I finally understand why people say kids are expensive - daycare!

[Nords]

So you went from golfing (an "old man's game") to surfing (a "young man's" sport, IMHO)?

I grew up in a golfing family and getting the high-school golf-course job was easy. Then I joined the Navy, where junior officers were expected to show up for golf outings whether or not you actually golfed.

But when we got to Monterey and discovered SCUBA diving, I sold my clubs and never went out on a course again.

"Young man's" sport?!? You should see the lineup at our local beach. I bring the average age down by over a decade.

Rabbit Kekai was surfing well into his 80s, Woody Browne into his 90s, Doc Ball was skateboarding even beyond that, and local tire-company legend Lex Brodie was surfing at the age of 90. I don't know how old Buffalo Keaulana is but I'm pretty sure he's still out there.

Sad to say, today's groms with their eyes on competition need to be taking professional coaching before they're teenagers. But for those of us with the Zen to rise above that human strife to actually enjoy the surf, it just gets better as we get older.

 

[brewer12345]

Actually most of the serious riders are male. Just look at the list of Olympic equestrians.

Girls don't participate in contact sports (unless you want to regard women's soccer as a contact sport) so riding is often an activity they have time for. I also liked riding because of a vision defect, I don't see in three dimensions so ball sports were not an option. Riding is the perfect sport for a person with vision problems.

I don't see in 3d too well either, so never could do ball sports. Every horse I have been on has tried to throw me. I used to settle for archery and target shooting, since I see 2d just fine. Sigh...

 

[laurence]

On the original topic, DW quit her job when our first was a year old, we found we weren't able to justify the slight net income increase with all the stress. Then we got lucky and her little consulting on the side grew from 5 hours to eventually 25 hours a week from home (mostly) and have been doing it ever since. We have friends with three daughters as well, doing the day care thing, and at the peak were paying $3k a month. Combine that with the fact that mom was too tired to cook at the end of the day so that meant take out or pizza and you can see why she's trying to convince her DH to let her quit. But sometimes the $500 a month net from work minus day care is that critical amount of money.

On the follow up topics, I'm very glad we put our daughters through swim lessons and very glad that we're done paying that monthly bill.

 

[haha]

I owned my show horse, but it is different here in the South, I suspect. My board was around $200 a month and the shows in town were less than $50. Out of town weekend regional shows were more than that, but it was a middle class pursuit as far as I could tell.
Now the dressage, hunter show, hoity toity folks--they spent some serious money. I rode Appaloosas, both English and Western, at breed and local saddle shows.
Here's King Eagle Feather, not mine, but the most fun jumper in the barn. And the white horse was Rock Hudson, my beloved show horse who was SC State Champion Performance Horse the year I was 15--competing against professionals. Riding horses kept me out of a lot of the trouble I would have found at the beach.

You one with that horse. Great form and a beautiful picture.

Ha

 

[FinanceDude]

You mean, like, being the only guy rider in an arena full of hot teen girls in leather boots with riding crops?

Sounds like Saturday nights when I was in college..........

 

[rescueme]

Sounds like Saturday nights when I was in college..........

Oh, they put the saddle on you?

Assuming they did, English or Western?

 

[slazenger]

Most of those studies get that number by assigning a percentage of housing and transportation costs to the child.

That might make sense if you are currently living in a small apartment and need to upgrade your living space to make room, but it's a little silly in most cases.

Our house didn't get more expensive when we had our daughter. We bought our newer car with a child in mind, but it didn't really add any meaningful expense.

We might have different views on purchases, but speaking for myself, I would never buy more house than I needed. I would be abiding by logic, then, if I were to say I would buy (or bought) a bigger house if my life plans included kids vs. no kids.

The same goes for cars. Would you buy, say, a Toyota Avalon if you were single? Who's to say you couldn't do that, but I sure wouldn't!

Speaking for me, my house and cars would be what you'd expect for my size family. They cost what they do accordingly. To be clear, I'm not saying this rule must apply to you. In statistics, they talk about standard deviation, outliers, and the like. You may have found a way to be below the 220K average. I'm only speaking about the mean cost.

 

[Hamlet]

Sure, but most people are not purchasing these things so close to the minimum they "need" that the first child is really adding much real cost. Most of our neighbors are older couples without children. I don't see them as wildly extravagent for living in a small 3-bedroom home.

It's a rare person who actually purchases only the home that they "need".

We bought a small 3-bedroom house in 2005 because we wanted a garden, a basement for aquariums, and generally it doesn't make much sense to buy a house any smaller. When our daughter was born this year, we got rid of stuff in one of the bedrooms, and made it into her bedroom.

I don't really think of her using that room as a real cost of having her.

Likewise, we bought a used Kia Rhondo as our primary vehicle last year. We bought it with having a child in mind, but it wasn't more expensive than just about anything else we were going to buy. It's certainly cheaper than the convertible I bought as a single person.

I think many of the costs attributed to having children in those articles are already being born by most people, regardless of having children. My single co-worker who bought the Lincoln Navigator and the big house on the river is set for about five kids before he has to worry about space

We might have different views on purchases, but speaking for myself, I would never buy more house than I needed. I would be abiding by logic, then, if I were to say I would buy (or bought) a bigger house if my life plans included kids vs. no kids.

The same goes for cars. Would you buy, say, a Toyota Avalon if you were single? Who's to say you couldn't do that, but I sure wouldn't!

Speaking for me, my house and cars would be what you'd expect for my size family. They cost what they do accordingly. To be clear, I'm not saying this rule must apply to you. In statistics, they talk about standard deviation, outliers, and the like. You may have found a way to be below the 220K average. I'm only speaking about the mean cost.

 

[FinanceDude]

Oh, they put the saddle on you?

Assuming they did, English or Western?

Sounds like you are suggesting that pretty teen girls with leather boots and riding crops rode me in college. Ok, it's about time to plead the 5th on that. My Chippendale outfits are long gone.......

 

[TromboneAl]

 

[Keim]

Now that is an old computer-monochrome monitor?

 

[Brat]

Isn't this the child who wants to become an engineer?

 

[Brett_Cameron]

A few months after that picture was taken mayhem ensued when trying to hold baby in lap and do things on the computer <I am thinking> Random extra keystrokes, anyone?

 

[TromboneAl]

That was 1988, and I don't think it was mono -- perhaps a NEC multisync. I know I had two monitors for a long while, a green mono monitor on one side for debugging.

Yes, she is now a successful engineer -- three cheers for early training.

 

[Alan]

That was 1988, and I don't think it was mono -- perhaps a NEC multisync. I know I had two monitors for a long while, a green mono monitor on one side for debugging.

Yes, she is now a successful engineer -- three cheers for early training.

Nice photos Al. Our daughter became a software engineer. Here she is in 1982 aged 18 months on a computer I had from work, while I was doing some overtime.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Those babies on computers are adorable! Thanks y'all!

 

[TromboneAl]

A PET computer -- one of my first jobs was on one of those.

Back on the "kids are expensive," theme...

There was a news item on NBC News about a woman who was poor and needed help. She had four kids. It's too late for her, but shouldn't someone get the message out that, well, kids are expensive? Is that politically incorrect to say?

 

[FUEGO]

There was a news item on NBC News about a woman who was poor and needed help. She had four kids. It's too late for her, but shouldn't someone get the message out that, well, kids are expensive? Is that politically incorrect to say?

With our current subsidy structure, I think the lowest rung of society actually does well by having more kids. For example, to qualify for a lot of government handouts, you have to be poor AND have kids. Being poor or having kids by itself isn't sufficient.

Maybe the subsidy structures currently in place are the problem that leads to poor people having lots of kids (or at least being indifferent to preventing having lots of kids).

 

[FUEGO]

We might have different views on purchases, but speaking for myself, I would never buy more house than I needed. I would be abiding by logic, then, if I were to say I would buy (or bought) a bigger house if my life plans included kids vs. no kids.

Not sure about where you live, but if you want a single family house with a yard in my neighborhood, your options for housing come in 3, 4, or 5 bedroom varieties. So by default you are living in a place with enough space for at least 2 kids, possibly 6-8. Obviously, this means lots of childless neighbors are consuming excessive amounts of housing, even with their 1000-1200 sf 3 bedroom houses.

Similarly with cars, most cheap cars you buy today come with 4 to 5 seats and most have 4 doors. Which means you are set for life if you have 2 kids, and probably through age 11-12 for the oldest one if you have 3+ kids and they are large. My cheapo Honda civic I bought during college (before kids were even a thought) is still more than adequate for our two girls (oldest is almost 7), and it may be the car my daughter starts driving in high school. We even <gasp!> occasionally carry a third kid in our car. I'm not sure if I could have saved any money by buying a 2 seater car, but I probably would not have bought a 2 seater anyway, since I may want to carry non-children passengers in my car from time to time.

But back to the point about kids costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, I guess you could look at an analogy. Let's imagine a study finds that the average couple's vacation to Europe costs $6000. But I can do it for $2000 by getting cheaper flights, finding deals on hotels, rail passes and buses, hotel deals, buying groceries instead of dining in tourist areas, etc. Same thing with raising kids. It is all about making choices and seeking value for your expenditures.

 

[laurence]

Also, we are ignoring the positive opportunity costs of kids. DW and I went out to dinner/dancing more often before kids, now it's family movie night and microwave popcorn...