100 to $200 a month. Childcare is about $300 a month.
The costs seem vary wildly from one moth to the next. Like this month she turned 3 months old and started growing out of all of her 0-3 months clothes, so we had to buy some bigger stuff.
We have been given ALOT of help from friends and family, however, so if you dont have family close by or dont have a good relationship then costs could be more.
The biggest costs comes from the oppurtunity cost of making more money, IMO. Our little one takes up so much time its difficult to do the normal side projects and other work that both us have done in the past. Between tutoring, after-school programs, and summer school that my wife used to do pre-baby, and the freelance writing and freelance IT work I did pre-baby, we are missing out on a substantial amount of extra-income.
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By far the opportunity cost of lost work – or the cost of daycare far eclipse anything else.
I stayed home with ours for 6 mo. unpaid.
I remember commenting on how little she cost at the time – when my mother pointed out to me that I wasn’t working, and I realized that this would be the most expensive year of her life.
I make around 6 figures, so those first 6mo costs me around $50,000.
They were WORTH EVERY PENNY of it!
I went back at a part time schedule and still pay about $1500 a month for daycare – a combination of daycare and one-on-one with a nanny. I guess I’m the sucker cause it’s about double what most are paying – but I’m happy with the arrangement. She gets care that I can feel good about, and I get to keep a personally rewarding career that I investing in heavily before she was born. My mother started over when she had kids and took 7 years off, I don’t want my daughter to feel that it is a requirement of women to throw away a lucritive career to have children, but I work part time so I don’t miss these years.
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I spend about $60 a month per child for food as I average around $300 a month for family of 5.
I never did daycare as I always stayed home when my kids were little or did alternating shifts from my husband so at least one of us was home at all times with the kids.
I spend usually in good years about $150 for each birthday and each for christmas.
I buy clearance clothes or garage sale or thrift store clothes so I don’t spend much a year on clothes at all.
When they were a baby, what was not recieved at baby showers was gotten the same way as clothes so did not spend much there either.
I homeschool so I spend about $500 a year for educational materials and sometimes more depending on interests such as my daughter wants to learn violin so will be adding music lessons monthly and she is taking a series of art workshops that I paid $45 for 6 workshops for.
I do have a 25 year old daughter living with us as well but only america views this as a bad thing. For us we are a close loving family, she is not free loading, she is disabled and pays rent to help out, I cook she does dishes and she babysits her siblings on the rare occasion me and hubby go out. It works well for us and works well for her so we see no reason to change this at the present moment.
It makes her life easier and ours.
All I all I would say I spend around $1500 a year maybe $2000 per child a year.
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When my kids were in fulltime daycare (ages 4 and infant), we spent $1400 per month on childcare alone. This is in Columbus Ohio which is not a high cost of living place. This was also at one of the least expensive daycare centers in the area.
For food, Our family grocery budget is $75 per week. My younger child still breastfeeds but now he’s a toddler who eats as much as my now 5yo. I’d estimate that the kids eat $25 in food per week.
Once we had kids, we bought a second car. Before that we were a 1 car family. That didn’t work well with having kids. We bought a used car but there are the fuel, insurance, maintenance, fees.
We have a college savings account for each child, we put in $2k per year per kid, so that is $334 per month.
For clothes, I purchase secondhand and spend about $50 per year per child.
Medical care- having family insurance costs us $200 more per month than individual + spouse. My youngest got sick all the time in daycare and we had plenty of $20 sick visits and $10 antibiotics. The labor and delivery for each child cost $2k even with insurance.
One time costs- crib and mattress $350, glider rocking chair $75 (used), 2 dressers (one for each kid, bought at Ikea) $200, 4 bookshelves $200 (bought at Ikea), high chair $50, 2 booster seats for car $50 each, , 2 car seats for cars $200 each, stroller $100, sling $30, booster seat for table $30.
Ongoing costs- diapers- we use a mix of cloth (which I got secondhand for about $25) and disposable which I pay about $.15 per size 5 diaper. So I spend about $20 per month on disposable diapers.
Entertainment- we heavily use the library and parks and rec. Science museum and zoo membership are paid for by the inlaws for the kids for Christmas. Most of the kids’ toys are gifts from relatives. We do pay for swimming lessons and gymnastics lessons at $5 per week per kid.
I quit my job 8 months ago so we no longer have daycare costs. I suppose the cost of that was my $64k/year salary.
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See below for a look at the tail end of child rearing (hint: child care & diapers are replaced with other expenses!)
From age 17 to current nearly 20 (so 3 years), we have spent $29,000 on my son. This is when I started to track it fairly accurately (so I could adjust our budget when he moved out – which hasn’t happened, of course, but we all have our pipe dreams, right?)
$5400 – insurance.
$4000 – college expenses (community college; lives at home. This will go up!)
$7000 – activities (sports), leisure (movies, etc), and miscellaneous kid-related expenses (like the up-front cost to buy a Cutco knife kit the summer he decided he was going to get rich selling Cutco).
$1770 – school-related (SAVE UP for senior year – it is one expense after another!)
$1550 – clothing (second-hand stores are our life’s blood!)
$5000 – vacations (the last vacation he came with us was in 2010, but we’re hoping to do a family vacation in 2012 – WITH his girlfriend, of course…cha ching!).
$4050 – medical expenses (healthy kid overall)
$3000 – groceries (1/3 allocation of grocery bills)
$920 – automobile (expenses started in 2011 when he was given his grandmother’s car after her death)
$820 – cell phone (we went cheaper than a lot of parents I see – no smartphone, bought used replacements off Ebay when he lost or destroyed yet another phone, and no text service until he was a senior)
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What about the cost of actually having the baby in a hospital? What I’ve heard is that you should budget for $10,000 (depending on your insurance) and that’s only if everything goes well. If you need a C-section or if anything goes wrong during your delivery, double that cost. Completely anecdotal: a friend of mine had a baby a couple of years ago and something went wrong. She needed a blood transfusion the day after giving birth, and yep, their hospital bill doubled what they budgeted for. They were still paying it off well past the kid’s first birthday.
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That does not sound correct to me.It really depends on your insurnace coverage specifically your deductible.
I would budget whatever your max out of pocket deductible is. You’ll hit your first deductible easy and then you’ll likely pay 80% of costs until you hit your out of pocket max for the family.That would include any crazy care for (god forbid) a sick newborn.
I had about the worst pregnancy (emergency surgery at 13 weeks pregnant followed by a week in the ICU) and delivery long labor followed by emergency c-section and a nearly complete (3 bags) blood transfusion. We did have a well baby! Our total cost was about $4,500 for doctors, hospital etc. Think it would have gone up another $1,500 if the baby would have had something wrong to cover his first deductible. And that was with mediocre insurance. We have much better coverage and this baby will cost us about $500 total.(yes I’m doing it again)
Know your policy, know what’s covered and whats not. Make sure you pick doctors and facilities that are “in network” Ask questions about any bill that’s not covered that you think should be. If your questions are not answered to your satisfaction or you think that the insurance company is still incorrect- APPEAL!!! You can appeal twice in writing, the third time a non biased third party will review your claim. This is WORTH the time!!!
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I paid that much for a hospital birth and I had no OB or meds. It depends on your insurance coverage.
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I spend zero dollars per month on human children, but close to $250 per month on care and feeding of a pair of middle-aged cats. This includes their annual teeth-cleaning & exams at a local cat-only clinic, and paying a pet sitter when we go out of town.
I certainly wouldn’t budget less than that for a child. I suspect the $500+ range would be more reasonable, esp. if any paid daycare is needed.
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Our biggest cost by far right now is daycare ($750/mo for full time daycare for a 2.5 year old in a church daycare – still low compared to many others) but this is needed for our lifestyle (2 working parents). We are planning on public school after kindergarten so plan to start contributing that money to a 529 when that happens. Second cost is health care – our daughter is relatively healthy but has had ear infections / tubes and will need tonsils & adenoids out soon and I’m sure we’ll be looking at braces and glasses at some point. I find we are meeting our $1500 deductable for her every year. Food and ‘stuff’ I consider hard to predict – you can go cheap or spend a LOT of money depending on what you value. For us it hasn’t been much.
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Has anyone every calculated the ROI on raising a kid?
As both an investment in time & money, what costs have the most impact?
As one that doesn’t have kids (no desire to have any) I find it amazing that some parents pay very little to raise their kids while others pay out more than some people make in month.
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I find that people who say – “Kids don’t cost anything.” are either conveniently forgetting their lost wages – or they didn’t make much to begin with.
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I also read a really good post by a new mom about the costs of breast-feeding. I’m not a mom, but it always bugged me a little when people say breast-feeding is “free.” Along the same veins of a parent staying home to care for kids is “free.” Those choices come with very real costs, and just because you are not paying someone ELSE to perform those services doesn’t mean there is no economic burden on the family member who is providing those services.
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I’m curious about that too, in a very impersonal way (no intention of adding offspring to our family). I have NO idea what percentage of income my parents spent on their two kids!
It seems like it wouldn’t have been much – for a while there we were pretty darned broke, if not actually “poor.” I don’t remember ever feeling deprived, but I really have no clue how the kid spending related to the overall spending, and how the overall spending related to income.
It seems like having a set of metrics on regional costs for child-rearing would be really helpful for people who haven’t yet embarked on reproduction and are trying to (mindfully) financially prepare for it.
The “you just make it work” attitude is kind of foreign to me as a compulsive planner.
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Since my earlier comment got lost in the internet ether. Here goes…
By far the largest expense (that you can reasonably plan for) is childcare – either in the form of lost wages for a stay at home parent or for actual paying for childcare.
I say you should have a good idea of what your monthly expenses are. What daycares cost in your area and well think out the financial reasons for working or staying home. Make a plan – and then *expect* to revisit that plan once the baby is born, and every 6mo afterwords. I have too many friends who just planned to put their kids in daycare and then felt trapped by their monetary position – that they couldn’t stay home when that’s what they really wanted. And then there are other friends who quit work – and wished now that they had been able to negotiate a few days a week because they also feel trapped by their money situation – and resentful that their career got thrown away. I’ll be honest – it’s a lot harder for Mom – but it’s not a no brainer for Dad either. Especially as kids get older and weaned – kids miss their Dad during the day too. A plan that involves either parent working so much they don’t get to spend time with their kids – is really hard on everyone.
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Spoiler alert: This is a comment that will annoy some people (sorry – kinda.)
Bad news. Once your child goes to school, they come in contact with other children and find out all the stuff they want. A TV in their room, game systems, clothes, sneakers, sun glasses, iPods, ipads, iphones, etc. THIS IS WHERE IT GETS REALLY TRICKY. If you are confident in yourself, and believe you are raising your children properly, you will have to say no to a lot of this stuff. Right now you may be thinking, “Ohh, I’ll say no.” However, kids are relentless – they have no mortgage or jobs, and have a lot of time on their hands with little to distract them – they will keep asking. They will pout, get annoyed, and say mean things. You must have the persistence and conviction to stick with your first answer.
Kids are a huge long term expense. If you are basing your “do we want children” decision on cost, bail now.
Let alone the financial cost, there are emotional and psychological costs (you get to stop worrying about them when you drop dead – see even death has its pluses).
If you are pondering having children, and are focused on the joy they will bring to your life and the world, but are concerned if you will be able to properly take care of them, then I say: If you can afford to adequately take care of yourself, then you can afford a child. It really is that simple. Here’s how it works:
1) You and your spouse decide to have a child.
2) You get pregnant (I assume naturally, otherwise cost bets are off) and start going to the doctor for checkups. If you were “able to take proper care of yourself” before you got pregnant (i.e. you had some sort of health plan or could afford to visit a doctor or clinic) then you can afford one now.
3) Baby comes. Oh Happy/Scary Day!
4) You look at how much you were making before you had the baby, and then check the cost of daycare (figure 1K per month). Do you make a lot more than 1K per month? Then put your child in day care. No? Then stay home with your child.
5) How will you make up the lost income? Your husband will need to get another or a different job. Was he already working two jobs? Were both of you already working two jobs? If so, then you were barely getting by before, and not in a position to take good care of yourself – THUS…kids not a good idea at the moment.
6) Fast forward a few years – the child is costing more, though not a lot more. Assuming you get clothes at thrift stores, and take hand me downs from relatives and friends, the costs are not huge. Not into used clothes? Want your child to look fancy/pretty/stylish? Great, if you can afford it.
7) Fast forward a few more years – kid starts school. Ahhhh…you can go back to work – assuming you can find a job that lets you leave at 2:30pm (and when your child is home sick). Schools in your area bad/unsafe – uhh ohhh – private school is pricy (5-25K per year).
9) Go out, get your child an ice cream, and get yourself one too. Unfortunately it all costs money. That’s OK, as long as you’re willing to sacrifice someplace else. Going off on a vacation and putting it on a credit card will not work.
10) Babysitter? Never used one. My wife and I go out by ourselves once a year on our anniversary, and my parents or in-laws watch the kids. “Once a year,” your thinking, “that’s crazy!” Not really. We like spending time with the kids. Soon enough they will be grown and gone and we will probably miss them more than a bit.
11) House cleaning service? Kids mess up a place faster than you would believe. You can yell and complain, and they will try hard to be neat, but they are after all kids, and will not be as neat as adults. If you hire someone to clean the house, figure on $125 per week for them to come once a week. Instead of doing that, we clean the place ourselves – every Saturday. Yes, there is a job list for each child. Yes, the kids complain. Yes the kids tell us (often) that “No other kid at school has to do jobs.” And we tell them, “Good for them.”
12) Allowance? Nope. Nada. Other than people on welfare, and the disabled, do you know of anyone who gets given money “just because”? The kids are resourceful. Money they get for birthday and Christmas is squirreled away, and spent on stuff they “really” want (like red sparkly shoes).
13) Travel? The first time I flew in an airplane was for my first job out of college (I’m an engineer and had to fly to nuclear power plants all over the US). This summer will be the first time my children fly (oldest is 14). We usually drive on any vacation we go on. A few summers ago, we spent three weeks driving across the US – saw a load of national parks (and no water parks or amusement parks). Lunch on vacation is stopping at a food store for a loaf of bread and cold cuts or PB&J.
14) What will you do for fun? Uhhh..live. Everyone helps cook, clean, do school projects, do home projects, etc. Yes, it often takes LONGER when you let the small kids “help”, but this is time invested, so they learn to be self sufficient humans.
15) Fast forward more years and your child wants to go to college. It will be hard to find a college that is less than $20K per year (actual cost). Do you have an extra $80K kicking around?
My point: If you want children, and you can afford to take care of yourself, then you can probably afford to take care of children (yes, childREN; there is an economy of scale to having more than one – at least till they get to college). No one here is going to be able to tell you what kind of life you will be able to provide for them (that’s a material/cost thing and varies way to much to calculate); and only you can tell how happy a life you can provide for them (once the whole “feed them an keep them warm” is covered, the rest comes from your brain, not your pocketbook).
I think *most* people who have children (and love them), looking back on it, would probably do it all again; even knowing the sacrifices it involves.
My father’s advice to me when I was pondering the potential cost of 3-4 children was, “Children are a blessing – truly a gift from God. It doesn’t matter how many you have. The costs just seem to take care of themselves. We had four, and while we were not rich, it all worked out.”
We sacrifice for the things we love – and it all usually works out. It really is that simple.
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Beautiful! Your kids are so lucky, and if they don’t know it now, they will someday.
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If a parent is home with the child, an infant can cost next to nothing. Currently, many couples can get a $1000 credit on their taxes for each child under 17. If an infant is fed only its mother’s milk and home-made baby food, the cost of feeding is only a couple hundred dollars a year, including the increased food Mom needs to eat to make milk. Cloth diapers and washing at home only cost about $200 a year after the initial investment. You can probably get all your cloth diapers, clothing and most baby gear as gifts or cheaply at yard sales. On the other hand, teenagers eat A LOT. And they want A LOT. Feeding and clothing a teenager is costly. My teenage boy easily eats $2500 of food bought at a discount in a year. Buying his clothes and shoes on sale brand new costs at least $2000 a year. You could do better if you make a kid wear Wal-mart or used clothes, but unless you live in a real poor neighborhood, he’ll stick out. If you have a teen in public school, you’ll still have to dish out at least a hundred dollars a year in school supplies and fees (like field trips). Then there’s the additional estimated $1200 a year for him to have a bedroom. We also spend about $2500 a month on extracurricular activities and entertainment expenses for our son.
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$2500 a month for entertainment for a teenager?
What kind of entertainment costs that much? Please enlighten me.
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2500 a month for a teenager? You are surely going to scare parents off. That may be a choice, but its not a necessity. Im sisty and a parent of twenty somethings. My insurance did not increase with kids because we became a family plan once we were two and did not increase as our family grew. Im not sure how you figure the cost of a bedroom honestly (not saying that its a bad thing to do so). We had our home before we had kids, up grading was not a necessity and I did not figure the coast of the bedroom.
that said, my kids were VERY active in school, and my son is over six six and grew four inches in half a year. I have never spent that kind of money on entertainment or on clothing. although jeans always had to be purchased new (as did shoes) we found like new fashionable clothing at thrift shops on a regular basis. My son wore brand name clothing throughout high school at about two bucks a pop on shirts.
As for entertainment, My kids got an allowance in high school that included spending money, dues, fees, lunch money and you name it. They went to upscale schools and were active in scouts, sports, after school activities and they both had social lives. Eventually I divvied up the clothing expenses over twelve months and added that to their allowances.
I grant you they are twenty, but that monthly expnese was a few hundred, not a thousand. And they considered that generous.
What I havent seen added for teenagers is driving. while in theory we did not buy our kids cars, we did end up with three cars through inheritance. However, all of those costs in terms of mainenance gas and insurance were paid by thekids or they stayed in the car.
Even if I had had 2500 in disposable income per month, I would not have spent it on my teenager.
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I’m 60 with kids in their 20′s. started at 30.Would do over again in a second.
Cost, who cares, kids are best thing in the world, good and bad, been there done that.
I’m an md so make obscene income compared to most of you I am sure, but in school half my life, also would do over in a second.
Have lived on credit cards and fumes, so know what that is like when in school. Never look back, onword.
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We have two kids, 2 and 4. Incremental monthly expenses are as follows:
Preschool: $400/month
Other childcare (babysitters, etc.): $200/month
Food: $100/month/kid
Diapers: $30/month/kid in diapers
529 contribution: $333/month/kid
Misc toys, treats, etc: $50/month
On a non-monthly basis, travelling is more expensive since we now have to purchase four airplane tickets (my family lives 3000 miles away, and we visit 2x a year on average). We also have memberships to things like the Children’s Museum, Zoo, OMSI that we probably wouldn’t without kids. We also purchased life insurance when we had kids, since if either one of us died the other would have to raise the kids alone, and we didn’t want that to cause financial hardship.
We pay next to nothing for clothing, almost everything is a hand-me-down or gift.
Also, my husband is a SAHD, and so if we didn’t have kids, we’d have his income – that is a big “opportunity cost”. If he did go back to work, our childcare expenses would be much higher.
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Kate, if you make it this far reading the comments, my take is the same as many here: costs vary widely. It depends on how many children you have, where you live, how you want to raise your children, your life circumstances, and sheer chance.
I have one child, a 14-y-o son. I rarely think about what he costs me (in money anyway) because I just don’t separate money spent raising him from the general family budget.
That said, here goes my best:
Health insurance covered my pregnancy and his birth; some co-pays.
Health insurance continues to cover well-patient visits; some co-pays. We’ve been very fortunate: no severe illnesses or injuries. So far one ER visit (cut on forehead required stitches); also, DS needs glasses so we pay for those. No or poor health insurance will do you in. Medical issues will cost, even with health insurance.
I breastfed so no formula costs; disposable diapers bought on sale and stockpiled; all furniture free or bought used. His crib converted to a toddler bed and we bought it used for $200. We received a washer/dryer as a gift, eliminating laundromat trips but raising our water usage so rent was raised. All clothes were thrift store buys b/c he grew so fast, except shoes which were $50/pair and replaced frequently as he grew. Toys and books were about half gifts, half we bought.
DAYCARE. OMG, DAYCARE. $800-$1200/month for 5 years. DH moonlighted to pay for it; cheaper than my quitting work.
Car usage went way up as it’s easier to drive than take public transit with a young’un. You don’t need a bigger car with one kid, but you DO need a 4-door to save your back. We drove a lot more so more on gas, parking, and car repairs. One exception: trips into downtown Boston (we live nearby) were done on the T; I park at work for free and we’d hop the train.
DS attends charter school – fantastic alternative to private school, superior to traditional public school. No tuition but various fund-raisers, Xmas gifts to teachers, etc. Lower school included violin lessons; I eventually bought him a violin from an online liquidator for $60 (10% of original cost). Middle/high school has a uniform; about $400-$500 every other year for that (to cover all the vagaries of Boston weather and his tendency to take off layers and forget to bring them home).
Summer day camp cost was comparable to daycare but only for 2 months. After school care was cheap for us, I think $7/day. Babysitting was non-existent so we never paid for it; we just took him everywhere or didn’t go. DH & I split vacation time to cover school vacations. We rarely travel but we live in Boston so LOTS to do here. Libraries are your friend. Here, you can also check out museum passes with limitations, so I took DS to museums a lot for free. Ice skating at Frog Pond. Feeding ducks from the swan boats in the Garden. More costly, movies (although we watch most at home; DH has a home theatre, which he had before we were parents), live performances (Jeff Dunham), and a couple of Red Sox games (insane cost). Lots and lots of ice cream. Too many books too (he loves to read, doesn’t want to borrow from the library, and they’re bought for cheap from used book stores).
After school programs: currently $85/month for karate, $600/year for a teen theater program running October-March, and $1850/year for a summer teen theater program. Karate runs more if there’s a tournament or he has a belt test. He’s also done Little League which costs maybe $50 plus trips to McDonald’s after games.
DS gets a discounted T pass through school, $20/month; it’s $60/month in the summer. Cell phone is a T-Mobile pay-as-you-go that cost $50 for the phone, $100 for the 1st year, and has run $10/year after that. Unfortunately he’s rough on things, including his phone, so we’re on #3 at the moment, I think about $100 each (because we transferred an existing number to it).
Clothes don’t seem to run much (SO glad I had a boy), probably because he doesn’t need much outside of school uniform; jeans and t-shirts from big box stores & an occasional suit. Exception is shoes; he has mild Asperger’s and won’t tie shoes, so they have to have velcro clasps. $100 or so about every 3 months or so.
Coats come from Goodwill; best purchase to date is a leather coat like Neo from the Matrix for $25. (Hint: the best secondhand stores are located on college campuses.)
Food was cheap when he was younger and lived off of Skippy peanut butter, now he eats like a horse. Only furniture we bought him since infancy is a new bed, which was $600 (bought the year the Feds gave families $600 back on taxes). His computer desk was free, his computer was $300 from a college student, still uses his old dresser, bookshelves were free. Craigslist and colleges have a lot of free stuff if you look and can move furniture yourself.
Allowance. DS gets some pocket money. We need to revisit this one soon but currently $10/week, $2 of which goes into savings account; this is “seed money” that he gets after college to start him off in the world. The remaining $8 is his to save or blow, primarily to teach him how to handle money. He’s done everything from save for weeks for an electronic gadget to deciding he’d rather get donuts on the way to school than eat at home.
DH works at a college that waives tuition for dependents who get in, so that’s our college plan. We may pay for a summer college prep program next year, which is $3300; maybe.
Probably our biggest cost has been in lost wages; I worked mostly mother’s hours during his childhood and only recently went to full-time. Years ago I had to turn down a fantastic career position because it was full-time; that remains my sole regret of becoming a parent.
For DH & me, our son has been worth every penny lost or spent. He’s funny, intelligent, wise, and kind, and raising him has definitely made us better people.
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Good luck. Tell them to study hard. I have a son in college, one in 9th grade and a daughter in 3rd grade. Son in college on merit scholarship (yea!). More likely to get this type of scholarship than athletic. Tell them to study hard. 2nd son is travel soccer player. He is expensive It adds up. Little girl is swimmer. Not so bad at this point. All I can say is it costs a good deal of money. Start the 529 accounts NOW.
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We’re cheapskates, and I was already staying home to take care of the house (we’re landlords) and do lots of stuff ourselves, so there was no loss of salary/childcare costs.
We have a 2.5 year old
Annually – $2600
$600 – diapers & wipes
$600 – extra transportation costs while visiting relatives
$100 – Museum admissions/memberships
$1000 – food
$200 – doctor’s appointments and otc meds (our healthplan doesn’t differentiate between subscriber+1 and family)
$1000 – babysitting and stupidity taxes (picking things up at the expensive grocery store, losing a bill, things like that.)
You’ll note I didn’t include anything for clothing or physical objects. We are lucky to have more handmedowns than we know what to do with.
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As the author of “The Naturally Frugal Baby”, I will say that the biggest cost of having children is opportunity cost–the other things that you have to give up or cut back on to care for your children: time, money, and freedom. People do spend a lot of money on their children, but it is usually possible to spend much less than the average.
Our money costs (when we had two young children) I figured were about $6500 per year, so $500-$600 per month for two, but that number includes everything from housing to health care premiums. I stay home, breastfeed, wash cloth diapers, and generally ignore the Baby-Industrial Complex.
Probably medical needs and health care are the biggest wild card, so this is a good time to review your current health insurance coverage and see what it really covers. It is also a good time to think about life insurance, if you haven’t already.
Beyond that, I’d advise building up a good cushion of savings–the birth of a baby is financially disruptive, even if it goes well–and paying off debt while you can still both work. (As The Complete Tightwad Gazette says, having children tends to bring your financial progress to a slow crawl.) If you’re thinking of quitting or cutting back on work to care for the baby, draw up a budget for that scenario and practice living within it.
Another thing that many people don’t think about ahead of time is taxes–having a child will lower your federal income tax (but not by enough to totally offset the cost of the child). The IRS has an online Withholding Calculator to help you figure out how many allowances to claim on your W4 forms, when the time comes.
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My husband and I deal with the childcare issue by working split shifts, I work as a substitute teacher during the day and my husband works at Home Depot overnight. It’s not ideal, but it works for the most part.
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Providing for our first child (now 16 months) has been a good deal less expensive than we thought it would be. For the room, we spent around $150 for a basic, but nice and safe crib. We also bought a used beat up dresser and painted it to suit, along with the wall. All in all, we probably spent around $300 setting up.
As far as all of the baby “gear” – our family, friends, and co-workers were very generous with shower gifts and hand-me downs.
Now we spend around $30 a month on diaper supplies and occasionally spend a little on second hand clothing. She eats the same food we do, so it is hard to quantify how much extra we spend, but it is probably less than $40 extra a month. There is the occasional co-pay, and health insurance does cost more.
Overall though, we did not see a huge impact to our tight budget. And nothing compares to the joy of a small child rushing into your arms at the end of a day.
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There is definitely a “golden time” when kids don’t cost you an arm and a leg. That time comes when they’ve finished college, you’ve paid for their wedding and helped them with a down payment on a house. So plan on a good 2-3 decades. And enjoy that “cheap” time that comes between the wedding and the grandkids ’cause once the grandkids come, you start thinking about a 529 for their education – not to mention the fun things you’ll want to do with them. But are they worth every cent? You bet – in spades!
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I am a very frugal person. I firmly believe that if you stay home with the baby, cloth diaper and breastfeed you could spend as little as $1000 over the course of the first year. But realistically – you will spend as much – or as little – as you choose to spend.
We have 4 kids and I have definitely found that they get more expensive as they age. But if you pay for full time daycare then your costs will likely be fairly even over time as they get into school and daycare costs go down.
How expensive it is will depend on what all you do or let them do. We choose to let our girls do competitive gymnastics – to the tune of $8000 per year. Someone else might not let their kids do outside activities – meaning they spend $0 on that. It is up to you how much you spend.
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But if you stay home with the baby, you’re “spending” the $50,000 or however much you would have made working that year.
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Regardless of how much money I were making I would still want to stay home with my babies.
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Daycare was the second biggest expense and college was the first. When both kids were in day care I had ZERO extra money. Not even enough money to make regular contributions to their college fund. Once they got out of daycare life was easier for us all.
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We have a 22-month-old. My feeling is that a kid can cost a little or a lot, but most of it depends on you.
I’ve found in general that people tend to spend on their kids the same way they spent on life before kids. That means if you were frugal before kids, you’re probably going to find a way to be frugal with kids. If you were someone who had to have new, name-brand goods before kids, you’re probably going to spend a lot on your kids once you have them.
We tend to be more the former than the latter. I know parents who bought fancy new baby furniture, clothes, fancy diaper bag, a new SUV, etc., in preparation for their new child. We opted to keep our compact 10-year-old vehicles and relied on hand-me-downs and consignment for most clothes, crib and cloth diapers. Our family and friends gave us big items like car seats and a jogging stroller for holidays, birthdays and the shower.
It’s true that daycare will cost you a pretty penny. You could try to save there, but I’d rather skimp on material goods than my child’s daily enrichment. Daycare generally runs about $600 to $1000/month where we live. Be sure to take advantage of dependent care savings accounts or the tax credit to reduce that bill.
You can do some homework and buy diapers in bulk. We also use cloth when he’s at home, which saved some money in the long run. Our bill for diapers and wipes runs about $30-35/month.
Our food bill hasn’t yet gone up considerably. We were making our own baby food for a while with produce we bought at the farmers’ market.
We make good money, but we like to save. We haven’t spent a whole lot of money on our child other than on daycare and diapers. The money we didn’t spend on new baby furniture, clothes or a bigger car has gone toward two things that benefit our child: his college fund and a down payment fund for a bigger house in a neighborhood with good schools.
As with everything, you’ll figure out the right balance that works for you.
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This is really useful…. thank you GRS Readers!!!
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I have a 4 year old, and anothe ron the way. The biggest expenses for our little guy when he was a baby, were diapers (around $50 a month for LUV’s cause he was a POOP MACHINE!!) wipes, ($5ish a month?) health insurance ($100 ish a month) and as he got a little bigger, jarred food (wasn’t worth my sanity to save $10 a week on making it) and the gear a bigger kid needs, potty, traning pants, etc.
I always bought socks, shoes and undies new, but until recently, (I have a boy, and so you know the used clothes are usually holy) 70% of his clothes were from yard sales, bought far in advance for a quarter, or 50 cents each, or at a gently used kids shop, and because of those huge prices, he has always had a HUGE wardrobe.
I did nurse him, and I’ve been lucky to stay at home, so didn’t have those expsenes of formule or daycare.
Toys: A goo dportion of his toys were bought at yard sales, or at Target’s semi annual 75% off toy clearence, gifts, or, I admit it, those little impluse things mommy would buy him. He still gets yard sale toys, and a time or two a month, I get him something at Target, a new Star Wars guy, or lightsaber, etc. He’s got a ton of books, well over 100, but 90% are bought used, for a quarter or 50 cents.
He’s at the age where he’s starting ot have to hav ehis clothes bought new, which is going to stink, and of course, you always have to insure them, but he doesn’t add on tons to the grocery bill or anything else really, so it’s pretty good right now.
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I have to say that I’m incredibly jealous of those that got to breastfeed or only had formula costs of $50 a month.
I’d say if you’re trying to work up a budget, work up two. One with the best case scenario if nothing goes wrong and another with the highest possible costs.
It’s a long story, but I ended up not being able to breastfeed and my 7 month old ended up being allergic to regular formula. She’s a premie so the doc put her on the hypoallergenic formula. $23 a canister which only lasts 3 or 4 days. I figured out once that she was costing me $11 a day in diapers and formula when she was about 1 month adjusted age.
Maybe I’m naive but I think that’s the cost that I didn’t count on being so high. Everything else you could pretty much plan for. Like other people have said, it does come down to what you want for your kids.
Also, the generosity of others. I wasn’t able to have a baby shower (she showed up a wee might early and I was in the hospital for 2 weeks before that), but we’ve been blessed that folks have still been awesome giving our daughter gifts we couldn’t have afforded otherwise.
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I’m a single dad, 50K/yr, 2 boys 16 and 18. I never budgeted out the cost by dollar, but the answer is simple for me – the cost of these kids for 20 years has been about 90% of my discretionary income. Sometimes the living seems lean to me, but my boys don’t know the difference. There was always a constant evaluation of what we could do with what we had. I drive a 96 Jeep, but in that Jeep we’ve taken many vacations across the country. Some families have more, some have less, but my disposition from the outset was giving my kids 20 solid years of everything I could. I don’t regret a cent of it. I I had significantly more income, I think my answer would be greatly different – I’d simply have true discretionary income to allocate. I never had that problem, though
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There is really no way to know how much having children will cost. Not all children have the same needs. If you have a child with special needs, you may find yourself spending a considerable amount on medication and medical treatment, therapy, special foods, and so on. A child with special needs might also affect your finances in other ways. I have a son with autism and because he has therapy every day and finding appropriate child care is difficult, there was no way both my husband and I could work full-time. At least one of us needed to be a full-time parent. I am fortunate that I have a part-time job working from home, but it does not pay nearly as much as my old full-time job.
When you are considering having a child, asking yourself whether you can afford it should not be as important as asking yourself whether you would want to have children even if it cost you every cent you had and then some. Because sometimes it does. I didn’t say this to scare you, but it is something to keep in mind.
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For us, birth was $1,500 and then 3 weeks in the NICU cost $3,500 and that is with decent insurance. We get most of his clothes used though that is harder now. Daycare was higher in the beginning, but is $610 for 4 days a week now. I did not anticipate that afterschool care in kindergarden, which begins in the fall, would be $300 or so a month, but we are avoiding the before school portion which is another $200 by ajusting our schedules. We do not have to pay for all day kindergarden, but about half of our district does and that would be another $385 or so. Care does not end at school age.
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I come to this question from a very different perspective. I am infertile, and my husband and I are pursuing domestic infant adoption.
The average costs of an adoption is around $25,000-$30,000, but we have met families who have spent more than $50,000 to adopt. (It is also possible to adopt through foster care at a much lower cost.)
In addition, where I work, adoptive parents do not qualify for the same maternity leave benefits as biological moms, so I will lose six weeks of salary during maternity leave.
Finally, because the timing of adoption is very uncertain, we haven’t had a traditional baby shower and have stocked up on most of the basics on our own. (Although we have received some very generous hand-me-downs from friends and family!)
We are pretty frugal and live below our means. We have been putting about $2,000/month into a special savings account to cover our anticipated adoption costs for almost two years. Daycare in our area for infants ranges from $1,200-$1,600/month. We are hoping that the $2,000/month we are currently putting into savings will be enough to cover daycare and other child-related costs if we are lucky enough to be matched to a baby.
Being forced to wait so long to build our family has given us a lot of time to think about what matters to us as hopeful future parents. One thing you can count on as a parent (I’m told) is to expect the unexpected. Even in our journey so far, we have encountered many unexpected twists and turns. I am a planner and am a huge fan of planning up front, but the past few years have also taught me about the importance of being flexible and being able to respond to the unexpected.
I wish you all the best as you expand your family!
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These reader responses are very helpful for me to read, as we have a new baby, and it’s good for me to know what to expect in the future. For anybody planning to have a baby, here is our money-story:
We are a one income family, with a 2-month old that is breastfed. The largest regular expenses are diapers and breast pads, adding up to about an extra $150 per month. I checked out diapers.com, and however you may feel about it, walmart is cheaper (at least for the diapers we prefer – Huggies Little Butt Smugglers.. I mean Little Snugglers). We also do laundry more frequently and I drink a lot more milk, but that additional cost is negligible.
I took a pay cut to work part time for a while, so that is an additional cost per month for us. To make up for it we have taken hiatus on contributing to savings and paying extra on the mortgage (this we planned to do and built up our emergency savings beforehand). Also in the months leading up to the birth we took a hard look at our bills and canceled or switched services as appropriate to pare down the monthly costs. As others have pointed out, when I look at our monthly finances now we spend much less on going out. I have hardly any time for video games anymore, which I probably used to spend $40 a month on, and we spend about $100 a month less on eating out. I don’t go eat somewhere on my lunchbreak at work anymore, I want to eat fast or at my desk and get back to work so I can go home to my baby.
As far as up front costs, so far we haven’t had to spend much.
Announce that you’re pregnant – people may offer to give you things that have been sitting in their attics collecting dust. You don’t want to have to buy a brand new $300 breast pump when you can borrow one for free or pay a low price for a used one. (They can be reused, I don’t care what “they” say, it’s just a pump – it doesn’t touch milk. You can buy all the little accoutrements brand new and for cheap.)
Register for gifts somewhere. When people find out you are expecting they may ask where you are registered or just go to the usual suspects and find out (babies r us, target, walmart, etc). Register for only what you will need, and don’t bother to register for clothes, you will get a ton of them anyway. Ask someone who has recently been a parent what you will need (especially if they are likeminded in parenting or spending philosophies). I wouldn’t register for things you’re not going to need for a year, it will just be clutter. If you plan to have more than one child, register for gender neutral colors on the items that you intend to reuse.
For the birth, it looks like we’re going to have to pay about $4000. I do have a high deductible, though. We can use our health savings account to pay for that and for well-baby doctor visits and immunizations.
We did buy more of a gas guzzling car because it had more room and more child-friendly features (including a removable back seat that can be hosed off! It’s an old cop car, and it’s amazing how much drunks/criminals and babies/teens have in common when you really think about it). We are looking to eventually move to a better school district, where we will pay much higher property taxes. Sure, there are school districts with lower property taxes and where we could get more house for our money, but we want to live where I can continue to take public transportation to work. It helps a lot that we only have one paid-off car which is not used for a work commute.
I expect things to cost more as the baby gets older, but I think we can roll with the punches.
Also I recommend asking friends if they have any maternity clothes rather than buying new clothes that you will only wear for a few months. I can also recommend a great on-line consignment shop that I used. The prices are great and I had great customer service, I had to return a few items that didn’t fit (who knows what’s going to fit?): cravingstyle.com
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Good point about clothes. For a professional wardrobe I also found ebay to be invaluable. I would buy maternity lots– women done with their last kid who were in my size trying to get rid of all their maternity clothing at once. I’d also buy suits that cost less than say, $15. A lot of my maternity clothing is nicer than my regular clothing! Regular clothing doesn’t seem to be quite as much a bargain on ebay.
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