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WASHINGTON — New parents beware: Your little angel is going to cost you a bundle.
A middle-income family with a child born in 2013 can expect to spend about $245,340 for food, shelter and other expenses up to age 18, an increase of 1.8% from 2012, the Agriculture Department said Monday.
Yes, but more expensive housing is a choice. The SUV or expensive vehicles are a choice. We Live in an expensive area with good schools, but we would live here regardless of having a child.the same with the vehicles.
My parents bought an expensive house after we were long gone. We grew up in a 70,000$ house during the seventies and eighties just fine. We always had used sedan cars growing up, but they have nice new vehicles now.
Shrugs. I get where you are coming from, but parenthood is not as expensive as people make it out to be.
Plenty of people have family or friends to use for child care. Some families stagger their work schedules. Some people work in day ares and get free child care.
My child was in a very exclusive day care affiliated with our church, and the cost was only 700$ a month for a full day, which included food. Some people go to church there just to use the day care. Some other people get a live in au pair.
Whatever it is, how much you pay is a choice.
They should say it costs 250,000$ to raise a child with an upper middle class lifestyle. That I can agree with. Most lower to middle middle class families Spend way less.
I'm not sure of exact numbers, but this ehow article says middle class is about 20,000$ to 100,000$ income. You do the math.
If you use the Pew Center Research from the article it's $37,675 to $75,350. How on earth will a person making 50,000$ pay that much to raise a child?
So if a household makes 40,000$, that's only 720,000$ in an 18 year period. That's without taxes and all that stuff.
I agree with all of this. In another thread this common sense approach to parenting was dismissed as unrealistic for most people. It almost seems as though the wealthy have no idea how the working class raise children.
Perhaps this article would be better summed up "the cost to raise a child while obtaining the stuff a lot of people around 30 yrs old want anyway (nice house, newish car, etc). Perhaps the number is then $100k to raise the child and $150k that you would have spent anyway.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Meyerland
Our expenses weren't that much more after having a child.
Our house is the same cost, as is our vehicles. Why do they count housing? We would have the same house regardless of having kids. The food bill went up a bit, about 100-150$ a month.
She wears hand me downs or clothes on sale, so maybe 300$ for clothes a year.
School is free, minus the 50$ for supplies and 50$ for incidentals.
Christmas and birthday are around 800$ if we do a big extravagant party for each.
Hobbies and camps are about 2000$ a year, although these are totally optional.
That's about 60,000$ for 18 years. Maybe double it for inflation and increased cost of living to 120,000$
Lots of people raise children just fine on less than we spend.
I can answer that. When our first was ready to start kindergarten, we went to visit the school and decided to move. That school is currently rated 1 (1-10 scale) and we moved to a block from one rated 10. That meant a house that cost $82k more than we sold the old one for. When we had a 3rd on the way, we had to trade in the small car for a minivan, a cost of about $10,000 after trade. When the youngest was ready for a real bed, we had to buy a bigger house. Obviously we chose to have 3 rather than 2 or 1 and we could afford it, but I was not going to put them through what I had to experience as one of 9 in a 4 bedroom house, with 5 of us sitting in the back cargo area of a station wagon until some of use were old enough to drive second car. You also left off medical and dental, and orthodontics which even with dental insurance have a huge out-of-pocket cost. Car insurance when they are 16, entertainment such as movies
and associated snacks from about 10-12 on, bigger hotel suites and additional airfare for vacations, ad probably many other costs.
Our expenses weren't that much more after having a child.
Our house is the same cost, as is our vehicles. Why do they count housing? We would have the same house regardless of having kids. The food bill went up a bit, about 100-150$ a month.
She wears hand me downs or clothes on sale, so maybe 300$ for clothes a year.
School is free, minus the 50$ for supplies and 50$ for incidentals.
Christmas and birthday are around 800$ if we do a big extravagant party for each.
Hobbies and camps are about 2000$ a year, although these are totally optional.
That's about 60,000$ for 18 years. Maybe double it for inflation and increased cost of living to 120,000$
Lots of people raise children just fine on less than we spend.
Many people buy a newer (different, not necessarily referring to the age of the house) larger house after starting and/or adding to a family. Our first house was as good for three people (DH, me and baby) as it was for two, but got a little crowded with a second child.
Quote:
Originally Posted by skris4
Okay, my daughter is 2.5 years old. So far we've spent $50K on her.
Once her daycare expenditure drops from picture it will not be too expensive.
I almost spit my soda on the screen when I read that! You ain't seen nothing yet! There's sports, activities, music lessons, and all sorts of other expenses as the get older. The clothes get more expensive too.
Many people buy a newer (different, not necessarily referring to the age of the house) larger house after starting and/or adding to a family. Our first house was as good for three people (DH, me and baby) as it was for two, but got a little crowded with a second child.
I almost spit my soda on the screen when I read that! You ain't seen nothing yet! There's sports, activities, music lessons, and all sorts of other expenses as the get older. The clothes get more expensive too.
Perhaps I could engage her, have a relative offer music lessons and only enroll her in school team sports? lol.
That said, 40k went to daycare. I can't wait for her to start school!
When I first heard that headline I was a little surprised. Once I heard that the figure includes increased housing and car costs, it made a lot more sense. Like another poster, my husband and I live in a nice area with good schools right now even though we don't have kids. Our housing costs will not go up when we do and if anything, we may decide to move to a less expensive house so we can work less. Our cars aren't going to change at all.
IDK, the study seems a little silly to me. Kids aren't cheap, but they don't have to cost nearly that much. It reminds me of this: Avoiding Ivy League Preschool Syndrome
Thanks for posting this article! Very interesting.
This is just an anecdotal note, so if those bother you...just skip it.
A family member of mine had to have a 5000 SF 6 bedroom house, and they have two kids. They had to have two large top of the line SUV's. They don't cook and eat out often.
We have a house almost half that size, and drive our vehicles until they die of natural causes. I cook most of the time.
So we pay much less to have kids than they do, even though our families are very similar in other ways.
Many people buy a newer (different, not necessarily referring to the age of the house) larger house after starting and/or adding to a family. Our first house was as good for three people (DH, me and baby) as it was for two, but got a little crowded with a second child.
I almost spit my soda on the screen when I read that! You ain't seen nothing yet! There's sports, activities, music lessons, and all sorts of other expenses as the get older. The clothes get more expensive too.
It's the daycare that's so expensive. She probably has been in a great program since she was a small baby.
1200$ a month for daycare is over 35,000$ at least. I don't know any activities that cost as much as daycare. My kids get clothes as presents for their birthday and Christmas often, so we aren't even buying them.
Have you ever shopped at Marshall's or TJ Maxx? Try it! There are outlets for every type of clothing line.
Also kids can earn their own money by babysitting, doing yard work, pet sitting, dog walking, helping around the house more, etc...
Perhaps I could engage her, have a relative offer music lessons and only enroll her in school team sports? lol.
That said, 40k went to daycare. I can't wait for her to start school!
Well, some parents do exactly that! But it doesn't work for all kids. We had no relatives living within 500 miles when ours were little, let alone any that could teach music. They can get the rudiments at school, but if they want to continue, even with school programs (band, orchestra, choir) in middle school and HS they need outside lessons.
The school presumes the child knows how to play the sport, especially in high school. They will never make the team if they don't have some experience at a younger age.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Meyerland
It's the daycare that's so expensive. She probably has been in a great program since she was a small baby.
1200$ a month for daycare is over 35,000$ at least. I don't know any activities that cost as much as daycare. My kids get clothes as presents for their birthday and Christmas often, so we aren't even buying them.
Have you ever shopped at Marshall's or TJ Maxx? Try it! There are outlets for every type of clothing line.
Also kids can earn their own money by babysitting, doing yard work, pet sitting, dog walking, helping around the house more, etc...
I've shopped at those places. I was never very impressed. I didn't spend a fortune on kids' clothes; I rarely bought anything not on sale, still don't for myself.
IIRC, your DD is 10. Just wait a few years. Paying kids your own money to do yard work and help around the house is not too economically wise. There's only so much they can make doing those other things; a lot of pet-sitting businesses don't want to hire anyone under 18. (My sister-in-law owns such a business.)
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