Are older kids really more expensive than little ones?
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Anonymous
| Don't forget grocery expenses. Things that used to last a week (cheese, milk, cereal, fruit, snacks, etc) are gone in days, if that. |
Anonymous
So I guess your kid is never taking a music lesson, a skating lesson or a sport that isn't connected to school. I also am guessing your kid comes with a special ability to teleport themselves into places without needing someone to drive them. I am so guessing your kid comes with a special degree of tolerance to boredom to be stuck at home all summer. Finally, I am guessing that you come from an independently wealthy family to not be concerned about your own retirement, healthcare or income if you stay at home during summer so your kids don't need camps. That's quite a recipe for success you have! I also didn't grow up in the States but the reason we were able to make it to the upper middle class here is the legacy of academic achievement and the value of cultural enrichment hammered into us by parents who weren't rich but devoted themselves to concerted cultivation (luckily, in my home country most of it came free in my time). If I was a kid who stuck just with school back home, I would have been a nobody here, still living in a 2-bedroom apartment. No thank you. You chose to come to the country where raising children in an academically enriching way is expensive and stressful. Deal. Or don't deal if you can't, but pretending you are somehow more virtuous than others who do is ridiculous on its face. |
Anonymous
+10000 |
Anonymous
Clearly, ALL two-working parent families drive luxury cars, own brand-name everything and live in 7-figure houses. ALL of them. Every stinking one. If only they could learn to make peace with less! |
Anonymous
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The people that are posting $15-25K a year PER child must have salaries upwards of $250+K because there is no person in their right mind that would have 2 parents working and pay that much out to babysit and entertain your child 24/7. You do realize in the "real" world the average salary after taxes is less than the cost of your 2 kids you are raising?
If you have 3 kids you are telling me it will cost me $75K of my income AFTER taxes? So my job has to technically be at least $150K a year to make any money. Otherwise SAHM would break even or working PT you would earn more money. Ridiculous. |
Anonymous
Some people would pay all of their salaries to send their kids to private school. I know that's shocking to you but for some of us- we think it's worth it. |
Anonymous
She asked us what we found to be true, and we told her. |
Anonymous
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The thing I found the most shocking when my oldest left full time child was how expensive camps were for elementary age kids! The cheapest camps I know of that provide all day care for kids in K-6th are 350 a week (Fairfax Park&Rec basic summer camp) when you add in before and after care. Before/after care is cheaper than daycare though. I pay ~$400/month per child for after school SACC with occasional drop in morning care at a different provider. But the 10 weeks of summer is brutal. We usually take 2 weeks of vacation in the summer, but that still leaves 8 weeks.
So child care costs per elementary age kid for us are ~7000/year (10 months of SACC + 8 weeks camp). That's the bare bones camps, nothing fancy. Anything specialized is more. And yes, they eat more, the clothes cost more, the fees at school for things like band and chorus are more, etc. |
Anonymous
Yep. I make $40K per year. ALL OF IT and then some goes to the kids' tuition. It's worth it to me to give them this opportunity. |
Anonymous
NP The thing is there aren't that many expenses that wouldn't be paid for us whether I'm working or not yet the cost for children still goes up. Sports teams would not go down in cost. We'd still buy items for our child. We'd probably still do some camps and swim team in the summer. Our children would still have to eat. The actual extra costs for us are about $1500 per child in the summer and about $4000 per child during the year. |
Anonymous
Your child has activities and braces whether you work or not. |
Anonymous
+1. Plus, you do realize these expenses don't happen at the same time, right? So you don't actually have to cover three identical sets of expenses concurrently. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Applications to college
SAT Tutoring regular tutoring Fees for SAT's and AP's Travel to visit colleges Insurance for license (no car just driving ours) Shoes (mens are much more expensive than kids) Cleats Food (2 boys) Water (extra laundry, more frequent showers) Orthopedist bills Sports training trips with teams, orchestra, educational activities Prom yearbook music lesson fees These are just a few of things that we are doing and notice not including summer camps or trips Bigger kids are just more expensive. If you just want them sitting around and doing nothing nor trying to so their best in school, I guess you can get rid of a lot of expenses but at some point it will come back to bite you when they can't get a job and are living with you. |
Anonymous
I'm the poster above. For those that don't work or don't want private my cost would still be $6K per year. I'm not judging others on their choices but I would think that these costs are more than a baby would cost a SAHM. |