Do they really "only get more expensive?"

[nanodyne]

I see this mentioned a lot in relation to kids, is it actually true? At their most expensive (so far) we've paid ~£1.5k for 4 days a week in a nursery and this takes into account the available funded hours and "tax-free" (🙄) allocation. Do teenagers seriously cost more than this per month..?! This is only the childcare component obviously, not including the clothes they're getting through at a rate of knots, the vast amounts of fruit/food they both consume/throw on the floor/smear on the cat, day trips at the weekends, classes on my day off with them etc..

Is this just something people who had kids before childcare became more than a mortgage say? I'm partly incredulous, partly panicking!

Good question OP. I think it varies from family to family. Childcare costs/nursery was a particularly expensive time. When they went to school the immediate costs reduced but then we started saving for College. The College funds needed supplementing (by quite some way- we funded all living costs, but not fees). We are currently (kids in early 20s), saving for deposits to get them on the housing ladder. So, overall yes I think having kids is an expensive business, but it does depend on each family and how they approach support.

University!!! Seriously expensive.

I don't see how it can get more expensive than nursery.

Even if activities are more expensive, they're voluntary. So if you really can't afford a particular hobby or school trip, they don't do it. But if you can't afford nursery, your options are try and scrape by, or quit work which involves a loss of income, so doesn't remove the cost of a young child.

No I think people forget or didnt have to pay for nursery. I have more spare money now than I did 5 years ago.

Thanks for all the responses so far, I can only dream of not forking out £££ every month for childcare (mum has 9 grandkids so would be very unfair to ask any regular help from her).

Also really interesting (and lovely!) to hear how many people support their kids at uni. My parents believed I should be self-sufficient so I had a job from 16 and worked ~25h/w while at uni.. very much hoping to prevent my kids needing to do the same! Ditto on the deposit, although that feels like a real pipe dream at the moment..

I suppose the incredulity came from my own experience of being quite a low-needs teen, in the sense that my hobbies were not very expensive and I was a mosher so preferred my clothes to be as grungy as possible 😂. Main expense was gig tickets which I got for birthdays/self-funded from my job.

Good to know we could use the primary years to save for when things ramp up again - eldest DC is due to start primary in September and we're already giddy with how much less after-school club is costing 🤑😂

If you exclude uni then no, I don’t see how DD can possibly cost as much as a teenager as she does now with nursery costs. We’ve already got uni costs covered via grandparents anyway- so actually uni years will cost us very little (DD has got a £50k investment courtesy of generous grandparents).

DD starts school this month, our childcare bill drops to £150pm. Hobbies are less than £100pm. We are rejoicing the end of nursery bills. The worst is behind us!

Probably not more than the OP is spending on childcare currently though, unless you're also covering the tuition fees and not taking out any loan at all. And students do usually have the option of supplementing their income by working part time.
I'm going to have 2 at University on minimum maintenance loan next year (well at least I hope so!) and yes, it's going to be an expensive year, but I don't think it will be significantly more than the OP's current nursery fees.

Probably not as expensive as full time nursery.

But general spending is much more - they eat loads, their clothes and shoes are bigger, so even if you're not buying the brand names they want it still costs more. Activities are dearer - by their nature and because you pay full price for everyone. Eating out is £££ as are holidays because you need more space and more activities. Presents are smaller but also more expensive.

If they do continue with hobbies that can be expensive, and driving lessons are now £45-£50 an hour where we live and once they pass their test you face ridiculous insurance cost, even if they just want to be able to drive the family car, not run their own.
If they go to uni, most families will be expected to top-up to cover rent and expenses but they'll still come home in the holidays and eat all the snacks!

Most will have jobs which will help but generally the parents end up financing a lot of these things.

When ours were babies/toddlers we worked back to back shifts to avoid childcare costs.

I find the bit between 16-20 most expensive. We lose free buses to education after Y11 and that is over £300 a term. They want to start driving lessons, go out more. Lose the child element in UC to support them and sometimes they aren't yet working in a job paying well enough to pay towards the costs of the house (single parent so I'm reliant on my income being supplemented as on a low wage). It is a bit of an adjustment over that stage of child rearing. Mine need a car ASAP due to our rural location and poor bus service otherwise they wouldn't be able to get jobs.

Childcare years without government assistance are more expensive, the sweet spot in early secondary as no childcare and still too young to be going out far, university years are £££ £5k per year per child if they get the minimum loan and more if it's London or an expensive other city

‘Demands’ for more expensive things? It was more a question of asking nicely here, and maybe they’d get it or maybe they’d be told no, you can save up for it.

They will get cheaper (assuming no school fees) and are not too bad in the primary years. Secondary is more expensive (but not nursery level expensive) as they want gadgets/a say in what they wear which won't be supermarket own label.../money for going out (and your petrol costs in picking them up after parties). If they do activities at a high level (county + sport/advanced music) that can also seriously ramp up at secondary as they will need decent equipment/instruments (don't let them learn the harp), getting to and from training/lessons/competitions etc and possibly summer holiday camps etc.

When you enjoy the reduced costs of primary do also remember to budget in for holiday childcare and book it early.

We were skint in the pre school years, IIRC it was about £40 per child per day at nursery 20 years ago, 15 hours free childcare didn't happen till 3yo but there were tax free childcare vouchers.

Teenagers are expensive but it's different, food bills rocket, eating out, going on holiday etc increase a lot, adult size clothes and shoes are expensive (VAT kicks in). Then there's phones, laptops, hobbies, petrol taxiing them to hobbies, driving lessons, insurance, uni support, house deposit savings. But we earn more now, the mortgage is finished, and as others have said, a lot more of it is optional.

I think it depends on your own upbringing and what you expect to fund for your late teens/adult children.

There was never any suggestion that my parents would pay for my driving lessons or a car. I got a job. They didn't give me any money for uni either, even though their income brought down how much I got as a loan. And the idea they'd give me a house deposit is laughable. Again, not because they couldn't afford to but because it would never occur to them that they would.

If you're living in the real world where people don't have the money to pay for these insanely expensive things, then there's no way children are more expensive as they age compared to nursery fees.

I don't think that's an expectation.

I’m curious about this and interesting to see most of the responses refer to paying for full time (or near) childcare. Each child only goes to nursery two mornings but it still costs me £280 a month (each child). Surely they’ll always be in clubs, always eat, always need clothing, so those costs will always be there, maybe they’ll be more, but I’ve got a that £280 difference before I hit a deficit. My siblings with teenagers do seem to pay a lot for school trips.

I find the clothing bit interesting. I’m still in the phase of having to buy new clothes every three/six months for two of mine because they’re so little so that just seems like an endless drain.

And my toddlers currently cost me around £10k a month in berries.

Why is uni cited as expensive? My parents didn’t give me any money for uni 15 years ago… AFAIK there’s still two loans available to students (one for living expenses and one for tuition fees). I had a job to top up my money.

In our case it's true. Clubs, adult sized clothes, adult sized shoes (both of which you are replacing regularly), more food, money for going out with friends, gaming subscriptions, TV subscriptions. We make them earn a lot of it but it still comes out of our pockets.

Does that add up to £1.5k a month though?

AFAIK there’s still two loans available to students (one for living expenses and one for tuition fees). I had a job to top up my money.

Because the living expenses loan often doesn't cover the cost of the rent/halls let alone eating/clothes/living etc. And its means tested on the parents income so lots of DC don't get the full amount and parents are supposed to top it up. An d because if you have 2 DC at uni at the same time the means testing doesn't recognise that so you may have 2 lots of DC to top up the loans for in the same academic year.

We have four - childcare/nursery cost was horrific when they were younger - more than our mortgage for two in nursery, and then most of my salary when I had a nanny, but that is less than we are paying now, with two at uni (with two more to go). The uni students work in the summer holidays to supplement their loans - although one is at Oxbridge so can only do this during the summer; he is studying/sleeping at Christmas and Easter!

I think, as everyone has said, it depends on your family and what you/they are doing - extracurricular stuff and school trips are expensive for four - at one point we had three doing expensive sports (incl. equestrian ones) and going to multiple birthday parties each weekend, or trips to the cinema/theatre etc. We are currently paying over £2500 for a trip to China at Feb half term for one, two went skiing with school last year etc - but it's cheaper to do that than all go skiing every year...and of course they are optional.

Phones, laptops/tech, shoes (!!!!), clothes, food (effectively for 6 adults once all teens), driving lessons, water bills and electricity etc are not cheap with a big family, but I still don't think we are close to the huge cost of childcare when they were younger, and we've never paid school fees - just had a larger mortgage for a house in a good grammar catchment instead!!

When you enjoy the reduced costs of primary do also remember to budget in for holiday childcare and book it early.

Nursery is £70 per day all year (minus the free hours and tax free), wraparound is £12.30 per day term time minus tax free, we need 4 days a week.
We only need 12 days of holiday clubs ( 3 x 4 day weeks max) as annual leave covers the rest, so that’s only another £600 max and probably considerably less (they range from £35-£50 a day here).

The difference is still significant, roughly £700 to £150. More if Starmer’s free breakfast clubs materialise! I want my £4.10 x 4 x 38 weeks back that he’s promised…

No, even at primary they’re more expensive for us as we have wraparound costs that we don’t have once they’re at secondary. Once they’re at university things will be more expensive again as well support them there but not 1.5k a month expensive.

@MrsAvocet I think it depends where they are in university.

I had two in uni this year: one in halls at £8,900 and one in rented student accommodation at £800+ bills pcm

they have an allowance of £450 pcm, plus I pay for their phones, travel home and the occasional online shop if they’re look particularly emaciated. They both got a bit of a top up at the beginning of the year for course related materials.

neither got a maintenance loan but if they had, that would have reduced our liability down to about £1600 pcm

I’m still paying for their car at home which costs about £2.7k to insure and tax and obviously the days when they could stay in the sofa bed in our hotel room or eat off the children’s menu are long gone so holidays and eating out are several times more expensive than when they were preschoolers.

University is on par with what I paid in nursery fees, they've gone up a lot since then.

Obviously you don't pay childcare in teens but you do have:

• cost of hobbies/sports + money to kit them out and fuel to ferry them around
• pocket money/allowance
• once they get to 13 they can be in adult clothes which aren't VAT exempt but they are still growing so need new items constantly
• school uniform
• school trips
• gadgets (if you go down thar route which we dont)
• food. They eat an enormous amount of food and our monthly bill for 2 adults + 1 DC (nearly 13) is over £500 per month
• holidays once they stop qualifying for free child places
• days out with mates: cinema etc

Primary years were relatively cheap for us as I wfh and the school was in the village but now it is £££

That's even before you add on to savings for Uni which is essential now imo if you don't want your child saddled with 60K+ debt and cost of driving lessons/insurance etc