How much does it really cost to have and raise a child in this area?

[Anonymous]

We’re considering having a child and I want to make sure we’re planning accordingly. I know everyone says “you’re never going to be ready!” and that we always have to expect the unexpected, but I want to make sure our child grows up as healthy and comfortably as we can provide. So there’s the question: how much would you say it costs to have and raise a child in this area?

[Anonymous]

As long as they are easy learners who don’t need private schools, have no interest in sports, and have great mental health so no need for therapy, then the only major expense is childcare, after care and summer camps for the first 12 years or so.

[Anonymous]

Maybe $3000/month until kindergarten.

But by kindergarten, you factor in how much money it will cost to buy into a good school district, or to pay for private school. So you don't really save $3000 after that. Plus, do you want to have a small house compared to other school families. Our first home was in a neighborhood with a few teardowns, but not many. All families at the school lived in new builds. The original homes were all elderly folks.

[Anonymous]

Not something you can plan for to that level. Even at the beginning, difference between a baby that has to spend even a day in NICU v not can be $10k.

[Anonymous]

Around $3,000/month is a good estimate. Perhaps a few hundred more. Day care in Bethesda is around $2,800/month last time I checked. Then there are other expenses like clothing, food, and medical. The difference between medical insurance costs for a couple vs family can be a bit of a hike. It’s very expensive.

[Anonymous]

You will need to differentiate between wants and needs, OP. We bought the smallest tear-down near downtown Bethesda to be inbounds for a great school cluster. We never regretted that decision, and don't feel "lesser than" other families who live in multimillion dollar mansions next to us. All the neighbor kids played together as elementary school children, ran across each other's yards, went into each other's houses, etc.

Daycare, before and aftercare, summer/vacation camps while you work, and college are all expensive. We wanted to put our kid in good publics to give our investments time to grow so we could pay for college. Right now our oldest is at an 85K a year private university, total cost of attendance. The state flagship costs about $30K a year for residents, but kids from our school district need excellent grades to get in, because it's in demand.

[Anonymous]

3-5K/month - I did it cheaper as a single Mom, but the child support obviously helped with the costs too.

[Anonymous]

Holy sh!t. My husband and I make $300K or so a year and there is no way we could make room for an extra $3K each month unless we literally save nothing.

[Anonymous]

I'm pregnant with my first now and live in NW DC - Columbia Heights/Carodozo area. My husband and I have budgeted 3K/month for the early years. The day cares we've toured range from $2150 on the low end to $2800 on the high end. We're likely going to end up in the middle with $2350 for daycare. We've budgeted anticipated increases in family health insurance to be an extra ~$150 a month, our new life insurance policies are paid annually but come to about another ~$150/month. We're also hoping to put another $400/month in a 529. That's about 3k all in.

We saved 25K for a baby fund to cover "start up" costs like pregnancy care, hospital stuff, baby items, etc. If we're lucky and there is any of that left it will go into the 529 as a lump sum at birth.

We plan to compromise on some of what we have bee doing re: general savings (we have been very aggressive there for years) if we have to, but we are making no compromises on retirement savings. We are lucky in that we bought our condo in 2020 with a 2.7% interest rate. It's small and we'll have to deal with the space limitations longer than we'd like to, but the mortgage and interest rate are saving graces for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You will need to differentiate between wants and needs, OP. We bought the smallest tear-down near downtown Bethesda to be inbounds for a great school cluster. We never regretted that decision, and don't feel "lesser than" other families who live in multimillion dollar mansions next to us. All the neighbor kids played together as elementary school children, ran across each other's yards, went into each other's houses, etc.

Daycare, before and aftercare, summer/vacation camps while you work, and college are all expensive. We wanted to put our kid in good publics to give our investments time to grow so we could pay for college. Right now our oldest is at an 85K a year private university, total cost of attendance. The state flagship costs about $30K a year for residents, but kids from our school district need excellent grades to get in, because it's in demand.

Your oldest is in college and you’re TTC? Or perhaps you’re old as dirt as perhaps the world (and public schools, and the cost of teardowns) have changed in…literally two decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holy sh!t. My husband and I make $300K or so a year and there is no way we could make room for an extra $3K each month unless we literally save nothing.

The issue is day care. On that income you can easily afford kids. It’s about life choices.

[Anonymous]

$400 a month max for us. I worked opposite schedule from DP. DC never attended daycare or had expensive classes.
We did coop, some language classes, and library story time. Public school all the way and few weeks of part time soccer camp.
The kid seems to get cheaper and cheaper- just hanging out with friends. Any time DC travels with relatives ( 5 x a year), they pay 100%.
As long as there are no medical emergencies, I don't see anything expensive coming up.

[Anonymous]

There is not one answer to this question.

Most people are giving you the: what does it cost if you have 2 working parents, want to use a daycare center, expect relatively higher end activities, etc.

But there are different answers if you have a stay at home parent, you’re a teacher and don’t need summer care, you have in-laws who provide childcare, you plan to use a nanny, you plan to use an in-home daycare, you plan to pay your neighbor under the table.

[Anonymous]

So not everyone does full time day care. But the costs are this:

- Full-time "good" day care is anywhere from $2,500 - $3,500 a month outside the home
- Aftercare/summer camps for full-time working parents can be around $15K for the year
- Gear for babies can be inherited or thrifted or purchased all new and fancy for $20,000
- Eventually activities costs range from $250 a class to $5,000 a year for a sport
- Food costs, clothing and shoes, all that stuff adds up (figure up to .75% what you pay for an adult until the teenage years, when it's the same)
- Extras include medical expenses (anything form more copays to meds to therapies), extra hotel rooms on vacation if you need a larger room, bigger car, toys, the Disney plus subscription, you want to move from a condo to a house and re: schools suddenly you need to look at Vienna or Bethesda instead of Mt Rainier or Annandale, it's little and big things that add up

By no means do all families do these things. We lived in DC (free preschool) and I stayed home the first year, working PT in my "spare time" and then age 1-3 we did daycare at a home daycare 2 days per week while I worked PT. But now with a high schooler, I would say we spend about $10K a year on sports and extracurriculars and school related stuff (kid is in public), $5K on additional food/clothes/stuff beyond what we'd do for a childless family, and of course our house and car and neighborhood are informed by the fact that we are parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holy sh!t. My husband and I make $300K or so a year and there is no way we could make room for an extra $3K each month unless we literally save nothing.

I don't know what your mortgage is, but yes, you can. For starters, once you have a baby, you will spend significantly less on going out of any kind (except maybe take-out). Everyone says that, and thinos that, and then they figure it out. And despite what you read on DCUM, most people make significantly less than you and your husband.