Anonymous wrote:I think they get less expensive as they get older because they are able to work and earn their own money. My kids are required to work, and they are extremely hard workers. They are also required to either earn scholarships or pay their own way through college. After you turn 18 and you are legally old enough to join the military and fight for your country, you should not need your parents to pay your way through college.

For my grandmother's generation, they felt that kids got a lot cheaper after 8th grade, because that's when my GM dropped out of school and started working in the textile factory. And for my dad's generation, it was about the same -- he ran a small farm on the backlot of my grandparent's house starting when he was about 10 or 12, and was butchering animals and selling them to neighbors during the War (meat that wasn't part of the official rationing system was a good market!). Even in my siblings' generation, that was sort of true, as my brothers all worked bagging groceries to earn money for their clothes, college, and car.
So it's all cultural.
But that's not the life most of us are living now. (Indeed, even with that background, my own parents prohibited me from getting a paid job in high school .... saying that they no longer thought a minimum wage job was a good trade-off, and that my time would be better spent studying to get into a good college. They were probably right -- I went to a much better school than my brothers and make a lot more money now than they do.)

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I guess the question is, how much older? My 7 year (almost 8) old second grader is much less expensive now than he was when we had to pay for daycare and diapers, even though he's in aftercare and goes to camp. But I guess the situation could easily change when he's 10, 12, or 15.

I agree with this. So far I am finding the early elementary age to be substantially less expensive than daycare. At the end of daycare it was $1500/month. I currently pay $325/month for before/aftercare. I had my child in one activity a season before, so that expense is the same, I still feed and clothe her, that hasn't changed. Camp is pricey for the weeks we need it, but at 6 weeks of camp at $400/week, I'm still only facing $2400 + $2925 for before/aftercare/year = $5325/year vs. $18000/year for daycare. I just don't see what activity we could add that would cost another $12k+/year.

Saving for college would eat that up.

Not necessarily. Some (many?) families save for college while in daycare as well.

Yeah but typically they're only doing a few hundred a month in the daycare years, when, to pay for private, you need to be doing a thousand plus a month. Per kid.

Look if we're including college here then of course it's a no brainer, but if you are looking at purely costs incurred during 0-18, I would say day care/nanny costs are hands down more expensive. Sure you can always send your kid to $9K sleep away camp for 3 weeks, but there's also options in my close-in suburb for $300/week also (much cheaper than any day care or babysitter option).

I've read a lot of the prior posts and people say they spend $2500 to $3k for a travel sport, and then $5k for music lessons, etc. However, while those are nice things, they are not necessities like diapers and child care (which is not optional). Even if I add those things up, it's still not the $45K we spent this year for a nanny and the $10K for part-time preschool (2 kids).

It's gotten cheaper for us, at one point we were paying $2500 a month in daycare. I still have one in daycare, but my oldest is in elementary and her aftercare is only $200 a month. We do pay for activities, gymnastics, ballet, and swim, but all are through the county parks and recreation so it's very affordable. Our youngest is going into school next year so that's going to help a lot also. I don't find clothes to be a big expense either because both our kids wear uniforms for school. We buy ten uniforms at the beginning of the year and those typically last a year or two. Between Christmas and their birthdays they get a lot of clothes as gifts so I rarely have to buy any.

Our costs went down that first year after we stopped daycare. (they also went down after potty training.)
Extended day was cheaper than daycare, and 10-11 weeks of camp were more expensive than the same # of weeks of daycare, but not too much.

But then a couple of years later, the activities took off. We went from $200 of rec soccer fees to $2,500 for travel soccer. Dance classes and gymnastics classes get more expensive. Swimming lessons or music lessons add up. Clothing and shoes and uniforms get more expensive. They eat more. There are PTA and school related expenses you might not have had for preschool. I tried to ramp up the college savings too, because I don't want to come up short.

So we're not paying quite as much as we were for infant daycare, but it's damn close.

Anonymous wrote:I think they get less expensive as they get older because they are able to work and earn their own money. My kids are required to work, and they are extremely hard workers. They are also required to either earn scholarships or pay their own way through college. After you turn 18 and you are legally old enough to join the military and fight for your country, you should not need your parents to pay your way through college.

Are you college educated?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess the question is, how much older? My 7 year (almost 8) old second grader is much less expensive now than he was when we had to pay for daycare and diapers, even though he's in aftercare and goes to camp. But I guess the situation could easily change when he's 10, 12, or 15.

I agree with this. So far I am finding the early elementary age to be substantially less expensive than daycare. At the end of daycare it was $1500/month. I currently pay $325/month for before/aftercare. I had my child in one activity a season before, so that expense is the same, I still feed and clothe her, that hasn't changed. Camp is pricey for the weeks we need it, but at 6 weeks of camp at $400/week, I'm still only facing $2400 + $2925 for before/aftercare/year = $5325/year vs. $18000/year for daycare. I just don't see what activity we could add that would cost another $12k+/year.

Saving for college would eat that up.

Not necessarily. Some (many?) families save for college while in daycare as well.

Yeah but typically they're only doing a few hundred a month in the daycare years, when, to pay for private, you need to be doing a thousand plus a month. Per kid.

Anonymous wrote:The PP who said 50-75% of what they cost in daycare is probably about right assuming: 1) no expensive special interests (like equestrian, etc); and 2) no expensive special needs (a kid with dyslexia, ADHD, anxiety, etc. will eat up those savings in a heartbeat with therapy costs and lost work time).

and they have kids that eat like birds. If you have kids that eat a ton, it can get expensive very quickly.

So for us ... daycare was $1200/month now aftercare $400/month guitar $300 per month sport $200 and 1 foreign language $100/per month so total is $1000 however that does not include the cost of supplies, equipment, etc. that's 10k a year, then summer camp is about $4-5k. So our costs stayed the same.

Anonymous wrote:I think they get less expensive as they get older because they are able to work and earn their own money. My kids are required to work, and they are extremely hard workers. They are also required to either earn scholarships or pay their own way through college. After you turn 18 and you are legally old enough to join the military and fight for your country, you should not need your parents to pay your way through college.

Are you serious? "You're 18 now, so you're on your own!" I find that ridiculous. If you're financially able to help and don't, that's awful of you. And don't give me some bullshit about how you did it, so they can, too - it's different now, so much more expensive... Or, how they won't appreciate it and become entitled; if that's the case, then you didn't raise them well.

I think they get less expensive as they get older because they are able to work and earn their own money. My kids are required to work, and they are extremely hard workers. They are also required to either earn scholarships or pay their own way through college. After you turn 18 and you are legally old enough to join the military and fight for your country, you should not need your parents to pay your way through college.

Music Lessons: $200 per month
Sports: $50 per month on average
School clubs, field trips etc.: $100 per month on average
College savings: $750 per month
Entertainment and Enrichment (Movies, plays, museum outings) $75 per month on average
Just started high school so I guess we will need to start paying for AP exams, SAT test prep, college applications etc.
I have definitely found that high school is more expensive than any year before now.
And yes, we do spend more on food now that he is a teenager!

Easy. My kids are 7 & 11. I pay an after school sitter $20/hr to watch the kids, thats $250/week. A combo oc camps and sitters over the summer runs us at a minimum $600/wk. My kids do sports, that's a good 4k/yr and I'm probably shaving off a few thousand in hidden expenses. My 11yr old is in adult clothes and shoes and is growing like a weed. My grocery bills havr increased by at leasr $500/mo. We pay full adult price for just about everything now...amusement parks, plane tickets, movies, sporting events.

When kids are little you can sit around the house with yiu thumb up yiur ass. Tonight my boys want us to all see Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Thats a $60 night right there.

Oh and VA prepaid college? That's ~70k per child that has to be locked down by 9th grade .

Yes, daycare costs of $2500/mo and itty bitty chrap chothes and some noodles and fruit for dinner were the good old days.

If you are a parent that is determined to only buy what is necessary and lower your costs so you can do ther things with your money, and that is a completely legitimate choice, particularly if you stopped line items like retirement savings to cover the cost of daycar, the.ln the cost of your children will absolutely go down significantly.

There are, however, many things you can and will spend money on if your budget allows and they fit your families values.

We do not do regular foreign travel, but we spend a lot on kids' activities and great camps. Those expenses are worth it to us. Every family makes different choices and you will be faced with many more over the years as your children get older.

If you only want to pay for rec soccer, that is a legitimate choice. But if your child has a passion in arts or sports and you choose not to support that with private lessons or travel teams or whatever you also should know that another family may legitimately make a different choice.

Anonymous wrote:Travel sport $100/month
Piano - $100/month
Aftercare -$400/month
Tutoring -$100/month
Swim lessons $100/month

Summer camps can be $500/week for a good quality camp (not just babysitting) -- average over year that's $400/month, but you don't pay aftercare those months.

The things like travel needing two hotel rooms, bigger cars, etc.

Obviously all those things are compulsory or you are a terrible parent and your children will never get into a good college or be a success in life.

The PP who said 50-75% of what they cost in daycare is probably about right assuming: 1) no expensive special interests (like equestrian, etc); and 2) no expensive special needs (a kid with dyslexia, ADHD, anxiety, etc. will eat up those savings in a heartbeat with therapy costs and lost work time).