How much do you spend on your kid(s) per month?

[southerntransplant]

If you add everything up: daycare or school, food, clothing, gifts, activities, college savings?

Also, how old are your kids and how many do you have?

I know that a lot of people said that the figures quoted in that article on MM are too low, so I'm just trying to get a more realistic sense of what it truly is that people spend every month on their kids.

Thanks!

[Deleted]

I like to bury my head in the sand and not think about it.

Montessori is $800/mo for DS3
DS1 and DS2 are going to summer camp every week this summer and the camps vary from $300/wk to $550/wk.
SD is going to 4 weeks of camp. Dance camp is cheap. It is only about $175/wk. Music camp is $300/wk.

During the summer we are only doing Chinese and Cello lessons every other week. Chinese is $12/per kid and Cello is $40 for 2 kids 20 minute lessons. SD has piano too and that is $60/wk for 1 hour lesson.

[hedgiecrazy]

My daughter is 5.5m and I spend about a hundred a month...partly on toys she doesn't really need. I BF and CD. I buy secondhand clothing. I got her 55 different articles of clothing for her fall/winter wardrobe at yard sales for $30. My husband's company pays health insurance premiums and we have a $20 copay for visits. I SAH, but we have relatives who would prefer I worked so they could spend more time with her, so our childcare would be minimal either way.

I know she'll get more expensive when she's older, but we'll make it work.

[Deleted]

A lot, lol. This was an interesting question because I've never really added it up before.

We have two sons who are 2 and almost 4 and will be having another baby in about three weeks.

We pay $426 a month for the boys to go to nursery school and summer camp (DS1 goes every morning and DS2 goes 2 mornings a week). This is an awesome price for preschool btw. But it's low because it's a co-op school (so there are no paid admin.s) and the parents are expected to volunteer a lot.

Activities run us about $183 a month, which includes the boys' Little Gym classes and swimming lessons and the cost of our family memberships to places like the zoo and local children's museum.

We'll have two kids in diapers/wipes again soon, which I seem to recall running us around $75/month last time we had this expense.

I'm not sure how to estimate their grocery or clothing expense because I've kept track that specifically. But half of our monthly grocery bill for our family of four is around $450 and if we spend more than $1k a year on their clothes I'd be shocked.

Saving for their college educations is our biggest expense at $3k a month.

I still haven't added it all up and would prefer not to, lol.

Eta: and this doesn't include the cost of the babysitter that I use to juggle the kids' conflicting schedules. That would be another 400 a month.

[thatgirl2478]

Not that much because DD doesn't go to daycare or anything expensive like that. She's 16mo and our only child.

Our only true ongoing monthly expenses for her are diapers, wipes, and food. She eats 100% adult food now, so it's hard to identify how much more we're spending because of her. Diapers cost us about $45 for a month and a half or so. Wipes are $15 for about 2-3 months.

That said, last month we bought her $100 in clothes for the summer (plus two cute winter outfits that will HOPEFULLY fit her). And a few months before that I stocked up on a zippered footie jammie sale at Carters for about $100 as well.

Editing to include college savings:

We set aside $500 / mo while we are able to.

We're on the verge of enrolling her in a 'music together' class that would be $105 for 6 weeks.

[Deleted]

DD1 is 7.5yrs old--$500/mo in tuition, $500/mo in tutoring, $50/mo in clothes/shoes, $50/mo in tennis lessons, $100/mo in private swim lessons, gifts would be around $75/mo, food $200/mo (we eat out a lot), $20/mo for doctors/dentist
Total: $1495/mo **(Summer is cheaper in tuition but we are doing art camp, YMCA camp & I have to pay a nanny so it even out)

DD2 is 5.5yrs old--$500/mo in tuition, $50/mo in clothes/shoes, $50/mo in tennis lessons, $50/mo in group swim lessons, gifts would be around $75/mo, food $175/mo (we eat out a lot), $20/mo for doctors/dentist
Total: $920/mo

DD3 is 3yrs old--$500/mo average in daycare, $75/mo in gifts, $50/mo in clothes/shoes, $125/mo in food, $20/mo in doctor/dentist
Total: $770/mo

Plus added vacation costs: $5K/yr ($420/mo) & various memberships $50/mo

Grand Total: $3655/mo

When they were younger it was a LOT less! No way could we have afforded all this even a few years ago. We are planning/trying to have another kid asap.

[Wines Not Whines]

Around $2000/month. 85% of that cost is daycare/preschool.

[madringal]

I have two girls, 4 years and 5.5 months

I spend $600-800 a month on a nanny. She is paid per day and the numbe of days she works varies based on my schedule. She is part time and my MIL watches them the other days.

I spend $13 a week on gymnastics lessons for DD1.

DD2 is EBF so no formula costs, but I did just start baby cereal and baby food this past week. I would imagine I will be spending about $50 a month for all that stuff until she gets to table food.

I order a large box of wipes and diapers from Amazon every other month and it comes to about $70 total.

I probably spend an average of $75 a month on clothes, shoes, and other various clothing needs for them. I get most of DD1's clothes as hand me downs from her cousin, and of course her little sister will wear them later. I do not spend a lot on fancy hair bows, or cutesy clothes because she is either at home with the nanny or at her grandmas most days. I will probably have to buy some better clothes now that she is starting preK.

I just made my first tuition payment for PreK that beings this fall. It is 267/month for a year. She will be in school from 8-3 M-F. I will then also pay a dollar an hour for before and after school care, so she will be there from 7-5 most days.

[statlerwaldorf]

She is 3.
$100 for increased health insurance premium, medical costs, and medicine.
$20 for clothes but that is a rough estimate. I buy a lot of her clothes second hand, but never stuff like underwear or shoes. As she gets older, the selection of secondhand clothes get more expensive and hard to find. Eventually I will probably stop buying secondhand.
$20 average for toys and gifts
$40 increase in gym membership to find one with childcare

I came up with $180.


No daycare expenses, but since I am a SAHM I guess you could count my earning potential.

I haven't seen a huge difference in our food budget. We eat out less, but when we do eat out it costs a little more for DD's food. Now that I'm SAH I rely less on takeout and convenience foods which saves money. We do more things like go to the zoo and stuff, but that is also balanced out by going out less.

She is going to preschool next year, but it will be covered through the school system since she has special needs. If she went to the public preschool, it would be $300/mo.

Another large expense is big gear items, but I don't even know where to start to average that out as a monthly expense. You have all of the baby stuff: crib, high chair, infant car seat, dresser, etc. Then you need the convertible car seat and then booster. Eventually they outgrow the crib and you need a toddler bed and then regular bed with bedding. I'm saving all of DD's clothes, so I'm buying large plastic totes on a pretty regular basis. There is an increased wear and tear on our furniture which has cut off some of the life of our couches in particular.

[Deleted]

We go through a big box of diapers every 2 months (only use for daycare, use cloth at home) so diapers are approx $15/month. Wipes are provided by daycare, so we spend very little for home use. Bought a huge amount from amazon last year and we still have a ton.

Clothes- maybe averages to $50? probably less.

Her hemp milk is $30/month.

She eats whatever we eat so don't spend considerably more on food.

Daycare is $310 a week, so most months $1240- other months its $1560 bc we pay every 2 weeks. Next week it will be an additional $17.50/week for school lunch because I need to outsource more.

No lessons yet. Those will start in the fall.

We are looking for an after daycare babysitter, so that will probably be an additional $100/week.

We have 1 DD, she is 2.5.

[ijack]

I don't really want to know, especially now that we pay for full time care. We have 2 girls, 4 and 10 months.
Childcare and preschool - about $2400/month
diapers and wipes - $30/month
food - $200/month (now that we have a nanny this has increased from when we went to a center)
clothes/shoes - $50/month
etc (activities, memberships, etc) - $100/month

so about $2800. vom.

[Ashley&Scott]

DS is 5 months & in daycare full time.

Daycare: $230/week ($900-$1130/mo)
Diapers & wipes: $50/mo
Misc. (toys, gear, clothes): $25-75/mo
Health insurance: $100/mo

Misc. varies so much, the above is an average. In May we easily spent $200 or more.
Ergo:$145
Bumbo: $20 (CL)
Exersaucer: $20 (CL)

[mmmomof2]

I'm a SAHM in HCOL area.

Increased health care for lower deductible plan for DD2's birth this year : ~$250/mo

Activities: Right now we're doing semi-private swimming for DD1, Gymnastics for DD1, and Gymboree for DD2 - $300/mo. DD1 will start preschool in the fall at a bargain of only $140/mo (it's a co-op). Will drop swimming, but probably add dance.

Food: DD2 is just starting solids, but is BF otherwise. DD1 eats small amounts, but goes through 1 1/2 gallons of organic milk a week. I would say $50 - $60

College Savings: We're only saving $200/month right now after starting with a significant lump sum

Clothes: My achilles heel! Probably $50-$75 a month, but of course you can spend less. Luckily we had two girls so DD2 doesn't need a lot of clothes.

Baby Gear: I borrowed a lot of bigger items (swing, jumperoo, etc), but still there are things to buy like sippie cups, training potties, convertible car seats, random toys/books etc. Maybe $300 - $500/year

Diapers: DD1 is daytime potty trained. We spend about $20/month on pullups. We use cloth for DD2 about half the time. I would guess we spend about $30/month on diapers the rest of the time on her.

So for us it's about $1,000/month for two kids without childcare! That's NOT including birthdays, Christmas, or photos either. I'm sure my numbers are fairly conservative too.

We've found that DD1 is a lot more expensive now then when she was a baby!

[Deleted]

Approximately $1000 a month-DS is 1.5, that's daycare, diapers/wipes, any extra fun things we do, additional food/milk, clothes/toys, 529, and extra health insurance premium

[h]

We have a 2 year old and a 4 year old.

Daycare/preschool tuition: $2000
Diapers & wipes: ~$25
Healthcare (insurance, copays, prescriptions): ~$250 on average
Activities/lessons: ~$200
Clothes/shoes/haircuts: ~$75 on average
Food: ~$200 (between extra groceries & meals out)

Total: roughly $2750 a month

Travel, birthdays, and Christmas add considerably to the annual total.

[egishere]

Too much! i am counting down the months until they can go on milk because that will save us a lot.

nanny $2400 a month
formula $450
baby food (this includes stuff that I make) $40
diapers $75
clothing average $30
not sure what the healthcare premiums are since they are on DH's insurance.

[whereintheworld]

2 kids, 2.5 and 9 months (both boys).

Daycare: currently $1,190/month, soon to be $2K a month when I go back to work FT in August

Food: I'd say there's probably an extra $200 in our grocery budget because of what the kids eat. Formula was DS2 is a bit extra, but we're currently weaning him on to whole cow's milk per the pedi.

Activities: About $50/month, if I average it out. DS1 does a Saturday morning sport class with my husband, and Wednesday night soccer class (can't even call it a practice, it's just games that happen to use a soccer ball). DS2 doesn't do any activities yet but he'll start around 1.5.

Clothes: I buy everything used, BUT I buy too much. I'd say maybe an average of $60/month? I've been working on stocking their wardrobes for upcoming sizes, so that includes basics up to 5T, and since they're both boys the clothes will all get 2 uses.

Toys: I almost never buy toys. Maybe the odd thing at a garage sale, but not enough to account for in a budget. We get a lot of gifts or hand me downs.

Diapers and wipes: I shop sales and stock up, but I guess about $40/month for both kids. DS1 will be potty trained in the next few months.

[megs193]

I have one DS who is 2.5. I SAH so we don't have any daycare cost but he does attend preschool.

Preschool - $600 per month 9 months out of the year.

College Savings - $400 per month plus some money from extra paychecks and bonus to equal $10,000 per year.

Clothes and toys - $50 - None of our siblings have kids so we get a ton of gifts.

Food - $150 - We eat out a lot so this includes kids meals.

Diapers- He is mostly potty trained so maybe $20 a month on night time and nap time diapers.

[mollybrown]

I'm being laid off next month, so we'll see what changes...

$1100 for childcare (a baby and a toddler). This is a great deal since we use family...daycare would have cost around $2500 a month.

$100 a month budgeted for stuff (clothes, shoes, toys, misc gear). I've already spent the whole $1200 budgeted for the year, so clearly that isn't adequate. At least $500 of that 2 new car seats for the baby, which isn't an ongoing expense. I can probably get by without buying anything other than new shoes and coats for each child.

$200 speech therapy for the toddler.

Nothing on activities yet, but I would like to start swimming and soccer for the toddler this summer. That will probably cost around $100 a month.

About $40 for diapers and wipes for the baby. Kid food/diapers were recently more like $125 a month, but the toddler just potty trained and the baby just moved to whole milk.

[SusanBAnthony]

I am horrified on behalf of some of you. And also jealous that you have the income to support that. We have a 2 and 4 and here is my estimate:

300 on groceries (they eat a lot now).
100 activities (swim, gymnastics, at the Y, science museum)
100 clothes (probably less than this)
50 eating out
100 misc

We are not saving for college right now. Our plan before moving had been to have the house paid off about when DS went to college. Now we are selling the house for what we owe, and likely will have to take out another 30 year mortgage. We lost about 100K on our house (bought in 2005). If we had that 100K back, our financial situation would be vastly different. In order to be UMC (which we would like to be, lol) I should probably go back to work, but they only thing I can do that commands a salary worth paying DC for is be an engineer, and I hate that and don't want to work FT+. So we are making it on 1 income and not saving beyond retirement (and trying to save another house DP).

[aspentosh]

DD is 5 months old.

Daycare: $1200 a month
Clothes/accessories: usually $10-20. She doesn't usually need clothes, but might need a sun hat or car seat net or diaper cream. That type of thing. Of course some months will be more when we would need to buy a big ticket item.
Diapers: $0 (we CD)
Wipes: $10
Food: $0 (I BF)
College fund: $200 a month

[8675309]

DD = 2 1/2yrs
DS = 4 Months

I work full time so our in home daycare person is $1800/Mo
(this is is a steal for our HCL area)
Diapers & Wipes: $50/Month
Formula: $120/Month
Clothes: $50-75/Month
Grocery: $100/month is probably dedicated to DD's food

So grand total is around $2145/month for 2 kids. I CANNOT wait until they go to school and I can wipe that daycare cost off of there.

[Deleted]

DS = 13 months
Daycare: $550
College savings: $110
Clothes: $20 (if that)
Food: $50 (if that)

I'd guess $800 / month, tops. He's cheap. We cloth diaper and buy 90% of his clothes used.

[hannamarin]

This post has me biting my nails.

[oukapu]

9 months.
800 for daycare
40 for diapers and wipes
20 for clothing and misc supplies
20 for food. Daycare feeds breakfast and lunch.

[darnkatz]

We have one kid. She will be four next month.

Daycare: $0. We've never paid for daycare because she came to work with me. H stays home with her now because he is unemployed.

School: $0. She goes to a full time year-round public Montessori.

Clothing: $0-$30. I don't spend a lot on clothes after the initial seasonal purchases, which is usually $100 or less.

Activities: $0 right now.

College savings: lol

We spent maybe $20 for disposable diapers every few months before she potty trained at two because we cloth diapered. Same for wipes. I used cloth wipes, too, for the most part. I nursed her, so I never bought formula. She ate what we ate, and the cost was negligible. It doesn't add up to much more right now. Maybe $15-$20 per week extra for snacks and lunch stuff for school.

[birdmom]

DS is 16 months old.

Daycare - $850/mo for part time care
Diapers/wipes - $50/mo
Clothes/shoes - $60/mo
Food - $80/mo (this is the increase that I noticed when he started eating what we eat)
Insurance/healthcare - $120/mo
Miscellaneous - $60 (doctor visits, random Target trips where a few things end up in the cart for him)

So, about $1,220. This can vary.

It was more expensive when he was younger and we were using formula. When he was 6 months, he was in physical therapy for torticollis, and twice a week at $40 per visit for 6 weeks added up quick. Thank goodness that's over! He also recently saw a specialist before he had tubes put in his ears. Those visits were $80 a piece (because he had to have a hearing test every time, so I got charged two copays). So when I say that it can vary, things like that pop up and blows the budget out the window!

[chessie]

Pretty much what I thought. Expected costs from I have calculated around 2k a month for 1 kid.