How much does your kid cost you each year?

[Anonymous]

How much do you spend on your child each year? The Washington Post says it's about $17K per year, which is about $25K of taxable income. Does that seem low, especially with private school costs.

The article: From the day your baby is born until the day they turn 18, your family will spend about $310,605 — or about $17,000 a year,

I think it's more like $50K-$75K a year in the DMV. How much do you spend in the DMV per kid?

[Anonymous]

The $310k is not necessarily evenly split among years and it also doesn't account for private school (duh). My preschools is $17k a year and when we had a nanny it was $60k a year for both kids.

[Anonymous]

I love how you assume everyone uses private school. That's an INCREDIBLY expensive choice you made.

I pay $3,500 in just after care and day-off camps for just ONE of my children. If add in reasonably priced summer camps, that's another $2k.

Obviously food and clothing. Activities so far are not too much because we do rec leagues, so that's a few hundred dollars.

So with a relatively low key lifestyle with elementary school kids I'd say it's about $8k a year. When they were in preschool/daycare you would need to add $20k on to that figure but right now we're in the a nice sweet spot.

[Anonymous]

I’m metro boomin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love how you assume everyone uses private school. That's an INCREDIBLY expensive choice you made.

I pay $3,500 in just after care and day-off camps for just ONE of my children. If add in reasonably priced summer camps, that's another $2k.

Obviously food and clothing. Activities so far are not too much because we do rec leagues, so that's a few hundred dollars.

So with a relatively low key lifestyle with elementary school kids I'd say it's about $8k a year. When they were in preschool/daycare you would need to add $20k on to that figure but right now we're in the a nice sweet spot.

That seems too low. Is the $3500 aftercare per year??? What a deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much do you spend on your child each year? The Washington Post says it's about $17K per year, which is about $25K of taxable income. Does that seem low, especially with private school costs.

The article: From the day your baby is born until the day they turn 18, your family will spend about $310,605 — or about $17,000 a year,

I think it's more like $50K-$75K a year in the DMV. How much do you spend in the DMV per kid?

most people do not their children to private school

[Anonymous]

About $30k for childcare for my toddler, plus whatever else for food, clothes, toys, healthcare

[Anonymous]

Around $45k. Two kids under 5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much do you spend on your child each year? The Washington Post says it's about $17K per year, which is about $25K of taxable income. Does that seem low, especially with private school costs.

The article: From the day your baby is born until the day they turn 18, your family will spend about $310,605 — or about $17,000 a year,

I think it's more like $50K-$75K a year in the DMV. How much do you spend in the DMV per kid?

The vast majority of children do not go to private school.

The median HOUSEHOLD INCOME in DC isn’t much more than $75k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much do you spend on your child each year? The Washington Post says it's about $17K per year, which is about $25K of taxable income. Does that seem low, especially with private school costs.

The article: From the day your baby is born until the day they turn 18, your family will spend about $310,605 — or about $17,000 a year,

I think it's more like $50K-$75K a year in the DMV. How much do you spend in the DMV per kid?

$75k/year?! Even if you have a kid in a $50k/year private school, where did the other $25k go?

[Anonymous]

I have a 2yo and 4yo

4yo preschool $7500
Aftercare $2000
Summer camp $3000
2yo home daycare $12000
Diapers $1000
Food for family of 4 $10000
Clothes/shoes $2000

[Anonymous]

For an elementary aged kid, 4k for aftercare, 2k for summer camps, 3k for lessons/ activities, 1k for flights when we travel, $500 for clothes, $500 for throwing a birthday party, probably $500 for gifts, $500 for other random outings or activities, plus food.

So at least 12k per year.

[Anonymous]

My kids are 1.5 and 3.

Nanny: $60k
Food: $8k (estimated)
Diapers and other stuff that gets used up: $1k
Travel: $1k
Clothes and other reusable stuff: $1k

So just over $70k for two kids. That does not include housing costs - if we were childless, we’d live in a smaller place.

HHI $210k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much do you spend on your child each year? The Washington Post says it's about $17K per year, which is about $25K of taxable income. Does that seem low, especially with private school costs.

The article: From the day your baby is born until the day they turn 18, your family will spend about $310,605 — or about $17,000 a year,

I think it's more like $50K-$75K a year in the DMV. How much do you spend in the DMV per kid?

I think some years are more expensive than others, and I also think the $310k includes things like needing an additional bedroom in a house, needing a bigger car/second car, increased utilities and food: all the increased costs that it's difficult to parse out but certainly do happen.

Right now, DD is in public preschool. We spend ~2k/year on "activities" both formal and one-off visits to play places, maybe the same amount in clothes + food (specifically for her) combined, $2k on all toys/presents, some amount that is not negligible on insurance (DH carries it so I'm not clear on the cost but whole family is higher than +spouse), and more like $10k on increased travel costs - plane tickets, second hotel room or bigger Airbnbs on trips, etc. But we're going on a bunch of trips this year including a biggish one, so that wouldn't normally be so high. We could be lower, or we could be much higher (nanny, private schools, etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much do you spend on your child each year? The Washington Post says it's about $17K per year, which is about $25K of taxable income. Does that seem low, especially with private school costs.

The article: From the day your baby is born until the day they turn 18, your family will spend about $310,605 — or about $17,000 a year,

I think it's more like $50K-$75K a year in the DMV. How much do you spend in the DMV per kid?

This depends on your HHI and where your kids go to school. Our HHI is $150,000 and we have 2 kids in public school so obviously we don't spend anywhere near 50-75 per kid per year because we couldn't afford to. I don't know how much we do spend per kid per year but let's see: food, clothing, their share of housing costs/utility costs, health insurance/other medical expenses, other necessities like school supplies and hygiene items, then non-essentials like gifts, toys, books, outings, vacations, extras...it probably does wind up being about 17,000 per kid per year. I bet that's close to what we spend.