what is the average cost of raising a child from birth to 18

I am raising 3 kids without three/4 million dollars of dispensable income. We might actually be breaking fifty-fifty on costs! Here are our strategies.

Does It Really Cost a Quarter Million Dollars Per Child?

People say raising a child costs $200,000 to $300,000. The sum is ordinarily rounded to "a quarter of a million dollars."

I have three kids, but I didn't take three/iv one thousand thousand dollars or anything like it. In fact, when you calculate all the tax cuts and souvenir cards and sacks of dress and toys we've been given, I call back we may accept made coin by having children, and that's not because we've sent them to piece of work! (We have fabricated friends by sending them to do volunteer work, though.)

Not anybody has the same resources nosotros have, but nosotros're probably not too far off normal. How many people have huge reserves of disposable income to raise kids, anyway?

I have non completely monetized our assets (what's the value of jeans with holes in the knees that are good play clothes for us but which nobody else volition want?), simply since I usually do our taxes, I have a proficient idea where our coin goes. So, peculiarly for those who oasis't had children yet, allow me explain the economics of all the things yous DON'T need to buy.

How much do yous actually need to spend on kids' wear, and how much do they really need?

Costs of Conceiving a Child

We are older parents. Younger parents can relieve costs compared to us by not having to buy books on fertility and thermometers and vitamins and pregnancy tests and stuff like that. The principal cost-saving strategy here is to protect your fertility. Don't look till y'all're 30 or over to offset having children.

Pre-Natal and Birth Costs

At the time I got married, I chosen a hospital to find out what the price of an uncomplicated vaginal birth is, without insurance. Information technology was then nearly $2000 (not counting the cost of the doc, which well-nigh doubled the effigy). Later when I actually had a (very slightly complicated) hospital birth, it was about $3000. Information technology will have gone up since then, simply it'due south amazing what you can observe if you actually inquire. Though information technology'south non a fun check to write, it'south less than many plumbing emergencies, and you become ¾ of a year to relieve up for it. YOU Can HANDLE THIS. Even without insurance.

But, twice nosotros had a home birth, and for that we got the cost of the actual birth PLUS the cost of prenatal care (from the Aforementioned person or team every calendar week, who ACTUALLY GOT TO KNOW ME, and LISTENED to how I was feeling) for most the same every bit the cost of but the birth at the hospital. (Can you tell I think abode births are keen?) I tin can say from personal experience, though, it is a good idea to have the additional money available for a hospital nascence just in case. (If you don't end up using it, y'all can put it aside for a higher fund, because you may not need it during the next 18 years – proceed reading!)

More shoes than nosotros could use: All these shoes and boots (and probably every bit many more, scattered elsewhere) were given to us. Most were paw-me-downs. If whatsoever don't wait "shell up", it's probably the ones we forgot to use while they fit!

How Much a New Baby Costs

Dispensable diapers add upward over time. (We did generally disposable diapers with one child because of diaper rashes.) Cloth diapers sound like they cost a lot, but it's but once (and with some cloth diapers ane purchase will concluding for multiple children.) Cloth diapers practice leak more than disposable diapers, if you don't change them often enough. Consider it your reminder to keep the babe from having to sit in icky stuff!

We found you don't accept to wash all cloth diapers every bit many times as some guides say, to get them hygienic again. We have an outdoor clothesline, and sunlight is a good disinfectant. (Remember, you lot have a lot of ancestors who survived before clothes washers with disinfecting cycles!)

I mention diapers in such detail only because I can't think of any other expenses we had during babyhood. We are older parents, and so we have a lot of friends whose children are a few years on from ours, who handed down a whole lot of wearing apparel. Too, on both sides of the family, for a lot of years there was doubt whether in that location would exist any descendants at all, so we take grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-aunts, peachy-uncles, and some single or childless friends who were all waiting for babies to give gifts to. And then we were given more clothes, toys, baby furniture, baby carriers, strollers, breast pumps, etc., than we could shop in our house, much less use. Sure, not all of information technology was in perfect condition, but most of information technology you couldn't tell from new, and because that babies cause lots of stains, it's not like it was going to expect new subsequently commencement use anyway.

Food—well, breastfeeding is really convenient and actually inexpensive. Probably there was a niggling more toll for my own nutrient while I was breastfeeding, but I didn't observe information technology, and I did observe the pregnancy fat disappearing quicker that way.

Can you have as well many blimp animals? We're non defective in stuffed animals. The fraction of them shown here is enough to hide a small-scale kid underneath! I recall they all take names, but I don't know all the names.

The Transportation Costs of a Family

Unless yous both have motorcycles, the only boosted cost for a start kid will be a car seat. (Unless yous have one of those 2-seater sports cars, in which case you probably aren't all that strapped for coin.) For a starting time child, someone volition likely give you lot a motorcar seat, or a gift card that will encompass it. Most likely, your offset kid will be out of that car seat by the time your second is born, so y'all might have to keep ownership new booster seats for a while (if you believe the manufacturers that you should never use anyone'due south hand-me-down because information technology might accept been in a crash and they didn't tell yous).

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The annoying thing is, the average auto that can concur 5 (somewhat squashed) adults will probably non agree two adults and 3 children who are in child seats. I am waiting for someone to invent interlocking babe and booster seats for really modest cars, merely meanwhile, we did effigy out, weeks before #iii was born, that there is a really modest baby seat (by Cocorro) that fit with booster seats well enough to keep united states from having to purchase a new car.

Subsequently some number of children, kid seat laws will pretty much force yous to buy another car. Only information technology doesn't necessarily take to exist a new auto, and yous don't necessarily all have to travel in the same car when you lot go. There are ways to work information technology out, and in my experience, the people who worry virtually about whether they can afford a babe have no trouble affording a new car.

Paying for Childhood

I read something urging parents to be financially prepared for parenthood that said, "I am certain y'all would not desire to see your child be the just one with beat up shoes or hand me down clothes on the start twenty-four hours of school." Huh. I would be highly surprised if my first-grader knew hand-me-downwardly dress from new clothes. (In fact, I'g non sure adults know the difference. I get more compliments on my austerity shop clothes than whatever others.) I would besides exist highly surprised if new shoes survived the walk to school before looking "beat up". Really, all I tin can say is, if my children's self-worth is seriously dependent on their first-24-hour interval-of-school clothes, then I have failed as a parent.

Due to the same factors as in childhood, up through about age 12 near the just wearing apparel we bought for our children was underwear and a few socks (though we've actually gotten mitt-me-down socks!) During the teenage years, our kids have been happy with jeans and t-shirt most days, and for more than important occasions we found a lot of parental wearing apparel in the basement to hand downwards (we had to acknowledge we don't fit those clothes so well anymore). Some formal clothes get out of style, but many don't, or they come dorsum in fashion.

One note on jeans: I am fine with shorts during the winter – non very different from pants with holes! Besides, if knees directly meet physical enough times, the problem volition tend to correct itself. At that place is an age range when at that place is no point in buying jeans, because the new ones have holes too later on a couple weeks. Simply the kids practise get past that, about the same time information technology is reasonable to say, "I bought you enough pants at the beginning of the year. If y'all need more now, you pay for them."

Nosotros do pay more than for food than nosotros used to, but the changes are so incremental I don't discover them except by comparing this year to five years ago, and inflation has had much more than effect than children. I don't remember the nutrient costs have outweighed the taxation benefits under the Bush taxation cuts (though probably that will alter in 2013) Update: And so far nosotros're still seeing tax benefits in 2020, though with teenagers, the extra food costs somewhat more than the taxation benefits. (But and so you tin factor in the complimentary labor: "Hey, raking the leaves is YOUR job now, buddy!")

Nosotros take a pocket-size house, and we had no room to put a baby in it until we had a baby. Then we discovered room. The next kid, nosotros as well had no room for until the consequence actually happened. Aforementioned with the third. At present in teenagerhood they are a lot longer but somehow they notwithstanding fit! I assume at some point, in that location is a limit to what you can squeeze in, merely also, if y'all have enough children, some are going to start moving out before the last ones arrive. I personally had quite a bit of space growing upwards, simply a family next door had twice our size of family in virtually the same house size we have now. It appeared to me to work fine.

Costs of Teenagers

We haven't gone all the way through teenagerhood yet, then experience costless to disbelieve my thoughts hither the way I discount single people's opinions about children. But still, nosotros're coming upwards apace on their legal independence, and if you ask them, they're convinced they're old enough to make their ain decisions. So, we encourage sure decisions. We have institute boys especially swallow a lot, and, about the same historic period they eat the nearly, they go onetime enough to have a job. It's a corking motivator to say, "Beans and rice have expert protein. If yous want something that tastes ameliorate, here are some means to earn some money."

Well-nigh parents I know seem to want to go on supporting their children until they are legally adults. Fine, if you lot have the money, only you take to admit it is not a reasonable picture of the existent earth, and at some point before they enter it, children should larn how the real globe works. For example, they need to know parents are helpful, merely they won't be there forever. Learning to back up yourself is less terrifying when your parents are yet there to fall back on if you neglect in a chore. We don't run into why children need to be 18 to learn that lesson, but at the same time we practise have a responsibility to support our children while they legally are children. Our compromise is to come up with an amount our teenagers should pay us for "hire" every month, only then to salvage or invest that money for their future. That teaches them to think in terms of rent but also potentially could allow them to make a downwardly payment (or more than, if it's somewhere less expensive) on a house at the age of 18. We take been somewhat flexible on starting this requirement since children are different and talents/job possibilities are unlike at unlike times. Besides, some activities (volunteer work, for example) that don't bring in money do bring in experience and contacts that tin can be more valuable than money.

Oh, and teenagers DO Not Demand cars, computers, cell phones, etc., and if they think they do, in that location is no time like the nowadays to define the difference between "need" and "want". One of our sons is part of a rescue organization where all the other teenagers have smartphones. He has the stupidest phone we could find for him. It turns out to have some advantages also beingness cheaper (less breakable and it really gets a bespeak places our ain prison cell phone doesn't). Still, he told u.s. he desperately needs a smartphone to exist able to communicate with the other members. We checked with the leader of the organization, and, existence our generation, he laughed and told us they were rescuing for decades before the Internet. The teenagers, he said, need to learn there are ways to do without technology—you never know when you'll exist without it in an emergency!

We exercise like books, and we did spend money for some of these. Just nosotros've also gotten a lot of books (including textbooks up into high school) passed on for free or long-term loan from people weren't using the books anyway and desire the books loved.

Costs of Higher

Unless it is your conspicuously-understood family tradition, written or unwritten, you practice not owe your children a college educational activity. Information technology is a squeamish commencement in a career, but since children don't tend to realize how overnice a start it is, it is easy for them to waste product the gift out of ignorance.

If we support our children's college education, it's only going to exist if they encounter the utilise of the gift, and have the understanding of how to make the best utilise of it. Actually, we're not likely to have the money to practise so anyway, which does non worry u.s. considering (despite having some pretty skillful college teaching betwixt us) we're not convinced colleges today are worth the price. Online education, work feel, and the library seem like something an enterprising immature person could do a lot with for very little money. Every bit for the "social feel" of higher – uh – you mean the things that happen Friday nights? Anyone who is concerned almost their kid missing out on that experience should certainly transport their kids to college; nothing in the real globe tin can match the irresponsibility of that feel.

Meanwhile, we have constitute there are ways to get a college educational activity partly past CLEP test and partly online and virtually no in-person time at all. It's much cheaper than "normal" college and many if not most teenagers are capable of doing it before the historic period of 18. It's non an impressive degree, but it'll cheque the box on a task application in society to get a real person to really read the resume and see how much they've actually accomplished. We have not finished the process yet, but it is non hard to find others who have. Search for "dual credit at home" and you'll come up with one of our favorite organizations that recommends the option, along with other websites with thoughts about the subject.

Another thought, from some friends of ours who also exercise not have money or inclination to send their children to college merely definitely desire them educated: instead of college, they are paying for a tiny home on wheels for each kid. Along with the experience of designing and building the tiny home, this gives each child years of gratis(ish - you still accept to park it somewhere) rent instead of paying tens of thousands for years for a place to live during immature adulthood.

Costs of Raising a Parent

When considering costs, you too have to count in benefits! I have read that the eventual economic value of children to club is somewhere effectually the quarter-million dollars they—supposedly—price. Whether whatever of these calculations are to exist believed is upwards to you, merely it's something to brand certain you include in your own calculations.

This article is nearly economic science, so I am not discussing whether children are fun (though nosotros think so.) But for those seriously concerned nigh the cost of parenthood, let me add one more thing to the equation. If you take a child, in a few decades, that child will probably be the i calculating costs – most your nursing home. That should be a sobering idea, possibly one which would tend to raise the amount which you would exist willing to spend on a kid.

Perhaps an even more sobering thought is, if you don't have a child, whose kid will someday calculate the costs of supporting you?

This commodity is accurate and true to the best of the writer's knowledge. Content is for advisory or entertainment purposes just and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional person advice in business, fiscal, legal, or technical matters.

© 2012 aethelthryth

aethelthryth (author) from American Southwest on April 15, 2015:

Jeannie, "carried away" would definitely exist the way to limited it. There is no shortage of advertisers helping to split parents from their money, merely you haven't seen anything till yous run across what grandparents are told. As in, "You lot think you lot know children just because you raised some, but you have no Idea how TODAY'South children will Suffer without MY OVERPRICED WHATSIT!"

I call back I take known but one person who paid their own mode through college, and he was i of mayhap 5 I've known for whom I see higher as having been a solid benefit.

Jeannie Marie from Baltimore, Doc on Apr 15, 2015:

I've often wondered if it is really that expensive to accept kids or if people are just getting carried away when I read those articles. After all, my friend insists her son needs to become to private schoolhouse and needs lessons for the guitar, hockey, and martial arts. I don't think and then. He is quite young, likewise. Plus, it is nice if parents pay for their kids to get to higher, just information technology is not required. I paid my own fashion through higher and appreciated information technology e'er so much more than my other classmates. :-) Great hub and voted upwardly.

aethelthryth (author) from American Southwest on May 12, 2014:

Debby Bruck - yep, well, we would actually like to send all our kids to astronaut army camp. Just we probably won't send whatever of them. And they'll probably be fine; Werner von Braun didn't go to astronaut camp.

I think not having much money actually makes raising kids easier. Kids, and advertisers, can talk y'all (well, me, anyway) into lots of things if the best statement against it is "well, I recollect we shouldn't be going in so many different directions right now." But when y'all say "we don't take enough money for that - did y'all want to finance information technology?" everybody shuts up!

Debby Bruck on May 10, 2014:

I suppose if your children don't nourish summertime army camp, get to lessons (instrument, dance - those costumes cost a fortune, arts), attend clubs and later-school events, even the school teachers inquire for funds to support their basic needs, going to the movies and special outings, your kids are super healthy and don't see the medico or have special needs, don't want anything new, and they don't eat much yous can keep them under budget. What if your kids wants to get to astronaut army camp or belong to band or orchestra? And, we don't simply buy a crayon box anymore, only give all the kids computers, etc. I call up you are awesomely frugal and make it work. It probably did cost us a few 1000000 dollars to raise our children with all the opportunities and sending them all to higher. Blessings, Debby

aethelthryth (writer) from American Southwest on May 10, 2014:

phdast7, thank you! I wrote this considering of being frustrated past people (more often than not younger) around me not knowing they don't actually have to do everything parenting magazines tell them to.

Audrey Howitt, I'm certain there are many people who are extremely disquisitional of this Hub. What you are is the ane up-front enough to actually say something! I am not confronting college, just against paying for higher without doing the critical thinking necessary to decide if college is a good bargain in ane'south particular situation. Also, if college is the first place where critical thinking and assay are taught, and so the educational organisation has wasted a lot of years. I agree that college tin be a great benefit to children, but in my experience the ones who got the biggest benefit are really the ones whose parents did not pay for some or all of it. Those friends of mine worked hard for the teaching they got and appreciated it, while other friends who knew their education was beingness paid for, spent (or, in my opinion, wasted) four of their adult years beingness indecisive nearly what direction they should take in life. Meanwhile, some of the people I most respect in my life, including a infinite and aviation engineer, never got a college degree.

Audrey Howitt from California on May 10, 2014:

Well, I may be the only person here who has mixed feelings most your hub--and merely because I actually feel that higher is important. Critical thinking and assay is so very of import. Information technology leads to independent thought and problem solving skills. And critical thinking skills are taught in college. While a parent may choose to not back up this attempt for his or her child, a child really can benefit from the experience. And it is extremely difficult to do on your own.

While a parent may not owe a child a college education, it certain helps a child to get a college education.

Theresa Ast from Atlanta, Georgia on May 10, 2014:

As you lot know, I loved this the offset fourth dimension I read information technology, and I decided to read it once more today. Equally someone else commented this hub is rock solid and total of wit and wisdom. How did our society ever go so dizzy nearly what things are necessary and what they should toll? Wonderful, wonderful hub. Information technology should exist required reading for all engaged and shortly to be married couples. Blessings! Theresa

aethelthryth (writer) from American Southwest on February 12, 2014:

Case1Worker, thanks for the comment! Don't we all wish we all had as much money as we were "supposed" to have to afford a kid!

CASE1WORKER from Uk on February 08, 2014:

Y'all are so right, nosotros read all these surveys stating how much it is to raise a child- one said £250,000- well I have had 3 children over 24 years which means £750,000 - nosotros have nowhere near earned that much money!

aethelthryth (author) from American Southwest on February 07, 2014:

Lego hockey - hmm - should I mention it to our kids? If I do, I'm certain at that place will exist a tournament in our living room within 15 minutes!

Cynthia Zirkwitz from Vancouver Island, Canada on February 06, 2014:

our sons (in their 40s) played road hockey for nearly of their childhoods & youth although we lived in the 'organized hockey' eye of the world. It suited them fine. They also played hockey with lego, etc. I don't think there was a lack of hockey because we didn't shell out tons of greenbacks for equipment and tournaments (in far-flung places). I like your take on your ain music lessons! I was all gung-ho to pay for piano lessons for my granddaughters when their inner city schoolhouse offered free lessons... it gives them an opportunity to see if they actually enjoy piano lessons, in which case I am happy (as the Grandmother-- more stepping in to reduce that cost to parents, eh?) to pay for lessons. Go along up the skilful work!

aethelthryth (author) from American Southwest on Feb 05, 2014:

Thank you then much, prairieprincess and techygran! And good point most the sports and music. Nosotros accept a lot of music in our family history, so I would like our children to have lessons, simply then, I have realized I did not appreciate music lessons as a child. After I was an adult, though, and got a Christmas present of singing lessons, I continued the singing lessons (with my ain money) for years.

As far as sports, I proceed reading memoirs of older people lamenting the lack of "selection-upwardly" games in neighborhoods anymore. And my father became a basketball game star in high school though all he had to do with was "balls" of worn-out clothes. We'll come across - there may be selection-up games in our neighborhood in the next few years, equally nosotros seem to live on a street of energetic boys!

Cynthia Zirkwitz from Vancouver Island, Canada on February 05, 2014:

I enjoyed this hub very much! I agree with Prairie Princess that you did a masterful job of disproving the shocking figures commonly attached to "the cost of raising a child to adulthood". Some other way to salvage a little is by not getting your children in high-cost sports and music programs... there are and so many much less expensive alternatives these days! All the best-- I call back you take your heads screwed on right every bit parents!

Sharilee Swaity from Canada on February 04, 2014:

I beloved this! You accept, with great wit and wisdom, debunked one of the popular myths of our time. Well done, and shared.

aethelthryth (author) from American Southwest on May 16, 2013:

GetitScene, give thanks you, just are boats and children really incompatible? I wouldn't know, but reading stories about families on houseboats, I always idea it would exist a fun way to abound upwardly.

Dale Anderson from The High Seas on May 15, 2013:

The wife and I skipped having children in favor of a boat but I come from a large family and this all sounds rock solid to me. Good content here.

aethelthryth (author) from American Southwest on February 13, 2013:

billd01603, I actually had a hard time saying that, because I did have the benefit of my parents paying quite a chip for my college education, and information technology doesn't seem fair that I am not expecting to laissez passer on that benefit to my children.

However, I recollect the price of college has gone fashion up since then and the value has gone significantly down, and it is not the same conclusion for the same reasons it was a few decades agone.

billd01603 from Worcester on Feb 12, 2013:

Skilful Hub. You are correct, I don't believe parents owe a child a college education. After all, they will savour the long term benefits. When it came fourth dimension for our son to become to college, our finances were low. Nosotros did what we could, but he took out loans to get what he wanted and now he has to pay them back.

aethelthryth (author) from American Southwest on February 07, 2013:

JayeWisdom, cheers!

Insightful Tiger, all-time wishes! My brother took his own sweet time about making me an aunt, as well. I don't think brothers tend to heed to sisters - just at least you can at least show excuses for what they are!

Insightful Tiger on February 06, 2013:

This article is nifty! I'm sending information technology to my brother, who is making me wait to be an aunt, because he says its too expensive to have a kid with his married woman correct now! lol, thank you! voted upward and shared!

Jaye Denman from Deep South, United states of america on January 17, 2013:

Groovy commodity, and I peculiarly enjoyed the last two paragraphs!

Voted Upward+++

Jaye

aethelthryth (writer) from American Southwest on January 07, 2013:

Pavlo, thank yous for another skillful perspective from another part of the world. Practiced to know I could salvage coin giving birth there; really, I was quite upset nearly having to accept a hospital nativity because I felt that pregnancy is not a sickness and and so should not need medicine!

Some people here don't worry most the costs of children, but many practise, or at least use information technology equally an excuse (a couple of my relatives were more honest: they said they simply didn't desire the discomfort of pregnancy.)

As far as I can encounter, no kid is ever born at the perfect fourth dimension when there is all the money for all the things they are supposed to take. Nonetheless, all of usa currently alive managed to survive childhood anyway and by and large would rather have been built-in than not!

Pavlo Badovskyi from Kyiv, Ukraine on January 06, 2013:

Interesting hub, just it shows how much thinking in different parts of the world is different... I would never even think near calculating costs of raising a child. If I did it earlier my 2 sons were born, I would never hold to accept children :))

Well, in my turn i would like to offering to cut costs of raising children by moving to Ukraine ! :)) Formally it is free to be in the hospital, only they say to take costless medicine is to have treatment costless of medicine, so you may be sure to pay in around 500USD of tips to doctors and may be 200usd for medications. I will help you lot to find a proper infirmary :)

Just look on the latest events - Gérard Depardieu moved to Russia! Well, he is unlikely to have children, but he is going to cut costs of living too! LOL

(practice not take it seriuos, I am joking of course)

aethelthryth (author) from American Southwest on December 28, 2012:

Jane Grey, thank y'all for mentioning the Watters' book. I found that book very encouraging.

alancaster149, I was a bit worried that some things I said only practical in the U.s., and I didn't know what the equivalents were elsewhere. Cheers very much for tips from the UK!

Alan R Lancaster from Woods Gate, London E7, U 1000 (ex-pat Yorkshire) on December 28, 2012:

To start off with, the advantage of having a national health system means we don't accept to cough upwards large sums of cash for the 'sprogs' to exist built-in in hospital or at home. As for mail service-natal costs, there are less expensive and cheap options to follow.

Assuming y'all've taken the happy medium, there'southward the business of painting the bedroom and furnishings. Easy, in that location are second-manus shops that sell plant nursery furniture and prams/pushchairs. Your offspring isn't going to notice if its surroundings belonged to someone else. It's only when they commencement school that their contemporaries observe labels, and that's but because their parents are imbued with 1-upmanship (usually grasping mothers who brag about how expensive things were at Harrods).

Every bit to other costs, like toys and things, kids simply sit down up and gawp when they see something actually chronic or really spiffing. The rest of the costs can be defrayed. My grandparents had theirs about 2 years or so apart (my Dad's grandmother had her youngest when the eldest ran his ain farm, twenty-odd years apart - his female parent had her first at 20, in 1920, the other three well-nigh two-three years autonomously until 1931, two girls separated by ii boys over xi years).

Clothes and toys tin exist passed on. Your kids will plough fashion-conscious in their teens, which gives y'all over a decade to stage their evolution - aside from intellect, which is beyond your control. In an average family of ii+2+canis familiaris+true cat+5-seater saloon car, with everyone of average intellect your outlay volition be average and if you can go on it under control full Marx to you lot!

Ann Leavitt from Oregon on December 28, 2012:

Well done, well said, well proven! I heartily agree with you. What an fantabulous article. Throughout history, children have been looked at equally an asset, not a detriment to a household. It'south simply in recent history that we accept become and so strangely astern in our thinking. Another resource that I've really appreciated is a volume directed at newly married couples, titled Kickoff Your Family by Candice and Steve Watters. They lay out all the benefits vs. all the detriments and conclude that children toll you less than they give you, and that it is better to start your family unit early if you can, rather than after.

aethelthryth (author) from American Southwest on Dec 27, 2012:

Wow, thanks, phdast7! Of course, I don't know how anyone learns to handle money if they have grandparents with money - I've decided Babies R Us exists considering happy grandparents and their money are soon parted!

Theresa Ast from Atlanta, Georgia on December 27, 2012:

aethelthryth - I dearest this! I honey this! I love this! Finally, a realistic, no nonsense, nuts and bolts expect at how a family tin intendance for and raise children...for much, much less that several hundred k dollars.

My parents raised 4 kids on a unmarried salary this way and we thought our lives were great. Did nosotros learn to be careful with our money, and make do and share? Of course we did and it has benefited all four of us our whole lives. We were loved, we learned how to do things for ourselves (and for others), and we appreciated and took care of what we had.

I raised iii boys largely following the pattern y'all and your hubby used. Information technology is possible to get good clothes, books, furniture, dishes, shoes, toys, sports equipment, and baby piece of furniture for a fraction of the price when it was brand new. I have money now (and three grandchildren), but I nevertheless shop at Good Will. My coin gos further and I can meet more family unit, friend, and customs needs (and wants) that mode. :)

For those reading this who do not have large extended families - buy at Adept Will, thrift shops, consignment sales, neighborhood chiliad sales. Trade services with someone in your neighborhood -- cut their grass, clean their windows, or rake their leaves in exchange for slightly used clothing or piece of furniture. If your church doesn't already have one, first a female parent's group and an Exchange for children's clothing and toys.

Raising children does non have to, nor should it, cost a fortune or break the banking company. I highly applaud your attitude, your efforts, your common sense, your wonderful joyous spirit and this terrific hub!!

SHARING, OF COURSE!!

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Source: https://toughnickel.com/personal-finance/Cost-of-Raising-a-Child

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