Young married couples are often looking for the ideal time to have children. They want to be responsible and so they ask the question, “Can we afford to have kids yet?” Essentially, they want to know if their income can cover the cost of raising children.
While the answer needs to be catered to your specific life situation, I thought I would share a little about my family expenses with the hope that it will help you to make a good decision.
“Can I Afford to Have Kids?”
- Conventional Wisdom claims, “It’s gonna cost you $10,000 per year per child”.
- My Bank Account responds, “Not as long as I’m around”.
- The Biological Clock interjects, “I’m not getting any younger”.
- Mentors advise, “Get your graduate work done first”.
- Contemporary Culture insists, “If you want to have a kid you better have the money to take care of that little baby”.
The end result is either there is never a good time, or now is as good a time as any.
Five years after my wife and I were married we started one of the most incredible and rewarding journeys of our lives – parenthood. After experiencing life as a dad I think the better question might be, “Can you afford not to have kids?”
How much extra does my family spend on kids?
I decided to sit down and calculate how much my kids cost annually. Remember, these numbers will vary greatly from person to person. My home is full of young little humans. My three children range from 4 years to 3 months. Currently we have two kids in diapers (but are hoping our son will get the potty thing soon). In our particular situation we have no kids in school so that significantly minimizes our costs. Finally, we have a reputation for being frugal folks!
What is the annual cost of raising children?
The following is an estimation (based on our budget) on what we spend annually for all three of our children:
- Diapers = $350 * we use cloth diapers during the day and disposables at night and during trips away from home. If you use disposables, you would probably want to budget around $650 per year.
- Food = $1,200 * four year old, two year old, and nursing baby
- Clothing = $100 * we only buy used clothing and reuse clothes on younger siblings
- College Saving = $1,800
- Travel = $1,000
- Medical = $750
- Misc = $1,200
I estimate that for our three kids we spend an additional $6,300 per year. For our family, that averages about $2,100 per child per year, or $175 per child per month.
Ten ideas to help minimize the cost of raising children:
- If you plan to have one of the parents stay home, adjust to one income now. This will allow you to practice living on one income. It will also give you ample time to pay off your debts or save for an emergency fund.
- If you need to borrow money (i.e. for a home) then ask the bank to make the calculations on only one income. This way you will be prepared to make the necessary adjustments when junior comes along.
- The financial costs of children increase over time, but presumably so will your salary. The cost of raising children who stay in the home is obviously significantly less then a teenager who is involved in lots of extra curricular events. Babies who nurse consume less than growing teenagers.
- If you are frugal and financially conscientious then you will find a way to make it work just like everything else. Reasonable financial concerns should not stop you from having children if you think the time is right. However, if you are really struggling to make it financially without children, I highly recommend you meeting a financial mentor who can help address some of the financial issues before adding children to the situation.
- Make the intangibles of life your focus and the tangibles of life will fall into place. What you have to offer your kids should be a lot more than money. Time and love are currencies that will mean more to your kids than anything else.
- Don’t kiss your brain goodbye. Those cuddly little babies do amazing things to the spending habits of otherwise rational adults. Don’t equate your level of love with the amount you are willing to pay to buy things for your children. Loving them and spending money on them is completely different.
- Remember that others love babies too. Churches, friends, and workmates love having baby showers. Depending on your ‘friendship base’ you might just be surprised the number of things you are given. As a general rule, do not buy any baby items until after the shower.
- Before the baby is born do some reading about college savings, because any little contributions you make today will have a huge impact tomorrow.
- When you have children if you have not already purchased life insurance, this is a great time to consider the benefits for your family.
- Prepare for a change in spending habits. In order to make ends meet, you may need to cut some of your spending. While young married couples might have extravagant spending habits, young parents are typically required to be quite frugal.
- BONUS #11 — Pray you don’t have triplets!
Photo by ^riza^.
How much does it cost you to support your kids? What ideas do you have for raising kids on a smaller income?
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Just a quick note–another way to look at it, is the more kids you have, the lower your cost of raising them on average. Items purchased go through more hands, you get more financial aid for college, you have more hands to do the work (it actually gets easier and faster to do housework and cooking), you stay younger from the increase in activity (I know a lot of folks my age who are a lot “older” whose kids have grown and gone), and your life is richer.
And you get to participate in the creation of new souls–priceless.
8 children, 26 to 3 and 5 grandkids, 3 to 2 weeks
One kid, 18 months.
Daycare with Grandma–$12000 (she retired to take care of him, it’s the best money we spend all month)
Food–$1000 (just a guess, probably less)
Clothes–$500 ish
Medical–$150
Diapers–$480, but hoping that’ll go down soon!
College savings–$3000
Misc–$1500
Total–$18630. Ouch. But some of that is tax deductible and it’s all worth it!
Just wait until they turn into teenagers.
You think they’re expensive NOW???
You forgot to include the additional cost of healthcare / health insurance. Going from a couple to three people is expensive on a healthplan. An addtl $200-400 / month in many states.
Regarding health insurance, and children’s riders on life insurance. 1 child is the same $$$ as several.
Our health insurance plan includes the first two kids free of charge. The third is less than $50 per month. That will vary a lot by your provider.
There are opportunity costs involved, too. For one parent to stay home = the loss of income and/or career BUT the intangible benefits are incredible. It is definitely worth it to have one parent a full-time homemaker. God promises to provide for our needs and it is true. I can honestly say our kids (and we) are richer from the experience.
While we must “count the cost” of raising children, remember that being fearful about it will keep us from having them. Prepare and pray and let God do the rest. You won’t be sorry.
BTW – multiples are incredible. There are advantages to having more than one at a time
The main costs are opportunity ones if you have wee ones at home, such as we do. However, I take umbrage at college savings. Why is it so necessary to save for their college? Can’t they provide that themselves? Either by
1) working through college
2) Being smart enough to get a scholarship
3) working for an employer who will help pay for it, or joining the Army
there are more options than paying for your kids’ college yourself. Take out the college savings part of it, and kids are a lot more affordable.
@Dan.
Point well taken. Several things on the list are customized and could be taken out based on the situation or personal preferences. For example, people who live in the same town as family might not need any travel budget.
BTW, it is very typical for Canadian children to pay for their own college. I am Canadian and paid for almost all my school by myself (with exception of $2,000). My wife’s parents covered whatever remained after school loans.
As a result, we have had some long conversations on the topic of paying or not paying. Our solution is to put a small amount in college savings per child – $50 per month starting the day they are born. We also have some elaborate plans to match dollars they contribute.
Our personal conclusion is that if what we provide is moderate and related to the character of our children the funds will be a blessing. Since we are debt free we are not being burdened by those small contributions.
Thanks for your comments and your thoughts.
I think it’s misleading to leave out the “up-front” costs of children. Prenatal care (and maternity clothes), labor and delivery, car seats, high chairs, cribs, etc. Yes furniture can often be gotten for cheap and reused but it’s still usually an expense. Many of the calculations of “how much does it cost to raise a kid” also take into account the need or want for a bigger house and the extra payments (mortgage, insurance, taxes) that go along with that. You’ve only addressed one aspect – annual consumables.
@ Courtney – great point. Sorry if you felt mislead. You are right that I didn’t include any of our start up costs. Unfortunately, I was not able to address all the associated costs. For our family those costs were minimal. Let me quickly include all of that information in case readers might find that helpful:
Maternity clothes – $75 over three pregnancies. My wife found an 85% off sale during her first pregnancy and bought plenty of maternity clothes. Since we had all our kids in the same season we only needed the “one set”. She also bought some items second-hand and received others as gifts.
Labor and delivery – this of course will depend on your insurance, but our cost for the first was about $3,500, $250 for the second, and $500 for the third. We leveraged the fact that I am Canadian and had our second and third children there after the cost of the first. If you are interest I have a post on my site Average Cost of Delivering a Baby
As for car seats, high chairs, cribs, and such, we spent less than $400 on everything. We received a lot as gifts and bought a few items used. As I mentioned in the post, it depends on how well networked you are. We had three different groups offer us baby showers. Honestly, we had more than enough cash gifts to pay for our first year of baby costs.
Our family did not make any changes to our housing situation, but I guess we probably use more water and electricity.
It is true that there are a lot of little costs along the way. I do think a little creativity (and in our case a lot of generosity from others) can help you manage many of these costs.
LOL!
“Pray you don’t have triplets”.
Although it would be good to get them all out of the way.
I say that going second hand is the best way to cut costs, as well as curbing desires to buy the newest, coolest, greatest baby toys to create your own mini Einstein.
Don’t forget the child tax credits you get. That does lessen the financial burden.
We have a 10-month old. It has been a lot cheaper than I thought. We tend to find cheaper entertainment and we don’t go out to eat nearly as much as we did pre-baby. So, our spending in other areas has gone way down.
I do realize that as he gets older, his expenses will, too. But who cares? It’s only money!
Thanks for the info. I’m planning on having kids after finishing school and getting a master’s degree, so I was curious on the subject.
Also, I was wondering, you mentioned you were Canadian. So are your calculations in Canadian or American dollars?
As preparation for parenthood, I am now starting to build a fund that can help me raise my future baby. I am only 19 years old and is starting to save for it so that my baby and I will not suffer.
I was all excited to see a well-balanced article on raising kids from a Christian perspective and I loved the article all the way up until the last line, “Pray you don’t have triplets.”
Five or six years ago, I might have laughed and agreed with you– but almost 5 years ago, I gave birth to three triplet girls, (which were children #3, #4 and #5 for us) and I tell you what, that experience has changed my life for the good.
I always wanted 3 kids and only 3 kids (I grew up in a family of 4 kids and always thought that was too much). But the beautiful thing about having the girls is that God has opened up my heart to see what HIS heart is for children. The thing is, He loves them A LOT. He promises to care for and provide for them. He wants us to have them and to sacrifice for them, just as He has sacrificed for us. He wants us to be willing to lay our lives down for them, just as He laid down His life for us.
My own selfishness has been confronted and exposed and is becoming more generous towards others, because I have experienced the pain and beauty of laying my life down for others.
Of course we wondered how in the world we were going to “afford” these children. We were looking over some tax information a few weeks ago and realized that not only has God continued to provide for us, (my husband is the sole-income earner and I am a stay at home mom) but in the last four years, our income has DOUBLED.
And now, after these years of getting a glimpse of God’s heart, of learning to trust Him to keep His promises to us and watching Him provide for us– always– we are now being led down the path of adoption. We will be adding 2 or 3 additional children into our family from DR Congo within the next year.
So, I would argue that you should not pray for God to not give you triplets. I would argue that you pray for God’s will in your life and for Him to break your heart for what breaks His. You should pray for Him to stretch your faith and for Him to show you His faithfulness.
THAT is what will change your life.
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