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If you have no grandmother, no hand me downs, the child is active in extracurricular activities (which are a necessity by now) and eat well/healthy - add that to the bill.
Yes, for some that are basically alone in the world, having a child can be more of a burden. But heck, almost everything is more of a burden for those people. Regardless, finding a stay at home mom looking for extra income shouldn't be too difficult. And Goodwill/CL have plenty of clothing that will fit a small child.
Daycare alone is a killer... and most families like my wife and I cannot afford to lose an income so someone can be a stay at home parent.
My wife is currently trying to start her own "in-home" daycare so that she can not only be home with our child, but obviously care for others and earn money that way. She may "earn" less per year if she gets the max income week to week from parents but we put that $12K back in our pockets for not sending our child to daycare.
I certainly hope it works out for her... she's been a nanny before, she has the background, and she's been getting interest from people. We'll see what happens in the coming months!
You will never get the exact answer you are looking for from actual parents, we are all too busy and knackered to work out the costs LOL.
Needless to say, financial burden is only a small part of the cost to your life
I don't know anyone who has a grandparent do anything other than very part time care, the equivalent of a day a week. If your SAHM friend has your kids 50 hours a week you'd better be paying her $750 a week or she won't be your friend for long.
The opportunity cost of having a parent stay home with the kids is just as big as the cost of care. And the need for care doesn't stop when they start school. Afterschool care here starts at $600 a month, and the very cheapest summer care is about $1600 a month. That cost continues until they're maybe 12? But I doubt many people would leave a 12 year old home alone all day all summer.
$750/week?? Wow. I need to move to where you live and get about 4 kids to take care of. $750x4 kidsx52 weeks = $108,000/year. That's darn near family medicine money in the south.
Perhaps my grandparents (both sets) were just special people, but they were happy to care for all of their GCs while their child worked. I also had a few aunts that didn't work who would also chip in.
I have found several licensed daycares advertising on CL for around $100/week for a toddler. As a toddler I once (for the summer) stayed with a ~60 yr old lady that watched 3-4 kids at her home. It wasn't expensive and I'm pretty sure the income was "off the books" for her.
Let's see...In the last two days, I have shelled out $600 for back-to-school clothes (and we were extremely frugal this year with the clothing budget -- most of it was shoes), $150 for school supplies, $90 in co-pays for health care appointments, $200 in back-to-school fees (yearbooks, activity fees, etc.), and $1000 for private driver's training for my middle child, because the high school here doesn't offer it. Now, I'm not complaining, because I chose to have three children, and we can afford these expenses, but anybody who doesn't understand that raising children is expensive is completely delusional.
OP- I may be in the minority here . Is have a child expensive? Yes. Is it significantly expensive? No. Not to us.
In our circle, out of 5 couples, 3 of us are double earners and well off. The other 2 are single earners. Even there one of the families is living quite well. The last one is struggling. They had one kid and because the wife is a SAHM they quickly had one more(2 year gap). I know they want another one. With one child, the mom could take a few years off and as soon the child hits preschool she could have worked atleast part-time to support the family. Now, she will have to stay at home for several more years to take care of the next one and perhaps one after that.
In short, I think a lot of families could afford one kid. But most cannot afford 2 or 3. Also, substantial planning should be done to understand the financial repercussions of having a child.
We have a four year old, and hoping for another. The biggest cost for us by far has been the housing - we just bought our first house, in a typical suburban neighbourhood with good schools. Without kids, me and DH would've been perfectly happy renting a nice 1br apartment in the city, in a walkable area where we could get by with one car plus not deal with all the maintenance that goes into having a house.
I stay home with him, which hasn't been a huge loss as my field isn't well-paid and I would be making about 1/4 of what DH makes. He's been in part-time preschool last year and this year which is about $400/month, and a couple of classes like gymnastics and swimming - ~$90/month each. Once he goes to school obviously preschool costs won't be there but I'm expecting the classes and activities to be the biggest costs especially as they get to a higher level, require equipment etc. He's really into the piano and loves music so we want to try piano lessons once he is 5, and those are priceeeey.
Everything else - clothes, toys, food etc, have been negligible. It also helps that we have loving grandparents buying him lots of things. The first couple of year were cheap - biggest cost was diapers; I breastfed, and we got a $300 crib that he still uses as a toddler bed, a $90 stroller (you can easily spend $1K on one), and a $150 car seat. We also got a bunch of hand-me-down baby items for free like bouncers, swings, and a very nice high chair, and I found other stuff on craigslist like a Bjorn.
Public school is of course free. Home-schooling is not.
Actually thats not true. Public school has: School Fees, clothes, supplies (which of course you have to buy extra to share like kleenex), sports uniforms, sports fees, field trips, lunches, any tuition.
Homeschool has curriculum costs (which varies by if you get used or brand new and what kind of curriculum you use) and school supplies (for 1 child alone). Thats it-. Unless youre doing a Co-Op but thats IT. (i dont count sports because not every state requires "Gym")
Day care $800/month
Food $200/month
Clothing $100/month
Added housing cost due to space and location requirements: $300/month
Added transportation cost: $150/month
So it seems the biggest cost is day care during years 1-3. If one can find a deal on daycare or they have family member to help - it's still pretty cheap...especially if one can breast feed and use cloth diapers.
Local YMCA system offers k-5 after school care (2:45-6:30) for $260/month. I'm not too familiar with how the tax credit works, but I believe it's 35% (up to $3k) so that brings the actual cost to around $2070 or around $170/month. Then of course, you still have the child tax credit and ability to add them as a dependent.
Last edited by eddiehaskell; 08-14-2014 at 01:46 PM..
Yes, for some that are basically alone in the world, having a child can be more of a burden. But heck, almost everything is more of a burden for those people. Regardless, finding a stay at home mom looking for extra income shouldn't be too difficult. And Goodwill/CL have plenty of clothing that will fit a small child.
Some strange folks consider children a joy.
Apparently you have never been burdened with minor issues such as childcare or a back up plan at 6:00 am.
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