I'm in the minority here but everyone is different and YMMV. Kids have blown through my budget. But so what? It means we work one more year. Being prudent in grad school living like that for years meant we can do it now
First off my DK are 10 and 12, and I'm typing this on my phone in the car at therapy for my DK1. Diagnosed with autism at age 11 last year 6th grade. That means we are considering private high school and college. That means we pay for threapy. It means we do a lot of activities and sometimes pay more for stuff to try to help her integrate better. DK 2 has recently as in couple weeks ago suggested to me that she be evaluated for neurodivergent. And this is not a surprise. My BIL when I met was on the spectrum but being dumb and 22 I never considered the what ifs. My diagnosis was $1000 oop.
So budgetwise the kids at blowing my expectations of public schools and being neurotypical and needing no help. I had enough to pay for 4 years in state public. I now have doubled that at like $175k now and we are going to cash flow if needed private high school. Special summer camp was $5k for kids on spectrum oop. No I didn't have to do it, but for us we value helping DK as much as we possibly can. Fwiw you don't know your kid till they are here and growing.
2nd the activities for kids and a family of four are expensive. We just got back from a week in Cancun and it was around $10k. We did a xcaret, xel ha, and cirque du Soleil. You don't have to do anything like this. But we do travel and do stuff a lot. Traveling now as a family runs us around $20-25k a year. You can do cheap trips but if you are going to Europe annually it's not going to be that cheap because airline tickets are pricey and as the kids get older you are stuck to school holidays unless you homeschool.
3rd eating groceries. I don't know how they are doubling the food budget this year. Inflation for sure. Going out to eat is once a week or less and it's $100 bill each time for four.
4th probably no car but never say never. But we've had two rounds of braces with special crossbite headgear. That was $6k each. And yes medically necessary unless we wanted to subject them to jaw altering surgery at age 18ish or headaches and tmj. My aunt and cousin both had to do that because they were too poor for braces for my aunt and didn't know better for my 50 year old cousin. Now we do intervention earlier and hope for the best. I will have a second round of braces for both around $3-5k. Again ymmv.
5th my dk2 has severe allergies necessating special soaps, body washes, medicines and lots of dr visits. 100% cotton clothes and very specific types and fits. Again you don't have to, but she has sensory issues so trying to get her to cooperate is the best I can hope for.
So no my kids have gotten more expensive and blown my budget out of control. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Neither would my DH. Right now he works like mad to make a moat for our kids just in case. He's not planning on retiring until he's sure in case something should go wrong he can provide. Knowing what we know about them and they are 2e exceptional and both tested 99% and into the gifted programs I don't know how that will all work out.
I don't know if my DK 1 will ever find a partner, something I worry about. I don't know if my dk2 what sort of job she'll get. So dh is working not.just for us but them as well.
So our fire is sort of also inclusive of making sure we can give our kids all the handouts we didn't get. House, car, college free, etc
