According to an article in TIME magazine the average middle class family earning $57,000-$99,000 will pay out about $221,000 to raise a child from birth until high school age.
The report by the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion identified housing as the largest single expense, followed by food and child care/education costs. The $221,000 in expenses rises to about $292,000 when adjusted for inflation.
There are differences noted by where a couple lives (Northeast costs more than the South) and income levels, people who make less will spend less and people who make more will spend more. You know what they say about making more, you’ll just spend more and the famous “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.” Also, if a couple has 1 child in a house it will work out that housing costs are higher per child than say if that same couple had 3 children. So I don’t think the study is perfect but it got me thinking about family costs overall.
I wonder if people could spend less in general, I know it’s something we have learned to do even though we never were big spenders. Still raising 4 kids makes you more aware of what is needed and what is wanted, it also has increased our awareness of what we use to waste when it was just 2 of us. In fact, with each child we’ve become more aware because we want to have a comfortable life as a family & it’s easy to waste without thinking about it. Target is at times the bane of my existence, it can bring me endless joy or complete pain at the checkout if I don’t pay attention to what I’m putting into the cart.
And after reading there are couples in the NY area who apparently could spend a $1,000 on a changing table it makes me wonder if there aren’t a lot people whose expenses could be cut out to lower that per kid cost. And babies really don’t need that much certainly not $1,000 changing tables as MOST of us know, but a lot of us do get sucked into those baby registries that claim we need way more for a baby than we actually do. Safety items are necessary, don’t skimp on not getting a car seat, but trust me there are things that every parent has bought or had bought for them that was supposedly SO important for a baby that never even got opened or was actually not really safe (like crib bumpers).
Additionally, while I do breastfeed & use cloth diapers with cloth wipes (we also do use disposables) those may not be options that all women are able to do for a variety of reasons but there are other things that can be done. For example: hand-me downs from kid to kid, buy less overall, grow a veggie garden, shop sales, get rid of the higher cost processed foods or limit them (I know I loves me some chips), cook more at home less eating out, go meat free one day a week, buy a more affordable home, buy bulk (on items that you actually use), price compare, reduce utility costs, make your own cleaning products etc… Obviously if a family needs to use childcare that is an expense that can’t be reduced but cost in other areas could be reduced and those savings could offset the increased cost for childcare.
Do you guys cut costs in different ways? What types of things do you do to save money, kids or no kids? And do you think it really costs a quarter of a million dollars per kid?
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Not that much for our 4. We’ve always done the hand-me-downs until the only girl but I still use boy shorts and bluejeans for her. Our big savings is eating out. Hubby gets paid every other Friday and that is the ONLY time we eat out, Fri dinner and Sat lunch. Otherwise I cook at home, menu planning for 2 weeks at a time.
I pass the clothes down from the older boy to the younger boy. He does not care. I have never told him that he should. The younger one gets new shoes and undies – of course!!
I also try to eat at home. Eating out adds up and is not very good for you.
I’m sooooo posting about this and linking back…
I don’t know — it’s tough to try and add all those costs over their lifetime… I’m sure if you really broke it down (as in the cost to take an extra person on a vacation, preschool, added insurance when they turn 16, the fact that you probably have a bigger house than you would if you never had any kids at all…) I bet the number is not that far off.
I don’t think clothes and food costs nearly that much, but if you look at the aggregate impact they have on your life? I bet it’s in the ballpark.
It sure does cost a lot! $1000 for a dang changing table is just crazy though.
I have a budget for everything. If I need extra, I come up with other ways to earn it, i.e. selling on ebay, car boot sales. I love coffee and it costs the equivalent of $10 for two cups at my local cafe. I love illy coffee the most and a jar costs $10…a lot for a jar but the same price as two cups…get where I’m going? So, I invite people over A LOT now. I still go out for coffee and the occasional g&t but having people over can be just as much fun and cheaper.
I also enrol the kids into every free activity going during the holidays and there are A LOT in Glasgow (Scotland). It’s all good… :O) xx
I was very fortunate that my parents paid for my private college tuition. I would like to do the same for my daughter and that would be (conservatively) another 250K but the time she’s 18! My husband and I are homebodies which helps with expenses
Interesting! I have no idea how much it has cost us even up to this point with our 4 sons. It is something to think about though. I’m following you from MBC!
OMGosh,your Mom must be sooo proud of your money saving skills…Thank goodness my girls make me proud when they let me in on something they do to save money…they are in their 20′s now but I do remember something that they did in high school that made me realize that they would be o.k…I came home to something that looked like a dress store exploded in my living room…..prom dresses everywhere and a group of giggly girls right in the middle……..a dress swap !!!! Bein g pompon/cheerleaders, they were reasonably close in size and stature….their scathingly brilliant idea was to swap dresses between each other, since they had several functions to attend and meager babysitters bank accounts. No one was they wiser because no two women look the same in a dress…it was their secret…and the giggles started again whenever they got together to look at pictures…no one was the wiser, but they were enriched by their experience. Thanks for sharing yours.
I love your blog, I just happened upon it somehow and I love posts that deal with moms who save money! its part of the job description….I did the cloth daipers too, with my second boy I couldnt he had some issues with his skin, I started canning and growing my own food too which has cut some costs. Thanks for sharing your life!!
Absolutely not! This is just another example of how the media dictates our lives. The same media that thrives and survives by relying on our consumerism, and by telling us which latest things we “need”. So if they say your baby needs a $1000 changing table, are parents going to feel inferior if they settle for anything less?
Tania (via SITS)
Lolol.
I don’t know a single person who could possibly spend that much money on children. I was very materialistically spoiled and my mom certainly never shelled out that much for me!
I have a person who keeps commenting to me how we can’t afford the baby we are expecting, and how babies are 10,000 on average, THE MEDIA TELLS HER SO.
It’s ridiculous. Even the babycenter cost calculator everyone keeps sending me to says less than 1000, and most of what is in that 1000 is getting donated to us by friends & family anyway. Our biggest cost is cloth diapers, and we aren’t getting carried away with that, so even that is no big deal (and will be used for later babies).
All those cost estimates seem to be people looking at all the “must-have” items, or talking to people who are geared towards having all those “must-have” items. Though with the housing.. maybe that’s just because I live in a “dying” city in the midwest.. our housing is certainly not as insanely expensive as people living elsewhere. I can get a 4-5+bedroom house for the same monthly rent as a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment in big cities, so i dunno. I’d be curious as to how they made up for these differences.
Anyway, we definitely won’t be spending that much! We aren’t big consumers, we prefer simple & handmade/natural stuffs.
When I heard the report coming on, I ushed my husband out of the room. I’m a saver, raised in a five person family with a city income. My husband is a spender, raised as the only child with a teacher’s salery. I’m cutting where I can, but I can’t imagine absorbing that much. I wonder how they got their numbers.
geez. i always thought it was more!! but its still an insane amount of money! we go garage saling and to consignment shops a lot…and always buy on clearance!
We try to cut costs by shopping thrift stores and by making a lot of our own snack type foods. Just be eliminate the inside aisles of the grocery store shaved at least 50 dollars off our bill. I always know when we’ve lapsed back into box snack habits because our bills go up.
btw great post!
Jack and I have 1. Emily has special needs and is homeschooled. The most money we spend is clothing and feeding her. She has an overgrowth syndrome that causes her to grow out of clothes and shoes faster than average. I used to use second hand shops to keep her butt covered, but she is at a size now that can’t be found. Her shoes are a also a women’s size 13. Have to special order those. SIGH. Food? The kid has a hollow leg! LOL
I try to shop the sales at the grocery. Helps a little. ;o)