Cost of children?

[Duppers]

How much do kids cost?

Surprising facts, tips
Jean Chatzky’s advice to help couples afford their little bundles of debt
Aug 10, 2007

My mother used to say if anyone in her generation had stopped to ask how much it cost to raise a child before they had them, none of the people in my generation would have been born. And that was 40 years ago.

But today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the cost of kids is far higher:


Families who make: Will spend:

More than $74,900 $289,380
$44,500 to $74,900 $197,700
Less than $44,500 $143,790

Where does all that money go? According to Bankrate.com, the breakdown at the middle-tier level looks something like this:

Groceries — $1525 year
Clothing — $606 year
Bigger home — $2900 year
Bigger car — $1250 year
Health care — $300 year
Education — $600 year
Child care — $4300 year (through age 11)
Recreation — $300 year
Additional insurance — $300 year
Gift giving — $330 year
Miscellaneous — $330 year

And no, that doesn't include .... college, which is currently running about $50,000 for four years at a public university and $125,000 for four years at a private college.

So what's a parent to do?

First, realize that these numbers are averages. They are developed by the government primarily to be used in divorce cases as a basis for child care formulas. You, as a parent, can make a lot of choices that bring your personal number down tremendously. For example:

Reevaluate your housing needs — don’t trade up
You can choose not to move into a bigger house. The formulas assume that for each additional child you add to the family, you're going to need another 100 to 150 feet of living space, but not if your new baby shares a room with the child you already have.

You can also make sure you're living in an area in which schools are good (so that you don't have to worry about the cost of a private education) and taxes are reasonable. These are the sort of criteria that “Money magazine bases its “Best Places To Live” list on each year. If you go to the “Money” Web site, you can input your criteria and come up with a list of places that might work for you.

more: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20203458/





Hubby and I are surviving the cost of one child just fine, although we had first wanted two, but we're glad that we have only one, considering the expenses and how humans tax the planet.

[soothsayer]

1. well it's free (and ostensibly fun) to make 'em, so people will prolly

still have 'em

[Duppers]

2. true that, of course

but birth control is not that expensive. :7



Don't Stop thinking about tomorrow...

[Skidmore]

3. I'd say Bankrate. com has lowballed it for this "gotta have" nation

of ours. Gift giving $330? Is that to others or does that count Christmas and B-days per kid? Shoot, that barely covers the cost of a fully outifitted Wii or Playstation.

[bluestateguy]

4. Too many people have kids that they can't afford

People's chances of being poor in life are greatly reduced if they don't have kids.

[TheMadMonk]

5. Well I call BS on two of those figures at least.

Price of an extra two squares, (about the extra living space a child needs) is about $AU10,000. So there's about 45k in total.

Bigger car is a bit more problematical, but enough genitally challenged idiots buy the biggest gas guzzler they can afford to skew the average seriously enough to make it difficult to draw any conclusions. Besides unless you're a 40 something looking for his past, more than likely there's room for at least three behind the driver's seat before any upgrade is needed.

And if your kid's braces cost you that plasma TV you had your eye on then that's the price you pay to make an investment, the return on which will never come back to you and you might never see.

And if you think about it, that's the best offer you will ever receive.

[cgrindley]

6. It all depends on where you live

I had three kids in the early 1990s. They're now 16, 13 and 13. I figure that they've probably cost me 50k each so far. I don't see that number going above 75k each before they hit college. And I sure as shit am not paying for them to go to college. I paid for myself, worked my way through two BAs, two MAs and a PhD. They can do the same. For the savvy student, there are plenty of scholarships, fellowships, workstudies, loans, co-operative education workterms (most of which almost go begging since so few people bother to fill out the forms), not to mention restaurant jobs, bookstore jobs, coffee shop jobs, and so on. I'll kick in 6k a year each to cover tuition and books at a state school but nothing more than that. Of course... they live in Canada. My 13 year olds even go to school in a French only school (in BC, mind you, for free). I'm hoping that they'll go to Queens or UT or UBC or McGill.

I figure that the three will end up after college being no more than 100k each.

On the other hand, I have a new child on the way with my second wife. That child will be expensive. Since we live in CT, I can no longer rely on superior Canadian public schools and ridiculously inexpensive state universities. This child will probably suck up 12k a year for preschool and kindergarten, then 20k a year for elementary school, rising probably to 30k for high school and 40k for college. This will easily be a 1/2 million dollar child... but in CT there's very little choice.

[Katherine Brengle]

7. "And I sure as shit am not paying for them to go to college."

Ugh. "Working your way through college" doesn't work as well these days as it once did - unless you're willing to strip or work so many hours that you don't have time to study.

I'm not saying that all parents should feel obligated to help their kids through college, but those who can should, because the debt incurred by those kids is going to follow them into the future and a nation of debtors hurts ALL OF US.

[cgrindley]

8. It still works in Canada

Tuition is a max of 4k or so, books about 1k, dorm fees and meals, 7k. I'll cover tuition and books, but they can work the rest or get fellowships, scholarships and loans. I can help them with the forms. But they won't get any help if it's not a proper university, nor will they get anything if they take a year off. Kids should be more responsible for their futures.

My education cost 475k. Of that, I ended up with 35k of loans. I graduated with the PhD in 1997. My wife, an American, spent 120k on a BFA, graduating in 1992.

[Katherine Brengle]

12. Perhaps, but most of us are in the US, and I can tell you from

firsthand experience, it's not $4K a year for even a public state college.

I think it's also a bit naive to believe that most kids are truly capable of making great long-term decisions at 18 years old.

[gollygee]

10. My parents paid for my college and I really appreciate that

I made very very little after graduating and I don't know how I would have managed with any debt.

We intend to pay any college expenses for our kids and we've set up our lives so we'll be able to.

[Katherine Brengle]

13. That's the ticket --

I know there are a lot of parents out there who truly can't pay for college - mine couldn't. But there are a lot of parents who can and choose not to.

I see that as setting your kid up for failure in life, and as a parent, that's certainly not what I want for my daughter.

[Duppers]

15. thanks, Katherine, for saying what needed to be said..

on this thread. You responded exactly as I would have had I been online reading these.

I hate people who have children without much thought to the future their children will have, and I hate the old "if I could do it, then they can too" attitude. Times have changed a lot and folks need to wake up.

And yes, I agree some of the figures are low-balled. Bottom line is that children are very expensive. Besides, I sense a coldness in that attitude.

When I was in my teens, I read Dr. Paul Ehrlich's Zero Population Growth articles and took the concept to heart. I'm glad I did.

[Katherine Brengle]

18. I just think

it's incredibly selfish and socially irresponsible to send your child off into life in debt IF you can prevent it.

[Duppers]

19. exactly! ya said it better than my attempt.

thanks again.

[alarimer]

25. Mine simply refused to pay for mine

No matter, I had a full ride scholarship as valedictorian of my high school class. Most people aren't that lucky but if I had kids, I would not pay for ALL of their college. They would be expected to earn part of it through scholarships, etc. Which probably means a state school. It was good enough for me; it is damn sure good enough for anyone else.

The absolutely best deal in higher education these days is community or junior college. Get your basics out of the way at a much cheaper rate, then transfer to a 4-year school. Much smarter in my opinion than spending four years at any college or university. If I had kids and they did it that way, I would pay for the whole thing. It makes no sense to me to spend 50K for four years at a state school when you take exactly the same classes for the first two years at a community college. Smaller classes, too. Win-win, in my opinion.

[MissB]

16. Same here.

My parents couldn't pay for my education, and I'm still paying my student loan debt in my 30's. Dh's parents paid for his whole way through.

We'll pay for our two kids to go to college. They each have 529 plans and other investments to help defray the cost.

[renate]

21. I'm extremely grateful to my parents for paying for my education

My husband and I were able to start saving for retirement at 24, after graduation, instead of having to pay off my college loan. (His loan was pretty small and spread out over 10 years, I think, but not having any loans for me was a big help.) That 401K will make a huge difference in our lives when we retire.

(By the way, we made very little money when we graduated, so this wasn't a yuppie big-starting-salary kind of thing. I was lucky enough to spot an article in Money magazine when I was 20 that had a chart of how much more a dollar saved at 25 earns in interest than a dollar saved at 45... otherwise it would never have occurred to us to start saving a lot so young.)

I realize that a lot of parents can't afford to help their kids with school expenses, but if they can, it might not be a bad idea to suggest to the kids ahead of time that, after graduation, they save as much for their retirement as they would have had to pay in loans. The most cost-effective time to invest is when you're young, so this would make a big difference to the kids' lives later on.

[Sanctified]

23. Anyone can work their way through college.

They just come out of it about $90,000 in college debt.

[gollygee]

9. We're planning on having a second

I think the first kid costs more but the second shouldn't add as much expense as the first one did. I stay at home, which costs us money in that I'd be earning money otherwise, but staying home with one more kid doesn't make any difference as far as that goes. And we did move up from a compact to a larger car when we had the first, but you don't need a bigger car for two kids than you need for one. If you moved up to three or four you might have to get a bigger one yet I suppose.

Anyway, that's an average and I'm guessing the first kid costs more than that and the second costs less.

[mikeytherat]

11. Legitimate agencies or black market?

mikey_the_rat

[Duppers]

14. uh?

nt.

[mikeytherat]

17. "Cost" of children as if you were purchasing one.

It seemed like an obvious play on your post title.

mikey_the_rat

[Duppers]

20. gotta ya.

a duh for me. It was the title of the article, btw.

[sarcasmo]

22. Where is it written that you have to pay for your kids college?

[pitohui]

27. check your divorce agreement

seriously, 50% of marriages end in divorce and around here "boilerplate" is you pay for your children's college until they are 25 years old

i think anyone who makes less than $100K a year who has a child is falling into a trap

if children are so great, if having the next generation is so important...why do rich people who can choose have such a low reproduction rate?

[Colorado Progressive]

24. Groceries — $1525 year? That seems really low n/t

[pitohui]

28. yeah that's totally pre-k (pre katrina) numbers

the price of groceries has quadrupled here since the storm and clearly it is never going down again

in other states it was already that high or higher if you fed the kid "real" food instead of $1 value meals at burger king and mac 'n' cheese dinners all the time

[BamaGirl]

26. Grocery and health numbers are way off

I'll probably spend at least an extra 1k on groceries on top of that number and my monthly grocery bill keeps going up. It's hard to guess on health care. But between premiums and copays?? $300? Someone is smoking some serious crack there. Hell, I've already spent 300 on just copays on one kid a little over half way through the year.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

30. Agreed, also "recreation"

unless you can't afford to or don't let your kids do much. A cheap summer camp for my son for only 4 weeks was $300; is that "recreation"? Does this include the cost of the surfboard (used), concerts my daughter goes to (frequent but cheap), not to mention numerous other "recreational" activities we wouldn't do if not for the kids.

The health care costs are way off. I know it varies by region, but our premiums and copays just for the kids far exeed $300/yr.

Also, the grocery costs go way up when they become teenagers and their friends start hanging out and eating all your food...lol.

Edited to add: Despite all of this, my children are priceless! I wouldn't trade them for anything, and we do sacrifice a lot of things for them. We don't do fancy vacations, our house isn't fixed up unless we have the cash flow, and we don't drive brand new cars. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Even if they cost 10x as much. :)

[lastliberalintexas]

29. $300 for healthcare?

How in the world is that the average? I have a perfectly healthy child (thank goodness, knock on wood) and I spend $1900 a year just for health insurance coverage. I'm lucky that I can afford to buy his coverage, and it makes me sad to realize that the $300 figure shows just how many children likely go without any coverage. :(