To ask how much your kids cost you per month?

[Troublesometooth]

I just thought about it and added up on another thread and I was so surprised! I’ve never really considered it before.

A 2 year old and 5 year old monthly bill comes to:

£500 for 2 days per week at nursery
£150 for 2 days per week at out of school club
£100 clothing budget, more if shoes are needed
£100 swim lessons
£35 ballet
£15 football
£22.50 tennis
£100 family days out budget

Total monthly cost; £1022.50! That’s without birthday and Christmas presents and special events etc.

My 2 year old gets her 30 free hours from April so that will significantly lower the nursery bill which I’m very pleased about!

6 and 8 yr old

6 yr old classes
€40 for 2 1 hour sessions martial arts class
€90 per term (6 weeks) swimming

8yr old
€50 for 1 hour per week fitness class
€9 per class for gymnastics 1 hour a week
€90 per term swimming

No childcare

Clothing I tend to buy at Christmas, Easter summer and autumn. - I don't have a set amount for that really...

Really they don't cost me that much at all to be honest.

For 8 year old DS

£120 Afterschool club and breakfast club
£75 kickboxing
£15 cubs
£19 swimming
£23 school lunches around 50‰ of time
£12 school clubs

Plus around £600 on holiday club during the year

Not much for me really. DD1 is 4.5 in reception and DD2 is 3 months. Worked out its around £120 a month for both of them.

DD2 is pretty much nothing at the moment, £10 a month on nappies, £8 a month on formula (only has one bottle a day, BF rest of the time) and all her clothes are sorted up to 9 months as we got given so many as gifts and hand-me-downs. Haven't bought her anything new like toys etc as all DD1s or gifts - we've been very lucky.

DD1 - £40 a month for after school club. Maybe £5 a month pocket money - gets 20p for doing small jobs around the house. We mostly go to the park or for walks but do have a few days out a year, maybe works out as £20 a month on average. Basically child benefit covers her existence for now, which I'm glad of as my maternity pay is barely anything so money is tight!

Clothes for DD1 probably region of £500 a year including school uniform and shoes so about £40 a month on average.

DD1 doesn't cost us anything in food really, she doesn't eat a lot. She gets free school dinners and just shares our meals. She has some sensory issues so eats quite bland food and a lot of sandwiches, barely any snacks. DD2 at 3 months obv just milk at this stage.

1 & 2 year old
£2050 nursery (not full time)
£250 on weekend/day off activities
£100 clothes
£60 nappies & milk

Counting down the days (many, many months) until eldest gets their 30 free hours

£300 Food food for a child monthly???

Organic food is quite expensive down here in the SE

We made a point of feeding her a variety of healthy foods very early on to get her used to it, and now she really enjoys it (avocado specially - this does however get quite £££ over time)

Fruit (strawberries/avocado most expensive)
Vegetables (variety - she eats everything)
Chicken (farm - organic)
Fish (usually frozen haddock/cod. But sometimes fresh. This is harder to find now)
Lentils (thankfully this is cheap)

Aptamil Profutura 3 (x 2 monthly)

DD2 has a lot of energy and is a voracious eater. Also, the cost of the healthy stuff we buy has gone up by at least 30% over the last 6 months, and there are less options available.

@yayforsun

We added it up recently and were horrified at what our child costs us per week.

Guitar lesson £40
Stage coach £30
Dance class £10
Gymnastics £10
Tennis £16

Per week!?! I'm glad my daughter only does Rainbows which works out about £3.50 a week. And swimming is £6 a week.

@BambinaJAS

£300 Food food for a child monthly???

Organic food is quite expensive down here in the SE

We made a point of feeding her a variety of healthy foods very early on to get her used to it, and now she really enjoys it (avocado specially - this does however get quite £££ over time)

Fruit (strawberries/avocado most expensive)
Vegetables (variety - she eats everything)
Chicken (farm - organic)
Fish (usually frozen haddock/cod. But sometimes fresh. This is harder to find now)
Lentils (thankfully this is cheap)

Aptamil Profutura 3 (x 2 monthly)

DD2 has a lot of energy and is a voracious eater. Also, the cost of the healthy stuff we buy has gone up by at least 30% over the last 6 months, and there are less options available.

just curious but what is your family's food bill

i still cant see how a child can eat £300 worth of food a month even the best quality but it seems so

Food bill is about £600/month

I eat little (DD2 eats more than I do!)

DH eats a lot, but we buy the food in bulk for him (likes easy to make food like chicken stir fry and beef stir fry. He does not eat breakfast. Just light lunch and large dinner) so its not too bad.

@WTF475878237NC It’s called Explained: why women are paid less. It’s on YouTube as a full episode as well as Netflix.

Apparently the gender pay gap only applies to mums so it’s more accurate to call it a motherhood penalty instead.

Too much to add up as it'll probably make me cry

@BambinaJAS

Food bill is about £600/month

I eat little (DD2 eats more than I do!)

DH eats a lot, but we buy the food in bulk for him (likes easy to make food like chicken stir fry and beef stir fry. He does not eat breakfast. Just light lunch and large dinner) so its not too bad.

thank you

Ive got 2 teenagers -
Food £300 a month
Lunches £100 a month
Train passes £80
Gym membership £100
Phones £100
Tutoring £350
Uniform/Shoes/sports kits £150
Pocket money £100
Tech £100
School trips / activity weeks £200
after school activities £150
Then birthday parties / xmas/proms/other parties £100
Probably just shy of £2,000 a month for the both of them.

I only have 1 14 year old dd still at home
Pocket money £60
School dinners £80
Dance £40
Trampolining £40
Guides £5
Theatre School £50
She has also started Duke of Edinburgh which seems to be expensive to get all the kit.
Clothes-she buys out of pocket money and has half of Primark on her floor to choose from.
But I know from raising the older ones, 16/18 is expensive!

At least 6 new wrinkles.

Uni DC - £750 contribution toward rent/food
Secondary DC - no idea about clothes but it's not cheap. £200 a month on activities. £80 a month pocket money plus phone
Primary DC x 2: fees £3500, activities £600, clothes I have no idea but lots.

At their height school fees were about £3000 pa.
Add in music lessons, guides, sports club, coach, school trips, phones etc., and I dread to think.

Then we moved onto uni fees and expenses, driving lessons, cars, gap years, etc

Good luck!

Despite all the above dd wore ds's hand me downs often and they had generally two pairs of leather shoes a year and sandals/doodles for the summer. Oh and 2nd hand uniform. they were poor, deprived sods

DS age 9
Football £10
Boxing £16
Cricket £12
School football £10
After school club £20
Hair £10
Clothes £25 maybe averaged out? Tends to just get new trainers/shoes/ coat etc when needed. Uniform still cheap at the mo as primary
Swimming £20

DD age 6
Swimming £20
Netball £20
School football £10
After school club £20
Clothes £15
Soon to start drama £75
Disney plus £6
£289 altogether

Activities, meals out and fun days happen more in the school hols so maybe averages out at £100-£200 a month

Food shop- no idea how much extra. DS constantly eating so prob loads 😂

Prob around £500 ish but I’m sure I’m missing things out! I haven’t included birthdays or Xmas- they definitely add a lot to it!

£1000 nursery
£700 school fees
£60 swimming
£66 piano
£24 gymnastics
£50ish clothes
£100ish food
£50 on soft play/farm park type stuff

3 year old and 6 year old.

Nursery has gone down to arround £250-£300 a month (we don't fully use our funded hours because he only attend two days a week, but nursery have all kinds of charges on top like Montessori fees and forest school surcharges...) , we couldn't chosen somewhere cheaper.
Thing is you will spend what you can afford, so I am much fussier about what DS eats than I was for just the two of us, so everything where possible is higher welfare/organic which vastly increases grocery spends.
I won't buy DS cheap shoes and make sure he is measured regularly, his last pair of bobux were nearly £50! (More than I spend on my own most of the time), it's hard to find nice brightly coloured clothes that are not camo or neon for boys over a certain age and where possible I prefer cotton so I do buy frugi, Boden etc along with M&S H&M and so on, I do buy Preloved as well and resell after use. DS has swimming lessons, gymnastics, we go out often at weekends sometimes just walk to the beach or park but also have annual passes to the aquarium and farm, we've been to the theatre a number of times just for children's productions and pantos at this age . He loves the natural history museum but I don't live in London anymore so we travel back in every other month or so. We save into an account for him every month too. We also spend time in the garden, made a pirate ship out of cardboard boxes a few weeks ago, go to the library every other week so it's not all things that cost money. However we can afford the lifestyle we choose to give him, waited until later in life with established careers and only had one child.
I have lived on very very limited amounts of money and can make do without issue, we just don't have to so we don't.

Swimming -£30
Gymnastics - £32

Water bottles - £15743 a year!!!!! The child has never had one for more than two days without breaking it!

A lot of your costs are very high.

My kids are the same age.
£500 for two full days nursery is high imho.
£100 a month on clothes is mad.
Swimming lessons - a 2 year old doesnt need these, for the 5 year old not many swimming lessons are more than £10 a week.
£100 a month family days out is a lot. We are on a high income and dont spend anything like that.

@squishmycherry

My sanity.

Oh come on 4 pages in and I’m the only one laughing at this? I’m here with you @squishmycherry

£700 school fees

These are quite easily avoidable, assuming you live in the UK.

Two DDs, 4 & 1.

£18 Spotify family
£62 DD1 preschool
£312 DD2 2 days pw Childminder
£150 extra food & toiletries
£10 DD1 haircut
£100 clubs & activities
£25 clothes (all secondhand & DD2 wears hand-me-downs only)
£100 on weekend days out
£75ish on random needs/coffees/occasional soft play/toys/blah blah blah

So about £850 per month. Almost half of that is childcare costs so we're happy with that tbh.

Cjpark
What on earth is £100 a month "tech" costs for teenagers? You do not need to spend that.