How much do you spend on your kids now?

**Snave** · 02-14-2008, 10:18 AM

Does my wife staying home and not having an income now that we have a little one count towards an expinditure:-)? If it does, then we are spending 30K a year on our little one before we even get started.

Actually, here is what we spend:

- $400 month on 529
- 1 day a week "mothers day out" class - $100 month
- Clothes, misc - $200 year - guessing on this. My wife shops at the outlets and won't buy anything for him if it is not on sale. She comes home with shirts and pants that are $1 or $2 that she finds on clearance.
- Misc presents, toys, christmas, birthday and everyday bribes - $200 year - he likes books and puzzles, so again my wife will find something cheap and pick up a few new every now and again. Oh, stickers are big now too!
- Don't know how much our food bill increased. I'm sure it is a decent amount.
- Our biggest expinditure is diapers! Can't wait until that ends. Probably just in time for us to have another one and start all over.
- Oh, we need to get a big-boy bed sometime, so we will spend some on a mattress and bed frame shortly.

**aida2003** · 02-14-2008, 10:26 AM

Oh, yeah, I should have added that we save for kids' education, but since we don't use 529 I cannot say how much we're saving. We save in taxable accounts and a bit in I-Bonds. When the time comes we'll see how much we'll afford to contribute to their educations.

Not sure it's a good plan, but we feel OK how we hadle this.

**PrincessPerky** · 02-14-2008, 10:28 AM

3.5 kids...5, 4, 2, one due in June

I pay the most for food ... sortof, actually I paid the same pre kids for food as I do now, I just ate out more (like a ton, I hate cooking!) and we ate at fancier restaurants....but if I were smart then, the increase would be dramatic. I breastfed all three and unless this new kid and I are one of the 1% of mom baby pairs that can't we will breastfeed again, so mostly free ( I do eat more while breastfeeding)

The furniture was all gifts or hand me downs, the clothes are mostly gifts (we do occasionally buy socks and each kid got a special pack of underwear right when they were PTing)

Right now I only need diapers for the 2 year old at night..so $20 right after Christmas...last box ever for him. Was about 20 a month for last year though....prolly double that his first year....though it was not double for JCs first year..she responded better to ECing, and was PTed earlier.

Extra activities amount to museums, libraries, science centers...and Scouts.

Scouts is the most expensive, because Husband is a den leader, and I am the 'chair' (lady with all the crap work). But the actual kid cost is only around 30 a year for that...the museums and such may run high...but we like to go without kids, so I call it a trade off... not to mention most of our adult gift money goes to pay for them. So technically the grandparents pay.

Education is a up and down price (we homeschool). DD right now has a math program that cost me 20 dollars, DS has one that cost 6...most of their work is pulled from the internet and only costs paper and ink. I would guess we pay less than 100 a year (guess by mentally adding the 20 and the 6 and the other 6 and the paper and ink) for all three. I expect that to go up a bit if the 2 year olds needs 'fluff' like JC did before JC is into hard back books. I also expect it to rise a bit when the oldest needs more science (or rather when Dh can fulfill his dream of blowing stuff up with him!)

Vacations we would take anyway..just different places. so I see no real cost increase (again we would eat fancier without the kids, pay the same get different service)

Health care, we cover them for 170ish a month, plus they visit the Dr several times a year..mostly checkups, occasional sick visits. make it 9 a year at a current rate of 30 per visit. (less for the oldest, more for the youngest) Maternity is the biggest expense of kids health care....

Holidays and gifts we usually find tons of good stuff on sale. Christmas for them was less than 130 for all three, including the stockings...birthdays tend to be less than 20 each. parties the expense is food, but again, we paid the same for food before kids..just different food (I fed guests shrimp pre kid, burgers and dogs post...). We do occasionally find a decoration or craft we want...but not often. And no other holiday gets money spent. I will round to 200 for that...

GAS is the HUGE extra expense! we drive to church now, weekly, drive to scouts, drive to choir, drive to parks...really the driving is a major pia..but at the same time, I want to go to church, I want to volunteer to help the scouts, and I want to go to the park and such..so I would rather have the kid excuse.

Craft 'stuff' I like crafts with kids, we make valentines hearts, we make Christmas cards, and place mats, and chains, and so on...but I don't actually spend more, see before I had kids, I conned my nieces and nephews into doing the craft stuff!

Short version per year:
Food=wash,
Vacations = wash
education=100
Extra curricular = 30
Health = (170*12)+(30*9) =2040+270=2310
dental 150 per visit*4 = 600
Holidays/birthdays = 200

total kid cost = 3240

(diapers for last year = 240)

Edit for stupidity..170 a month not year...p;lus added dental visits in

**Joan.of.the.Arch** · 02-14-2008, 02:03 PM

Not exactly a child, but still dependent: $450/month for a 20 year old student's housing, utilities, gasoline, and groceries. Plus about $150 five times a year for pantry stock up, maybe $180/year for clothes, $200/year for technology. Health insurance is family coverage, no more for him than if we did not have him on the coverage. We pay his car insurance, too, but I've forgotten how much more that added to our bill and I'm too lazy to go find old bills. But you know, young men are notoriously expensive drivers to insure.

Expenses we don't meet are made up for by summer work, scholarship (some of which is applicable to general living expenses), and reimbursements from roommates for their share of housing and utilities.

**jodi** · 02-14-2008, 05:13 PM

Two boys, ages 3 and 4.
Food: maybe $20-30 more per month than when we were on our own. I cook from scratch, so making one extra adult-sized portion for them to split costs very little. My youngest doesn't eat very much at all (to our dismay - 3 years and 26 pounds), but I do spend more to keep him stocked in the healthy things he eats well (peppers, fresh fruit). Both were breast-fed as babies.
Clothing: very, very little - about a pack or two of underwear a year and maybe 2 or 3 outfits - about $50 for both? We get bags of hand-me-downs from an acquaintance. Great stuff, many with tags still on, plus my youngest just wears all the hand-me-downs from my oldest.
Diapers: both still in them at night, so about $20/month.
Education: ds1 goes to free public pre-k program.
Day care: $54/week for two full days. We paid nothing until last fall, when we decided to give me mom and break and ds2 a chance to play with others. We could get this cheaper, but the quality of this day care is worth the $10-15 extra per week.
Vacation: Yeah, right. We haven't been on a "real" vacation since having kids (we took a nice one every year before they were born). We do spend about $500/year to go camping for a week, but we would do that with or without kids. I'll add $300 here as we are starting to think about some overnight trips now that the kids are older.
Gifts: $100 per kid for Christmas. About $50 for birthday gifts, and another $30 or so on food for their birthday party.
Extras: No sports or Scouts yet. We purchased a museum membership for $75, which works at the three science museums closest to us (and many others that we will probably never get to). Story hour at the library is free. Roller skating is $2 per kid (or free for ds2, if I put him in the stroller and just skate myself). We take the kids to a movie once or twice a year, but we usually have gift cards from family. We go out to eat once a month, usually to McDonald's (for the playground), so about $8 for two Happy Meals, or for one meal at a nicer restaurant that they split.
Furnishings: free beds (from my parents - were my brothers bunk beds growing up), ditto on the dressers. Crib, swing, etc. were all shower gifts or hand-me-downs. I had to buy very little.

I have to laugh when I see the predictions of spending $1 million (or some other crazy amount) on raising a child until age 18.
Recap:
Food: $360
Clothing: $50
Diapers: $240
Daycare (school year only since DH is a teacher): $1890
Vacation: $300
Gifts/parties: $360
Activities: $250
Total: $3450

**Spud** · 02-14-2008, 06:21 PM

We had a baby in early 2007. I was curious about what we would spend having a baby, so I set up a "Baby" category in Quicken and coded all baby expenses to that. Here's how it broke down for the year she was born:

$1192.73 on Furniture - a floor model crib that was marked down from $800 to $300, and an unfinished bookshelf & dresser that we finished ourselves to match the crib.

$2150.06 on stroller(s), 2 car seats (infant seat and then convertible), diaper bag, diapers, wipes, baby food, breast pump, formula (we mostly breastfed but also supplemented; I have probably spent around $100 on formula), clothes, crib mattress, and a few toys. We shopped around for deals on all of our gear, but we did not buy the cheapest stuff; we purchased for value.

$7,035.73 on doctors & hospitals

$3,488.38 on increased health insurance expense when we added our baby to our plan.

Total: $13,866.90

At least we get the tax deduction now, right?

**LivingAlmostLarge** · 02-14-2008, 06:35 PM

Spud why is your medical so expensive with the baby i mean compared to others?

**Spud** · 02-14-2008, 06:46 PM

Do you mean the insurance or the other actual medical expenses? The $7k included a C-section, extra long hospital stay (I was in the hospital for 8 days), etc.

**flavor** · 02-14-2008, 07:26 PM

Our kids are 5 and under and the only extras ( besides food, clothes, etc. )that we spend monthly money on is preschool, skating classes, and spanish classes. That totals to $720 per month. Spanish summer camp will cost about $3,200 total. It's expensive, but we feel its important, and probably beneficial in the future.

**aida2003** · 02-15-2008, 05:01 AM

Originally posted by Spud View Post

Do you mean the insurance or the other actual medical expenses? The $8k included a C-section, extra long hospital stay (I was in the hospital for 8 days), etc.

Did you mean your medical insurance didn't cover your C-section or is $8k in addition to what it covered?

I was guessing that a C-section (if no insurance at all) would cost $30k+. But now clue what it really costs. Sure it depends how complicated, etc.

**aida2003** · 02-15-2008, 05:04 AM

Originally posted by flavor View Post

Spanish summer camp will cost about $3,200 total. It's expensive, but we feel its important, and probably beneficial in the future.

This reminded me that we might consider a Saturday German class for our DD that cost $600 for 6 (or maybe 9) months.

**jodi** · 02-15-2008, 05:05 AM

Wow, every so often I get reminded how lucky we are with our health insurance by hearing what others have paid. It didn't cost us any more to add either of my kids to our insurance since we have family plans (costs the same for me and DH whether we have kids on it or not). I also only paid $100 for the delivery - mgiht have been $200 actually (one co-pay for me and one for the baby). Well child visits are free. Sick visits (app. 2-3 per year per child) cost $18. Prescriptions (vitamins with flouride) cost about $7 per child, every three months. Of course, there are misc. scripts along the way - maybe another $100 per year. We've been very fortunate. One good thing I can say about the human service field (which often pays lousy) is that it does provide good benefits.

**PrincessPerky** · 02-15-2008, 06:19 AM

Originally posted by aida2003 View Post

Did you mean your medical insurance didn't cover your C-section or is $8k in addition to what it covered?

I was guessing that a C-section (if no insurance at all) would cost $30k+. But now clue what it really costs. Sure it depends how complicated, etc.

I paid 5K for a normal healthy no complication delivery of my daughter (middle kid) research on a normal no complication no insurance delivery for this kid EST are 10K..so well, insurance isn't always helpful....

Non of our insurances were extra to ad a kid on the family p0lan (this one will be, it is one plan for each kid)

Whenever folk say 'you have to have insurance' I wonder if they know the HUGE difference between worthwhile insurance..catastrophe insurance...and waste of money insurance...

**LivingAlmostLarge** · 02-15-2008, 06:55 AM

The thing is, most people are happy to get anything PP. Sure you say get catastrophic, but what if you fall into the catergory of uninsurable? Then you're happy to get it through work. That's the problem. It's easy to say go buy your own when you are a healthy person, but some people can't.

Right now a friend of mine in definitely uninsurable at 31. She has no kids, but already has breast cancer. Thankfully her job is providing insurance. But to go out and purchase catastrophic after this? It's doubtful she'll qualify.

How much do you spend on your kids now?