Why do children get MORE expensive as they get older?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YES, most people will likely see some savings once daycare has ended. NO, it will not be as much as you might hope. Kindergarten and early elementary are pretty cheap, but costs will creep up after that, culminating in the bloodletting that is college, for those who go that route.

+1

I naively thought I would get the $1500/kid/month back into my budget when my kids got out of daycare and went to public school. Ha! Between care for all the teacher workdays and vacations, after-school care, and summer camp (and not fancy summer camp, either, mostly parks and rec camp), it was maybe lower by half. My kids are in elementary school, and they do not do nearly as many activities as their friends - and no travel anything or expensive activities like horseback riding, and it's still expensive. (We also have additional costs related to tutoring and therapy for our child with special needs, but that's situation specific and hopefully most people will not have to go through it. And the public school is doing a less-than-mediocre job educating the SN kid, so that increases our costs filling in the gaps, too.)

If your costs are lower by a half it's a big deal.

Yeah did you think all those costs would just vanish once daycare was over? Kids are expensive, duh.

Right? Pretty obvious stuff here.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This area is extremely expensive and competitive. We have HS seniors. $1600 total for sat prep. $1500 for college applications ( including test scores) College trips. We did it cheap about $200 each one x 8 colleges. Kids cars. They have fender benders ( find a kid who hasn't ) wisdom teeth. Clothes and shoes. Health care. Counseling. Tutors. I guess it paid off in merit grant. But what if it hadn't?

- I never had a car
- I never visited any colleges
- I prepped myself for the SAT with books
- Wisdom teeth removal is a racket for dentists

This is all discretionary spending.

Okay, sure. But if we have the discretionary income, isn't it natural that we do things like this? I mean, kids really only NEED maybe three outfits a season, right? And man, they can wrap up in plastic instead of having a warm winter coat. They don't NEED beds, the floor will do! This isn't a thread about how much one can deprive their children of, simply people answering what having older kids looks like for them, cost wise. Of course that is going to look different for everyone, and family size and income naturally influences that.

yes it is natural. the huge difference is that, once your kids are in school, your discretionary income is much larger. daycare expenses are a huge fixed cost, and for most people, especially with multiple children, reduce discretionary income substantially. even if you choose to spend 100% of your discretionary income on your kids, it is still a different situation. you feel differently merely knowing that you can cancel classes, vacations etc.

This PP nailed it.

That may be true for dual income families but not for families with a SAH parent as we didn't pay for daycare for three kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YES, most people will likely see some savings once daycare has ended. NO, it will not be as much as you might hope. Kindergarten and early elementary are pretty cheap, but costs will creep up after that, culminating in the bloodletting that is college, for those who go that route.

+1

I naively thought I would get the $1500/kid/month back into my budget when my kids got out of daycare and went to public school. Ha! Between care for all the teacher workdays and vacations, after-school care, and summer camp (and not fancy summer camp, either, mostly parks and rec camp), it was maybe lower by half. My kids are in elementary school, and they do not do nearly as many activities as their friends - and no travel anything or expensive activities like horseback riding, and it's still expensive. (We also have additional costs related to tutoring and therapy for our child with special needs, but that's situation specific and hopefully most people will not have to go through it. And the public school is doing a less-than-mediocre job educating the SN kid, so that increases our costs filling in the gaps, too.)

If your costs are lower by a half it's a big deal.

Yeah did you think all those costs would just vanish once daycare was over? Kids are expensive, duh.

No, but I thought they would diminish more substantially unless I chose to involve my kids in higher-end activities. They did not. Daycare costs diminished by not quite half, but kid-related costs didn't, despite the fact that we are not keeping-up-with-the-Joneses types. There is always something, and I would caution anyone who thinks that they will use their daycare costs to subsidize a substantially bigger house payment, as I often see in the real estate subforum, not to overestimate their savings as the kids get older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. That escalated quickly.

I guess it's either: 1. don't care about your kids at all and do nothing for them, versus 2. Spoil your kids rotten complete with silver spoons.

Would it be fair to say that, on average, most people spend about 50-75% as much once they're out of daycare? So no, it's not a huge windfall, but it would be atypical to spend more?
I'm not saying that anyone is "lying" but the fact of the matter is that the expenses for older kids involve a lot more transactions. Instead of writing one check for $3-4k per month for daycare, you're paying a bunch of different bills, extra food, more expensive clothes, etc. So I think it just feels like a lot more money because you're constantly spending it, but it doesn't total the amount that people pay for daycare and other baby/toddler items.

We experienced about a 1/3 savings once our kid enrolled in school. But we had cut back on retirement savings during the daycare years and hadn't started saving for college at all, so the real effect was much less. I had the opposite feeling; it feels like less money is going out the door because it's in small-ish quantities, but it's like the boiling frog when you realize how much everything is costing.

Like anything with parenting, you just can't really imagine what the next stage is like until you get there, and for every joy that comes with a new age there are new and different challenges and choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This area is extremely expensive and competitive. We have HS seniors. $1600 total for sat prep. $1500 for college applications ( including test scores) College trips. We did it cheap about $200 each one x 8 colleges. Kids cars. They have fender benders ( find a kid who hasn't ) wisdom teeth. Clothes and shoes. Health care. Counseling. Tutors. I guess it paid off in merit grant. But what if it hadn't?

- I never had a car
- I never visited any colleges
- I prepped myself for the SAT with books
- Wisdom teeth removal is a racket for dentists

This is all discretionary spending.

Okay, sure. But if we have the discretionary income, isn't it natural that we do things like this? I mean, kids really only NEED maybe three outfits a season, right? And man, they can wrap up in plastic instead of having a warm winter coat. They don't NEED beds, the floor will do! This isn't a thread about how much one can deprive their children of, simply people answering what having older kids looks like for them, cost wise. Of course that is going to look different for everyone, and family size and income naturally influences that.

yes it is natural. the huge difference is that, once your kids are in school, your discretionary income is much larger. daycare expenses are a huge fixed cost, and for most people, especially with multiple children, reduce discretionary income substantially. even if you choose to spend 100% of your discretionary income on your kids, it is still a different situation. you feel differently merely knowing that you can cancel classes, vacations etc.

This PP nailed it.

That may be true for dual income families but not for families with a SAH parent as we didn't pay for daycare for three kids.

That's kind of obvious though isn't it? When people talk about how young children cost a lot of money the primary expense they're referring to is daycare.

[Anonymous]

It they aren't considering the financial boon for those who did not pay 20k/year. My oldest had just turned three when I had my third. So 1 year of one in (20k), the next two years two in (more) and 2 years of three in (more). I truly don't know but I'd have to assume that's 100k or more? So instead I take the $100k and invest it. It's now 10 years later and that money would have grown exponentially. Maybe even enough to pay for a ski trip or 20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. That escalated quickly.

I guess it's either: 1. don't care about your kids at all and do nothing for them, versus 2. Spoil your kids rotten complete with silver spoons.

Would it be fair to say that, on average, most people spend about 50-75% as much once they're out of daycare? So no, it's not a huge windfall, but it would be atypical to spend more?
I'm not saying that anyone is "lying" but the fact of the matter is that the expenses for older kids involve a lot more transactions. Instead of writing one check for $3-4k per month for daycare, you're paying a bunch of different bills, extra food, more expensive clothes, etc. So I think it just feels like a lot more money because you're constantly spending it, but it doesn't total the amount that people pay for daycare and other baby/toddler items.

We experienced about a 1/3 savings once our kid enrolled in school. But we had cut back on retirement savings during the daycare years and hadn't started saving for college at all, so the real effect was much less. I had the opposite feeling; it feels like less money is going out the door because it's in small-ish quantities, but it's like the boiling frog when you realize how much everything is costing.

Like anything with parenting, you just can't really imagine what the next stage is like until you get there, and for every joy that comes with a new age there are new and different challenges and choices.

The boiling frog is the perfect analogy. I saved money for a few years, and then the kid started eating everything in sight (he's not even 10 yet! I thought that happened when he became a teen!) and other stuff also costs more - clothing gets more expensive as they get bigger, and so do shoes and activities. It's just expensive to have kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love this particular DCUM question and followed it with great interest while my kids were in daycare. Now that they are out, I have found the answer thus far is that it is much cheaper. At the height of the daycare years, we were paying $2400/mo for 2 kids, which I realize is low. Between aftercare and summer camps, the amount is closer to $12k per year. I do believe we are in that "sweet spot" some posters have mentioned - kids are 7 and 9, so there hasn't been orthodontia yet and they are not majorly into any sports. I would say expenses outside of child care are at most $200 more now a month than they were in daycare/preschool. We did a modest amount of activities back then and they still do some now. Clothes are marginally more expensive. We've always traveled with them and those expenses haven't changed much (we've always wanted a suite - sleeping in the same room sucks!).

Having read so many of these threads now, I draw the following conclusions about those who say the years after daycare are more expensive -

1) They are including expenses that are not universal (like travel sports and horseback riding) or necessary to raising a child, but that they value enough to spend a lot of money on. Problem is that for comparison purposes, these expenses aren’t ones that all (or maybe even most) families will bear. I live in Takoma Park, and while I’m sure there are kids involved in these more expensive activities, it doesn’t seem to be the norm. So far, my kids are not interested enough in sports that I would try to justify this expense. On the other hand, we have a hefty travel budget because it’s something I really enjoy and I want my kids to experience. But neither of these expense categories is a necessary or universal expense of raising a kid.
2) They are competitive and have a little keeping-up-with-the-Jones mentality. Like the pp who doesn’t want to disadvantage her children by leaving them not knowing how to play golf. Or the ones who will spend large amounts on test and college prep to get into a selective college. These expenses are kid-related, but they may not jibe with your personal child-rearing philosophy.
3) They include expenses that aren’t day-to-day care expenses (which is usually what the daycare crowd is comparing to when they ask about post-daycare finances). For example, including college savings. Just because you start to save more for college after you’re done with daycare doesn’t mean that the child is more expensive – just means you didn’t have the cashflow to fully save and pay for daycare at the same time.

I think it’s 100% doable to spend less after daycare than during, but that many families don’t. For those families that spend more after daycare, it’s because they want to give their kid as many “advantages” as possible. But that doesn’t make those greater costs a foregone conclusion.

GTFO of here with your reasonableness on DCUM. Nobody is paying attention to the sane people, so you may as well save your keystrokes.

By the way, this thread has 100% convinced me not to have that third child I've been on the fence about. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Kids are expensive, but I'm not spending more than 40K per year on my school age kids like I did when they did daycare. That's a straight, off the top, $40,000 a year too--all the sports expenses in the world do not equate to the unrelenting monthly daycare payment for 2. It just doesn't. What you hear a lot of this is from SAHMs who don't want to fulfill the "I will stay at home until they are in kindergarten" deal they made with their husbands, and have to invent expenses so it will always be "too expensive" for them to go back to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids are expensive, but I'm not spending more than 40K per year on my school age kids like I did when they did daycare. That's a straight, off the top, $40,000 a year too--all the sports expenses in the world do not equate to the unrelenting monthly daycare payment for 2. It just doesn't. What you hear a lot of this is from SAHMs who don't want to fulfill the "I will stay at home until they are in kindergarten" deal they made with their husbands, and have to invent expenses so it will always be "too expensive" for them to go back to work.

How does making up expenses for kid stuff equate to staying home? That would be in favor of a SAHM going back to work. But nice try trying to bash SAHMs.

[Anonymous]

I could see it...our daycare is also 1200 a month, which I think is actually a good rate. I went to overnight camp and I hope she will too. That alone is around 8K a summer. That's not even touching any sort of other extra curricular activities, tutors, after school sitters, etc. I actually think that daycare is not a bad time financially!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids are expensive, but I'm not spending more than 40K per year on my school age kids like I did when they did daycare. That's a straight, off the top, $40,000 a year too--all the sports expenses in the world do not equate to the unrelenting monthly daycare payment for 2. It just doesn't. What you hear a lot of this is from SAHMs who don't want to fulfill the "I will stay at home until they are in kindergarten" deal they made with their husbands, and have to invent expenses so it will always be "too expensive" for them to go back to work.

If it was too expensive for us to live the life I want with our family I'd go back to work. It isn't, so I don't. No "deal" on our end.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Look if you're one of those parents who don't care about enriching their children's lives with activities, lessons, summer camps, vacations, orthodontia, nice clothes and age appropriate toys (including the iphone and data plan they'll eventually need starting in upper elementary or ms), and oh yeah COLLEGE, then yes I guess you're right, they're not that expensive.

If you're the typical UMC parent who DOES care about all that stuff? They're expensive as f***.

and yet somehow I went to an Ivy League school and became a typical UMC parent, even though I never did any activities other than free school teams and bands, never took vacations, never had an iphone. This consumerist lifestyle is not necessary. Free yourself!

Were iPhones readily available when you were a teenager? You must be a very, very young parent. I did not grow up with the same standards, either, however times are a changing! You may be in for a rude awakening.

yeah, there was no expensive stuff when we grew up. expensive stuff appeared for the first time in the history of mankind the moment you became a parent. what a coincidence!

It's not just expensive things. Way more competitive than when we grew up. You seem determined that because you didn't have it, neither should your children. Maybe you will stick with that, but most parents I know want to help their children succeed.

There are always things to spend your money on. I don't believe that spending money is what makes my kids successful. Quite the opposite. I wonder how a young adult who has been coddled with material goods and international trips will fare when they graduate from college and are on their own ...

Are you the one who never took vacations? I bet you didn't have a home computer, either, but guess what? Every home has one now, including yours. We are raising children in an entirely different world than we grew up in. There is a big space between throwing away money to keep up with the Joneses and making sure that our kids are developing socially and academically. And yes, that includes fostering independence, resourcefulness, perseverance, and resilience. It is possible to do this AND take children on vacation.

Look, some families (even well-educated, solid families) simply don't have the amount of disposible income you're claiming is "required" to raise kids these days. It's not like we didn't take vacations to Iceland because my parents didn't believe in travel; it's that we didn't have the money for luxury trips. We all turned out fine. And yes, we did have one computer, and yes I realize that my kid will need his own computer eventually. Likely, that computer will cost less (inflation adjusted) than the BOB stroller he had as an infant. It's kind of sad that you think only money can purchase your child's social and academic development.

You don't NEED a BOB stroller either - carry your child or make them walk like my parents did!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look if you're one of those parents who don't care about enriching their children's lives with activities, lessons, summer camps, vacations, orthodontia, nice clothes and age appropriate toys (including the iphone and data plan they'll eventually need starting in upper elementary or ms), and oh yeah COLLEGE, then yes I guess you're right, they're not that expensive.

If you're the typical UMC parent who DOES care about all that stuff? They're expensive as f***.

and yet somehow I went to an Ivy League school and became a typical UMC parent, even though I never did any activities other than free school teams and bands, never took vacations, never had an iphone. This consumerist lifestyle is not necessary. Free yourself!

Were iPhones readily available when you were a teenager? You must be a very, very young parent. I did not grow up with the same standards, either, however times are a changing! You may be in for a rude awakening.

yeah, there was no expensive stuff when we grew up. expensive stuff appeared for the first time in the history of mankind the moment you became a parent. what a coincidence!

It's not just expensive things. Way more competitive than when we grew up. You seem determined that because you didn't have it, neither should your children. Maybe you will stick with that, but most parents I know want to help their children succeed.

speak for yourself. i was extremely competitive as a child, went to harvard and have a phd. there are many ways to compete and even more to be happy, successful and productive.

my 5 yo is extremely ambitious and competitive and i am looking for ways to diffuse that rather than add pressure.

btw, my children have travelled overseas multiple times. and i don't count that as "child cost". i do it because i enjoy it, not because it's a way for my children to "fit in" or be competitive and successful.

Please mention your Ivy League degree again. Also I'd like to hear of your 5 year old's accomplishments since she is "extremely ambitious and competitive". Is she MVP for soccer? Straight A's? Made a killer STEM fair project?
I would like some more tips from you on how to be so successful. It's really nice of you to come in and set all of us moms with older kids straight.

people pay me to learn from me so you are lucky that i am even responding to you. oh, and i have two ivy league degrees. you are basically spending money merely to hope that one day your kids will be as successful as me.

that my very young child is extremely ambitious and competitive is a personality trait. you know, something that we are born with and it's pretty obvious. school-level accomplishments such as soccer and straight As, which loom so huge in your mind, are a different animal entirely. success and happiness in life is yet another completely different thing, as you should sometimes remind yourself, know-it-all mom of middle-school kids.

Np: don't you mean "as successful as I?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course it's not essential. None of the stuff mentioned in here is, including the oft repeated $2000 Nantucket daycare. There are cheaper day cares if you don't care about the nice extras. Most people do want the "nice to have" stuff like family trips to Europe and that is the point of most PPs.

do you live in DC? I couldn't even get off the wait list for a daycare that cost less than $2000. At 18 monts we did find a dodgy "preschool" for $900/month but there was consistenly a ratio of like 15:1 toddlers, plus it was dirty and unsafe, plus they were mean to my toddler, who literally got depressed. At that point we considered it a privilege to get into a good center that charged "only" $1800 for 2 year olds.