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

[Hamlet]

None of the child-related expenses have been that big of a deal, but now my wife is going back to work and my 6-month old daughter is going to daycare.

Ouch!

The daycare is the same as my mortgage.

 

[FIRE'd@51]

None of the child-related expenses have been that big of a deal, but now my wife is going back to work and my 6-month old daughter is going to daycare.

Ouch!

The daycare is the same as my mortgage.

When people used to ask me if my wife worked, I used to answer "she's not in business".

A stay-at-home Mom is a valuable asset.

 

[Mulligan]

None of the child-related expenses have been that big of a deal, but now my wife is going back to work and my 6-month old daughter is going to daycare.

Ouch!

The daycare is the same as my mortgage.

My deepest sympathy for the shock! My best friend waited 2 decades longer than he should have and just recently married and started a family. It stunned him. I told him he should have known prices went up since he was at the baby sitter back when Johnson was president. Besides it's good practice for you. Helps you to be mentally prepared for the car insurance, prom dresses, and college amongst a host of other things to numerous to mention that your wallet will be exposed to.

 

[Nuiloa]

None of the child-related expenses have been that big of a deal, but now my wife is going back to work and my 6-month old daughter is going to daycare.

Ouch!

The daycare is the same as my mortgage.

There you go! Retire early and start a Day Care centre in your home. You'll pay off the mortgage in no time and be able to use the rest of the funds to pay for good psychiatric help

 

[brewer12345]

We knew we could not justify it based on DW's earnings and did not want to go the daycare route anyway. So about a year before DW got pregnant she quit her job and started her small business. Its never been a giant earner (did about 15k net last year), but its very lightly taxed, allows DW to keep her skills up and have adult contact, adds to our retirement savings pool, and having someone around to deal with all the real life stuff has been a winner.

 

[FUEGO]

We were lucky to have my MIL available to take care of our kids, otherwise there is a fair chance DW would have been a stay at home mother. We do pay MIL, but it was $3600 a year (plus maybe another $500-1000 in food we brought over for our kids). Nothing like full time daycare even at a "cheap" place.

The good news is that in 4-5 years your little one will (hopefully) go to a mostly free public school.

 

[Texas Proud]

Maybe it is just me.... but getting married and having a new wife and two kids... cost a LOT... and we do not have daycare...

I would say they cost $40K a year more than if it were just me.... probably more....

 

[slazenger]

Hamlet, if you're "middle class", you're looking at ~ 220K to raise your daughter from 0 to age 18, not counting college. I'm just the messenger though, but I've seen at least 3 studies on this (all of which come very close to the same figure). Most of these studies itemize the costs so you can mull them over and see if they apply to you.

 

[SunsetSail]

After the first child, we went the MIL route. It was free, but didn't work out at all - DW and I used over 4 weeks vacation each so MIL could have days off.

DW gave up a $150K salary to stay home after our second. It was clearly not a financial decision. However, we expected (and received) many non-monetary benefits. We moved to a less expensive area with good public schools to offset the saving loss.

DW now works about 10 hours/week since the kids have started school mainly to eliminate resume gaps and stay connected. She almost hits the 401(k) max at a 60% contribution rate, so that helps.

 

[Mulligan]

Hamlet, if you're "middle class", you're looking at ~ 220K to raise your daughter from 0 to age 18, not counting college. I'm just the messenger though, but I've seen at least 3 studies on this (all of which come very close to the same figure). Most of these studies itemize the costs so you can mull them over and see if they apply to you.

Lets really pile on Hamlet while we got him down. Im assuming the 220k is just actual cost not opportunity cost. I bet that could grow to a 1/2 million lost in potential retirement money 18 years from now!

 

[FUEGO]

Hamlet, if you're "middle class", you're looking at ~ 220K to raise your daughter from 0 to age 18, not counting college. I'm just the messenger though, but I've seen at least 3 studies on this (all of which come very close to the same figure). Most of these studies itemize the costs so you can mull them over and see if they apply to you.

This little rule of thumb would indicate kids cost $12k a year per head, or $24000 if you have 2. Since that is roughly how much our entire family of 4 spends on core expenses (things like food, house upkeep, cars, education, entertainment, utilities, etc), I think some in the middle class can raise kids for less than $12k a year. Particularly if you have more than 1, since they are cheaper per unit if you raise a large quantity.

 

[HatePayingTaxes]

Welcome to reality!! I heard about it but never accepted it or went with a low number... I was in denial. It was a big surprise for sure. I always tell myself it's only temporary.

 

[clifp]

, I think some in the middle class can raise kids for less than $12k a year. Particularly if you have more than 1, since they are cheaper per unit if you raise a large quantity.

Cheaper by the dozen right? I am going to get right on testing out this theory.

 

[Hamlet]

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.

Most of the expenses for children seem pretty modest to me so far. Clothing is more an entertainment expense at this point, as she has had so many outfits given to her by our family that we are going to be buried alive in baby clothes (and toys).

Most of the baby stuff is widely available used and cheap. We bought some new stuff, but we wouldn't have had to. Yard sales are a new parents' best friend.

We might end up spending that much, but much of that spending will be elective.

Hamlet, if you're "middle class", you're looking at ~ 220K to raise your daughter from 0 to age 18, not counting college. I'm just the messenger though, but I've seen at least 3 studies on this (all of which come very close to the same figure). Most of these studies itemize the costs so you can mull them over and see if they apply to you.

 

[Hamlet]

Yes, I encouraged my wife to stay home, but she didn't want to leave the workforce. It can be very hard to get back into it once you leave, so I couldn't really argue against going back to work.

She makes enough that we are better off financially with her working, even with the daycare expense.

I was more worried about the personal downsides to daycare than the money. Thankfully, it is working out better than I expected. The center we use has people that I am comfortable with now. They appear to be taking good care of her.

When people used to ask me if my wife worked, I used to answer "she's not in business".

A stay-at-home Mom is a valuable asset.

 

[MichaelB]

Yes, I encouraged my wife to stay home, but she didn't want to leave the workforce. It can be very hard to get back into it once you leave, so I couldn't really argue against going back to work.

She makes enough that we are better off financially with her working, even with the daycare expense.

I was more worried about the personal downsides to daycare than the money. Thankfully, it is working out better than I expected. The center we use has people that I am comfortable with now. They appear to be taking good care of her.

Two of our three went to daycare and my granddaughter is going. There is no easy way. Part time work at home mom is hard to get but a great option. Just trying to help.

When doing the financial math don't forget to include the additional doctor visits. At a daycare, every time one child gets sick, they all get sick...and the parents often follow.

 

[GusLevy]

As a full-time Mr. Mom of my precious 10-mo old princess I literally feel your pain. Raising an infant full-time is, IMO, the hardest job in existence for a man due to obvious biological, ummm, differences but also because it has been proven that a crying baby is the most stressful sound that a man can experience. An NFL half-back is the second most difficult job in the world for a man but that job works only half a game with various tv and coaching time-outs: There are NO time-outs for Mr. Mom and half-backs only have to deal with crying wide receivers.

I retired at 39 two yrs ago and would never have guessed that I'd be doing this right now: Living the Dream! Jokes aside, I do absolutely treasure my girl and believe that my time with her at this stage of her life is priceless for me. Having said that, the level of exhaustion entailed with this job pushed me into looking at daycare centers and nannies - for a couple days per week. The daycare center that I visited scared me to pieces - I could not envision, for me since I am not working, a scenario where I could leave my child with strangers and other kids at another location while I did important things like golf and nap.

As for the nanny option, the market cost for a nanny with decent references in my area is at least $15 per hour. The math thus worked out to Tue and Thur between 11am and 7pm for $240 per week: Basically a thousand bucks per month after-tax money for a nice woman to come at lunchtime and to go home at dinnertime for two weekdays per week...at the easiest time of the day to watch a baby! As much as I felt like that I needed the downtime for myself it became evident that the cost-benefit relationship for a nanny was not justifiable - at least until my girl is a bit older.

Anyway, watching an infant grow before my eyes is heretofore an adventure full of wonder and exasperation. I already reminisce about the first few months as she is growing so quickly it seems!

 

[arebelspy]

As a full-time Mr. Mom of my precious 10-mo old princess I literally feel your pain. Raising an infant full-time is, IMO, the hardest job in existence for a man due to obvious biological, ummm, differences but also because it has been proven that a crying baby is the most stressful sound that a man can experience. An NFL half-back is the second most difficult job in the world for a man but that job works only half a game with various tv and coaching time-outs: There are NO time-outs for Mr. Mom and half-backs only have to deal with crying wide receivers.

Hilarious.

 

[jblack]

As for the nanny option, the market cost for a nanny with decent references in my area is at least $15 per hour. The math thus worked out to Tue and Thur between 11am and 7pm for $240 per week: Basically a thousand bucks per month after-tax money for a nice woman to come at lunchtime and to go home at dinnertime for two weekdays per week

And that is lucky if you have 'nanny' taxes included in that figure. We shared a full time nanny M-F with some friends last year. Add on the employer taxes & employee withholding that you have to deal with and it can quickly be as expensive as daycare (but certainly more flexible). Negotiate/Clarify all that up front.

We are now in a GREAT daycare facility with 2 kids under the age of 2. It is run at cost on-site as an employee benefit but still is $1850/month. Basically will cost us $80k until they are in kindergarden.....well worth it but ouch. Similar places nearby for profit would be $100k.

FWIW, obviously costs vary by region a lot. A tech co-worker of mine recently relocated to TX from CA and he said the same quality of care there would be $3k+.

 

[WanderALot]

We are in SoCal, so not a cheap area. We pay about $750/month for 4 days a week (7 hours) preschool. My parents watch him one day a week. The reason it's so "cheap" is because it's almost a non-profit school since it's a tied to a synagogue. We aren't Jewish, but we appreciate that he gets great care and instruction and also gets exposed to a different culture. Since he's almost 4, the required teacher-to-student ratio isn't as high so it's cheaper than when he was a toddler.

Using the child care credit helps the cost a bit and summers are very low cost for us since DW is a teacher so he only goes to school for 2 half-days/week. Even with all of these benefits, we ended up paying about 6-7K/year after tax.

 

[Brat]

Been there, done that years ago.

It has been my experience that if you have one child and can take him/her to home based daycare that is the most economical. Next most expensive is day care. Once you have two children in home daycare is cost effective.

 

[LOL!]

Sorry. I'm not buying it. We both worked full-time and had kids. We even lived in a high cost-of-living-area and could not afford to buy a home.

Day care does not have to be expensive if you look around at many options. Some parents use the cost of daycare and follow-on private school as a status symbol. You don't have to be that kind of parent.

Also raising kids is easy. You simply teach them to take care of themselves. It is amazing how smart they are and how quickly they catch on. For folks who think raising kids is hard, they must've had some very very very easy gigs in comparison. I suppose if one was more positive about it, then the attitude would be different.

So I wanted to dispel the myths that kids are hard to raise and expensive to raise. If that were true, the poor would stop having children.

 

[Nords]

Yes, I encouraged my wife to stay home, but she didn't want to leave the workforce. It can be very hard to get back into it once you leave, so I couldn't really argue against going back to work.

Business Week ran an article a decade ago "proving" that working parents are losing money once you add in all the expenses and taxes.

Their conclusion? If you want to work then you should, even if you're "losing" money for the first five years. Their point was that a working spouse develops skills and eventually higher earnings that they'd never get if they stayed home. They also emphasized that a working spouse wouldn't be a marriage hostage or vulnerable in a divorce.

The challenge is keeping your spending within one income so that if she wants to quit (or if one of you loses their job) then the financial obligations don't lead you into the two-income trap.

I was more worried about the personal downsides to daycare than the money. Thankfully, it is working out better than I expected. The center we use has people that I am comfortable with now. They appear to be taking good care of her.

Kids probably shouldn't be cared for by the lowest bidder. Maybe you're paying for quality.

Every kid is different. Some are very social while others just want to be left by themselves. You can imagine which type will thrive in daycare and which... not so much. Same with parents. Some do very well with raising families and don't care about the workplace. Others can't parent 24/7 without feeling like they're trapped and going nuts. One could claim that the latter shouldn't have kids, but it's a two-party decision and it's not easy to know how you'll feel after you bring 'em home from the delivery room.

Our daughter was "always on" 24/7, to the point of several wakeups a night for over a decade. I was far more sleep-deprived on parenting shore duty than on Navy sea duty. Even our daughter's caregivers would raise their eyebrows at her energy levels and intensity. By the time she was three years old we were investigating homeschooling because we weren't sure the public schools would put up with her.

One medical "advantage" of daycare is that kids will swap all their viruses and develop their immune systems much more quickly. When they start school (whether that's preschool or kindergarten) they'll have a much more positive experience without so many sick days.

 

[haha]

So I wanted to dispel the myths that kids are hard to raise and expensive to raise. If that were true, the poor would stop having children.

Of course, they do often have somewhat different goals, and in case you haven't noticed the results can be spotty.

If you are poor enough, or can appear poor enough, kids are a profit center.

Ha

 

[haha]

Having a Child Exposes You and Your Family to a Profound Loss of Control

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/notes-from-a-dragon-mom.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

"My son, Ronan, looks at me and raises one eyebrow. His eyes are bright and focused. Ronan means “little seal” in Irish and it suits him.

I want to stop here, before the dreadful hitch: my son is 18 months old and will likely die before his third birthday. Ronan was born with Tay-Sachs, a rare genetic disorder. He is slowly regressing into a vegetative state. He’ll become paralyzed, experience seizures, lose all of his senses before he dies. There is no treatment and no cure."

Ha