Reply to Why do children get MORE expensive as they get older?

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[quote=Anonymous]I found a sort of sweet spot between ages 5 and 10.  Kids were out of full-time day care, but the rest of life was still pretty cheap - they can get kids meals at restaurants, qualify for kids price to many events, etc.

It starts getting expensive again in middle school, I think. I guess some of it is optional - kids are paying more attention to brand clothing, want to join the same summer camps as their friends, etc.  Some of it is less optional, like more food (and I would put orthodontia in this category, personally - but not golf lessons).  Any trips you want to take as a family get more expensive.

We do a lot of camping. Optional, yes, but a great way to get the whole family outdoors and active, and overall not that expensive. But when the kids were young, we scraped by with having them carry whatever they could handle in their school backpacks, while DH and I carried the main gear, and we all crammed into the three-person tent I've had since college. Now that isn't cutting it anymore. So we just dropped $$$ on a new tent that'll fit the whole family, overnight frame packs for the kids, and some new hiking shoes. Required? No, I guess not ... but what we used to do fairly inexpensively, we found this year we needed to either give up or shell or big bucks. So maybe it's worth qualifying that they get more expensive again IF you assume that you'll maintain the same standard of living and types of activities you had when they were younger. Of course you can give things up to save money, but if you want to keep doing whatever you've always done with the kids, those things cost more as they get bigger. [/quote]

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