How much do children actually cost?

[Woodstocks]

Hello all, this is my first post on Mumsnet after reading along for a while. There have been lots of threads recently about cost of living and CMS and a lot of people claim that “CMS is categorically not enough to raise kids on”. I don’t have kids yet but am planning, so completely out of curiosity about what kind of cost is coming my way, how much do your children actually cost per month? I imagine it varies massively by age of the child but they can’t be that expensive surely? My sister for example receives £400 for two kids, plus gets the child benefit from government which I guess would cover all their food and extra uplift for electric, laundry, clothes, petrol for school runs etc. it worries me that people say CMS wouldn’t even cover the dads half of costs- what about kids is so expensive?

How could I forget about Santa - want a decent Santa experience round here? - £100 and that’s before the extortionate food and drink whilst there.
I agree with the pp- none of this is essential but if you just stayed in every day with the kids and bought them nothing it’s not ideal is it.

Also fancy a holiday? As soon as they are over 2 that's an extra seat on the plane, a bigger room etc

It isn't so much what nappies and clothes cost. It's that you lose one salary in childcare costs. For quite a lot of years. And have to pay three times the price for school holiday holidays. Numerous pairs of shoes, clothes, glasses, books, tech all cost. But the lessons are expensive too. Swimming, piano which moves into Duke of Edinburgh and driving lessons at £40 per hour! School trips. £300 this term for secondary DC. Parties. 20 DC at £10 per head minimum. It's never ending. If they get to uni and you work, you're expected to help pay their rent. We're looking at £500 per month for 5 years for one DC.

Mine are 9 and 7 now.

My parents collect them from school but wraparound care still costs up to 450 a month. I'm fortunate that I work term time only so no holiday care.

My youngest still gets universal free school meals but it's 2.50 a day for school dinners so that can be 50/ month which will double once my younger one moves into year three in Sept.

Swimming lessons cost 7.50 each a week so approx 60/ month for two.

Football club subs are something like 15 each a month.

School uniform prob about 300 for two children every August. They're on their third pair of school shoes since Sept now at30/ each a pair. At present they change shoe size about twice a year so trainers etc.

Mine are the same gender so only the oldest usually gets new clothes which saves some.

A birthday party for only ten children costs 170+

I live in a bigger house, use more electric, gas and water than I would if I didn't have kids. I use my car more to take them to clubs etc than I would if I didn't have kids so there's petrol.

I pay for life insurance to pay out to them if I die which I wouldn't do if I didn't have kids.

I save 65 each a month for each of them.

Then there's the entertaining them in half terms etc.

I had mine very close together so still needed the cot for my first when second came along so some of the baby bits I had to buy twice and I ended up having to buy a double pram so a slightly larger age gap I think night save a bit of money if you wanted two.

Childcare is a big one. Then obviously food and clothes. Changes - generally reduction - to working hours for at least one parent and associated loss of earnings/pension etc. Inflexibilty of bring constrained to holidays in school holiday times. Bigger car, bigger house than you might otherwise have.

My dc no longer need paid childcare* but other incidental teen expenses

• ds is 14 and (currently) has adult size 14 feet - well beyond most "normal" ranges, so specialist suppliers and a small selection of Nike trainers/football boots. His feet are still growing, about as fast as they were when he was 3- a good couple of sizes a year. Adult size clothes that he grows out of in a year. Massive appetite. He loves music - so music lessons, petrol to orchestra practise and performances. (And tickets for accompanying parents). It's just cost about £70 to enter him for an exam.
• bus fares to get to school
• About £140/month on school dinners between 2 dc
• school trips - residentials @ £100/night. He's got a GCSE trip to Berlin and one to Bacelona on offer next year.

• well ds doesn't. DD is 11 and point blank refuses to go,

Think clothes for each season. They will need them. Good quality clothes aren't cheap and even supermarket stuff isn't the cheapest these days! A pack of 10 pants from H&M is £16-20. Then vests another £7 for a pack. The basic stuff adds up to a lot. Kids are forever growing. They need new clothes each season. They can't reuse the wardrobe like we can.

I only have a baby so she doesn't cost that much yet, but I think it's more the housing and childcare costs that make it hard for people. And more expensive gadgets and gifts etc as they get older.

Plus constantly clothes and shoes for growing bodies.

OP, In August I had to replace ds' school kit because he grew over the summer.

New school shoes £50
New trainers £20
New trousers x 2 £20
New shirts x 6 £15
New sweaters x 2 20
New blazer £45
PE shirt, shorts, swimming trunks £24
Navy socks £6
plus
Scientific calculator for GCSE £16
Text books - £70

He's had two GCSE trips this year - Geography £180, German £320

So an extra £796 It's never ending.

I love the very bones of my DS and I don't begrudge him a penny, but it certainly isn't cheap.

Annually updated research puts the current cost at around £200,000 to raise the child from birth to 18. That's, of course, an average so it can be less and can be more depending on the decisions that you make as a parent.

It's difficult to work out whether CMS covers what it needs to because, in order to get an accurate measure, you'd need to:

• know exactly how much the child costs each parent on the days they are with them,
• deduct the lower from the higher,
• deduct what funding the higher payer receives through child benefit,
• calculate half of the difference.

This is what the parent who pays the lower amount should pay the other in order to achieve an actual balance with both parents paying exactly the same. It's nearly impossible to do like that though because of the complexity involved, honesty required and constant need for readjustment.

Hello all and thank you for your replies. Yes it seems like I was naive - I did not know or envisage that the needs constantly change and that like one commentator remarked, they can’t actually reuse anything like adults can. Ie the seasons and next time a summer skirt is needed the old years is too small. Once they have learned how to swim and lessons drop off, it’s then on to something else . Or the fact that even when they haven’t outgrown something they just break or wreck or lose it!

The long term effect on at least one parent’s career (or the childcare costs if not) are astronomical.

Everything that everyone else has said. Plus don't forget to save for uni.

Once they get to that age, if your earnings mean your child is only entitled to the minimum maintenance loan, you'll be expected to make up the difference so you'll need the equivalent of £18,000 saved up to get them through a three year course (£60,000 if you want to pay their tuition fees and living costs so they don't need a loan at all).

Bigger house = larger bills. Bigger car (I have four) = higher fuel and maintenance bills. Shoes, clothes, food, hobbies, activities, parties, days out, computers, phones, swimming/ gym membership. It’s pretty endless tbh

There are people who argue that a lot of that stuff is unnecessary. No one needs to have or go to a party or go to a sports club or partake in anything extra curricular. Clothes can be second hand, food can be cheap, put on a jumper rather than the heating however it sounds like a pretty miserable childhood to me. Fair enough if that’s literally all you can afford but who would want their darling children to live one step up from poverty? It shouldn’t be a race to the bottom both parents should want their children to have nice lives.

my ex doesn’t pay maintenance but he has them 2/3 days a week and buys them clothes/ nice days out / big ticket items for birthdays/ Christmas etc

It’s not just about essentials, money can make parenting easier, to a point.

for eg, being able to afford soft play or cinema and lunch out on a horrible rainy day like today. Being able to afford to pay for activities like tennis camp in the school holidays to give yourself a break.

not essentials obviously but I do think parenting must be a lot harder for people who have to count every single penny

My DD's university accommodation is £22 a day so there's twenty grand.

I think the CMS argument stems from a number of things, including:

• The resident parent (assuming it's not 50/50) can't muddle by with less in the same way the non-resident parent often can. Eg. It's one thing to stay together in a 1-bed flat every other weekend but you can't comfortably live like that for the majority of the time. Not that all NRPs have this living arrangement obviously, but just mean it's more possible to make do with less space.

• RPs generally have to arrange their work around the children or pay for childcare, NRP doesn't always have to if they only have children every other weekend or similar.

• On top of the major things like clothes, shoes, food etc, RPs have the majority of the incidental spends due to having the children with them 99% of the time. They're not going to bill the NRP for all the bottles of water they buy when the child needs a drink when out and about, or plasters for when they fall, or hairbands for when one snaps. All of those small things add up after a while but they're not really counted.

Caring for them - so not able to work, or must buy in care.
Housing them.
food, swim lessons blah blah is small fry compared to the above!

Everything that’s already been said plus the fact you might not want to go back full time after you’ve had a baby.

We used about 10k of savings for maternity leave (I only got statutory maternity pay and DH had a low salary’s) but I’m still expecting that we’ll need more than 5k for the next one even though DH’s salary has gone up and we shouldn’t have to buy as much baby stuff.

Nursery is around £1,200 a month and that includes tax feee childcare.

We bought a bigger house because all of the kids stuff didn’t really fit in the other one and we needed more bedrooms for more DC. That mortgage is £500 more expensive per month than the last one.

We don’t spend that much on clothes. Family give us lots and under age 1 I probably spend around £20 on each size getting things second hand. New clothes even for baby’s and toddlers are quite expensive. Nursery and potty training mean that you need even more clothes.

Excluding the new, higher mortgage payments and the costs associated with moving almost 2yo DC has cost us just under 5k so far this year. That’s what’s been categorised as ‘children’ in our online banking. Most of that is childcare.

Senior school trips abroad 500-1500. Ds had these yearly! ( not compulsory)

Growing.. Shoes fo3 school then trainers, boots / sandals depending on season.
Middle dc had 4 pairs school shoes since Sept as kept growing. (£35+ a pair then of course weekend shoes , wellies, etc)

This month 1 dc had 3 birthday parties to attend ( now her 9th since Sept) each, card, gift, normally parking if in city soft play.

Trips to attractions. Normally over age of 3 you pay for most. A nice trip to theme park for example 2 adults, 1 dc well over £100 entry

I did a rough tot up and I reckon on "regular" outgoings alone eg food (including school dinners), school bus, pocket money, mobile phone, clothing (including school uniform), gym membership and his hobby DS15 costs about £450 pm.

I've not factored in housing & utilities as we'd still have the same size house without him.

I've also not included Christmas/birthday presents, holidays or travel/accommodation associated with his hobby......

However. I quit work no mat leave ( they were bullies) we had just dh wage but got by

No mortgages but rent is over 1k.

Never moved to be near a school. I think you can move to be near the best and 2 years later it could be a special measure school.

Made do with the cars we had
However pram, car seats etc were pricey

Also missed school trips!

We've spent £350 this year already on trips related to GCSEs

Two residential trips has just cost us £1000 plus spending money!
wrap around care
school uniforms
clubs
constant clothes/shoes
a bigger house
more expensive holidays - have to go during school holidays
teen wants constant money for cinema, bowling, lunch out
a day trip costs ££
It’s constant!!

@Heroicallyfound yep. I pay £13.5. a tin upto six months zero offers might get a odd pound or two saving from six months plus. Not to mention the teats, bottles (no matter if they are the big ones!) Comes with size 1... I didn't know this suprise, babies need size 2 teats and 3! I haven't moved onto size three but it's just money making think I paid £8 for 2!