What's more expensive: the childcare years or the teen years?

[Oddsox1]

Currently paying £1000 a month for 3 days nursery for one child. Second child due to start soon.

Someone please please reassure me that teens won't cost this much?! Chatting to a friend has scared me!

My dd age 14 is VERY cheap. She loves shopping on Vinted - and she and her friends are now already competent enough to sell their clothes through their parents accounts and they love keeping the proceeds. She won’t have the money to waste on clothes and make up when she’s older - she’ll need to save for uni and accommodation and a car - so I am encouraging thrifty habits. I cut her hair (I’m good) and she just sticks to basic makeup for now.

She does Army Cadets and includes Duke of Edinburgh - thoroughly recommend as loads of fun like a well organised youth club and it’s free except for boots you have to buy and occasionally a tenner for a weekend away. That’s 4 hours a week and several weekends per quarter.

We spend little else - she has a few extra curriculars but nothing extravagant. Climbing and swimming most weeks £12; tae kwondo 3 hours a week, that’s £7.50 and she is training as an instructor for free so that’s another few hours.

She has a Spotify subscription but puts up with an ancient iPhone with limited data so that’s also cheap.

Plus she is just starting to earn some money from babysitting for neighbours- she cannot wait to get a “proper job” at 16.

Holidays are getting harder now she won’t do clubs - I’m struggling a bit! She will probably spend her mornings at SUP or climbing most of the summer, possibly will volunteer to supervise the local summer holiday club (she wants to be a teacher so enjoys this kind of thing).

None of her friends have expensive lifestyles - a lot of them do drama and netball and obsess about K-pop which are relatively cheap.

It doesn’t have to cost a bomb.

I have teens who don't eat me out of house and home as well! 🤣 DD is nearly 18 and would still eat a kids meal in a restaurant. DS is 14 and eats barely anything during the day but has a massive evening meal, so overall not expensive (so far)

Employ a childminder, the teenage years are far worse, their body and feet are forever changing and clothes and shoes are much more expensive, clubs and sports cost a fortune and then u have driving lessons and uni to pay for.

When I read posts like this I wish MN had a “like” button. Agree with this 100%!
Too many parents carry “perfect first baby” syndrome into teen years, and constantly intervening and helicoptering. It’s so unhealthy I think.

It’s incredibly important kids learn the value of money - how to budget, save. I call it “yearn and earn” - the motivation to go and earn money or work for something you want, that’s what they need - it does amazing things for their self esteem and stepping stones to independence. It doesn’t mean parents and kindly relatives can’t help, and sometimes that means lifts and some cash and encouragement/support to keep going.

Ive dithered over tutoring but my dd is NT and I want her to learn to be self sufficient - I don’t want results to be coached out of her. I doubt anyone is going to coach her through adulthood - I’m deference she’s going to have the skills under her belt to blaze her own path. Or to coast and that’s fine too!

For us, the childcare years. My teen is not expensive. She's small so hasn't grown out of clothes much. We don't do brand names in this house, they like New Look, H&M and Primark. DC get our second hand phones with a cheap sim and a small amount of spending money. She didn't want to go to the prom and doesn't have expensive hobbies. I have promised cash for GCSE grades though so hopefully she does do well and that will cost me.

I totally agree with you on the foregone salary point but I see so many posters saying "no childcare costs cos I didn't work", unless you were always a housewife it has cost you a salary plus employer pension contributions not to work

My youngest teen:
£30 per week maths tutor
£30 per week English tutor
£80 per week physics tutor.
(Term time only).

£3000 for braces as teeth weren't quite bad enough for nhs.

£3300 for course to help him apply to medical school. It's a residential course. Long story as to why he needs it.

£1250 - new gaming computer for 15th birthday.

£120 per month allowance and he gets his hair cut out of that.

He buys a lot of his own clothes and trainers or gets them for birthdays and Christmas.

My other teen passed his driving test really fast so I think him leaving to drive cost me about £1500. Cost of theory, practical test, provisional licence, l plates, insuring him on my car plus lessons. Then I agreed to pay for his car, which is 6,grand. So my 2 are very expensive but if one of them wasn't trying to get into medical school he would be a lot cheaper.
Plus I could have told the other one to pay for his own driving lessons and car but I didn't want to.

So most of the huge expenses for teens are optional.

University support is the killer for late teens. Much more expensive than childcare.

Teens without a shadow of a doubt.

We never had any childcare costs as I went back part-time and we had help from Grandparents. I don't see this as a foregone salary as we always knew this would be the plan and it would be too expensive for us to pay nursery fees.

And it so depends on the teen. Ds19 has a part-time job, studies at uni but cheap course, has cheap tastes (buys everything secondhand, borrows a tent for camping weekends, has a friend cut his hair). DS14 is the exact opposite.

Secondary school years definitely brings expenditure i hadn't expected. Food and clothing costs soar! Eldest son has grown 8 inches in the past 18m and gone up 4 shoe sizes. That means new uniform, coat, pe kit, casual clothes, new PE trainers, football boots, school shoes, casual shoes every 6 ish months, and adult sized clothes and trainers are expensive compared to when I could buy a 3 pack of tshirts for £5 in Asda.

Food bill has gone up A LOT. Both the food at home and school lunch cost. I can't fill that child up, it seems.

Hobbies, clubs and school trips are more expensive the older they get. School trips in secondary school are more likely to be expensive ones. Ours have been offered skiing for £1250, Spain for £850, and France for £550 in the past 2 years. whereas primary school trips were £15 to the zoo or a free trip to the library. Of course these aren't compulsory though.

but nothing in teen years compares to the cost of full time nursery fees, I don't think. Until they reach university age, that is 💸

I used to wonder about this when my
kids were in full time childcare. I mean how could teenagers cost as much?
i think the difference is that the childcare is a fixed cost so it’s easier to budget for, and other costs
like food and clothes for young children are lower. With teenagers , it
seems to be never ending money for school stuff, adult sized clothes and shoes that they quickly outgrow, school trips etc. it’s harder to budget for these costs, I find.
Some of these are optional but it’s still an expensive phase, although not as crippling as the years of full time childcare.
We’re also trying to save for university (no student loan system where we are) which is an added pressure.

Same here, DD will only get the minimum loan and the dorm rates are higher than what she gets.

We put the money we saved after not needing a childminder after school anymore aside and after 7 years we have a bit of a nest egg to support her from 2025 onwards.

School uniform can be a big outlay, and one not easy to escape. Fortunately mine attend a reasonable school... the compulsory loged items come to £50 (blazer, tie, pe top). Butvtheres still shoes, shirts, trousers, pe kit, trainers etc on top of that!

I can’t imagine spending £100+ a day on teens so definitely childcare costs.

I’ll spend more than £35k in childcare next year alone!

It depends on the teen really. My DS has instrument lessons in 2 instruments and plays in a lot of music ensembles so needs lifts / train tickets. He's also in a band and plays hockey at good club level and has just had driving lessons. We've paid for school hockey tours and music tours in the past. We spend about £500 a month average. Most of that is dependent upon the child's interests though and our child seems to have expensive ones!

You do have to factor in university top up though. That's around £500 a month - although you'll have time to save for that.

The other thing with teenagers... you (or them) can work extra to pay for the extras as they can be more independent. You can't leave your toddlers at home alone for an extra shift

Childminders are in short supply. As are nurseries in some areas. It’s not as easy as just find a cheaper childcare option. It’s a case of this is the only childcare option or don’t work.

OP, we’ve spent £22.5K on nursery fees in two years. That’s isn’t even full time nursery fees. We would hope to be in a position that we can afford driving lessons, maybe a small car, some trips and hobbies, help towards university. But if we don’t have that money, then we won’t be doing those things. At the minute we have to find that money or we don’t work. Even if we are finding £22.5K over two years, we should have progressed in our career and be earning more and we will have a much lower mortgage.

I've found teenage years more expensive, but like others have said lots of things are optional. We are lucky that we can afford these things.

Dd school uniform (grammar school) is nearly £800 per year.
Compulsory and voluntary school contributions - £500 a year
School ski trip -£1200
Expensive hobby £150-200 a month, sometimes more in competition season.
Sports equipment -£50 a month
Training camp (abroad) -£1000
Rail ticket -£50 a month
Mobile phone -£40 a month

Then clothes, food, holidays, toiletries, socialising is £££
Petrol driving them around the country for competitions

So I often wonder this. Currently pay around £900 per month for nursery (although this will go down soon) and am just thinking to myself I don’t know what I would spend £900 per month on, even for a teen? Even if I splashed out £900 for each of them on expensive Christmas and birthday presents that still wouldn’t be every month. And for activities, my oldest does dancing, for example but I can’t fathom how we would spend £900 per month in that, even when she does get older?

@circular2478 what exactly does £800 buy in school uniform... and every year?

To break things down for my 13yo

Food, toiletries etc... about £40 per week (based on percentage of bill)... so £180 per month
Climbing... £14 a week, 3 times a month... £42 a month
Scouts £10 subs a month, then camp costs average another £30 a month (she went abroad!)
School trips £50 a month
Uniform £20 a month
Clothes £20 a month
Christmas/birthday £20 a month

So about £400 a month.

Well quite. I can't afford a ski trip or a tour of Dubai for myself!

Are all these multiple hobbies a new thing for this generation? I didn't do any sports or music as a teen.