The US Department of Agriculture estimates that a middle-income family will spend approximately $210,000 to rear a child from birth through age 17!
Daunting, for sure, but is it accurate? Does having a family really have to cost that much?
Absolutely not!
Over the next few weeks, I will address the ten areas most quoted when considering the "high" cost of rearing children, followed by easy and practical ways to cut expenses.
If you desire to expand your family, but are hesitant because of expected costs, or if you are already rearing children and are overwhelmed by the expense, consider applying some of the suggestions below to your lifestyle. You may be surprised at how little kids can cost (especially compared to how much they give!).
1) Formula and baby food are so expensive. They cost me several thousand dollars a year!
Formula is expensive! Consider breastfeeding for a full year. It's free, convenient and best for baby. At 12 months, you can continue to breastfeed, or switch to whole milk (much cheaper than formula).
Homemade baby food is super easy to make, and costs far less than jarred baby food. Many foods such as banana and avocado can be given as first foods, and others can be pureed and frozen (ice-cube trays make perfect portions) for pennies on the dollar. One jar of organic baby food costs approximately .70¢ for 2.5 oz. One bag of frozen organic peas costs approximately $1.50 for 16 oz.
2) It costs approximately $3000 to diaper one baby to age three. I can't afford that every few years.
The new cloth diapers are not your Mama's diapers! Beautiful patterns, velcro and snaps, they are so easy even your husband will love them (mine does!). The initial cost of cloth diapers can seem very high, but they have a very high re-sale value. If you are willing to buy gently worn diapers, you can save even more. I bought my entire stash (newborn to toddler, including pull-ups) for around $200. That is equal to the first two to three months of disposables. Add the positive environmental impact and cloth diapers are a win-win solution.
3)Clothes, shoes, coats, who can afford to keep up with a growing kid's wardrobe?
This is the one area in which I believe anyone can save huge amounts of money. I never, I mean never, buy new, full-priced clothes for my kids. There are massive amounts of excellent quality kids' clothes available for cheap at a variety of places.
Most towns have at least one consignment shop. Many of these will offer "basket" deals: fill a basket for $5.00, etc. I often find clothes with the tags still on them.
Yard sales are another great place to find clothes, shoes and coats. I found a beautiful little girl's coat for $1.00 at a local yard sale, last summer. It was in perfect condition and would have cost at least $30.00 new.
Craigslist and Freecycle are two websites that offer children's items for free or low-cost. Craigslist often has entire wardrobes for sale, i.e. 50 pieces from 18 mos to 24 mos, and Freecycle offers all-local, all-free items.
4) What about all the stuff? I want my kids to have everything I had, and more!
Chances are, your kids already have too much stuff! I know mine do. But things get broken, birthdays come around and new stuff has to be bought. My rule of thumb is to decide what I want to buy first, and spend at least two days finding the best deal.
When we were tempted to buy that trampoline this summer, we went home and found one for free on Freecycle. When the kids bored of their LeapPad games, I found a set of 10 books/cartridges for $7.00 at Goodwill! ($15.95 each at Walmart) I buy books at yard sales and do toy-swaps with my friends.
5) Have you paid a babysitter lately? We want to go out every week, but after dinner, movie and a babysitter, we've dropped $150!
I've heard of some babysitters near us (in Northern Va), who charge $20-25 per hour/per kid! Who can afford that?
Consider creating a baby-sitting co-op with a group of friends. Each week, one couple agrees to watch all the children, while all the other couples get to enjoy a night out. Sure, your night to babysit may be a little crazy, but think of all those dates! The more couples you have, the less often you have to watch. Also, if some of the couples have older children, they can be an enormous help with the toddlers and infants.
As you can see from the first five items, child-rearing does not have to cost as much as predicted. It is my firm belief that kids are only as expensive as you make them.
Please feel free to leave comments with your suggestions on how to save money on kid-associated costs.
Next week, I will address expenses that come with older children.
Loading ...
Interesting!
I don't yet have children, but I do think they don't have to cost as much as some people think.
We do a twist on the babysitting co-op: we swap babysitting with the family across the street twice a month (we go out once, they go out once). The twist is that you put your OWN kids to bed, the babysitting parent comes over, and you go out at that point. No one needs to worry about feeding, trying to replicate bedtime rituals, etc. In the year-plus that we've been doing it, the neighbor girl has gotten too old for a 7:30 bedtime, so when I come over, she is in her room reading and puts herself to bed at the right time (and she does, too–I've checked!). I love it–I get so much reading done during my babysitting time because I don't have the distractions of my own housecleaning to do, etc. And best of all, it's free for everyone. Try it!
Those are great tips! I haven't given much thought to cloth diapers because I've always assumed the mess would overwhelm me.
Fabulous tips honey!!
such awesome ways to save. Just to emphasize freecycle some more: I just scored about 100 big boxes and 4 trash bags of bubble wrap and packing paper (we're doing a cross country move this summer) and a brand new car seat (well, the toddler size) for my little guy! FREE!!!
ps–LOVE the comments on cloth diapers, a friend of mine loves them. I think with #2 that's what we'll do!
We swap babysitting every other week with a friend of mine, it works GREAT!!! I also buy all of my little boys clothes off season. He always dresses to the nines because I buy his clothes the year before for pennies on the dollar.
great tips! i heart freecycle.
Thank you so much for this info! We are having our first child in October and are trying to get our financial affairs in order as much as possible. This was great! Thank you!
[...] my previous post, I offered some tips on how to save money during the first few years, from homemade baby food to [...]
The second neurodevice technique being investigated as a potential treatment for refractory depression is Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). Over 30,000 people have been implanted with DBS systems for the treatment of movement disorders in people with severe tremor or Parkinson’ s disease and now there are attempts to use it to treat depression. DBS devices resemble cardiac pacemakers, except that the stimulation electrodes are implanted in specific areas of the brain rather than the heart. Medtronic is currently…
There is never any absolute certainty about what the nutritional requirements are for the human body of a certain age, size and gender. Scientific research on the subject takes a long time, and results are often not that clear. But, at least scientific research into the subject of vitamins, minerals and other nutritional requirements is being undertaken seriously, and taken seriously by governments. That was not always so; at least, if it was, it never reached through to the medical profession at the sharp end. …
I am wondering if accelerated communications via media (immediate info via satellite and computer) can make it seem as though things are worse nowadays, when, in fact, the same ol' negative news is just traveling faster and farther…???