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!

@OfstedOffred

£700 school fees

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

Of course they’re avoidable! I wasn’t complaining about it…

@OfstedOffred

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.

A typical family day out might be going to the natural history museum, followed by park, followed by some food. Or going to a destination like Leeds Castle or Warwick Castle (were you have kids activities).

You would be hard pressed to do this for under £100 for a family.

Eating out has gotten much more expensive.
Museum entry fees as well (adults)
Attractions as well (Leeds Castle, Warwick Castle etc..)

Nursery - £1780 a month
Clothes - not a monthly figure, just buy things as and when. Would say it averages at maybe £50 a month but deffo just me spending for fun and could be avoided.
Toys/books/activity things - perhaps £40 a month, again could be cut out but I'm a sucker for new arts and crafts things.
Food - mostly eats what I eat but is dairy free so her extras may be about £30 a month
Skincare/toiletries - dd has eczema and the only cream I have found that works for her isn't available on prescription and is £10 a pop. Would say maybe £25 on this.

The list goes on but a lot of these stuff are extras and could easily be cut out if things were desperate.

Our 6 cost less than your 2

4 DC 7.6.5 and 3

Food £100 for pack up bits for lunch
Dancing £60
Football £20
Judo £30
Boxing £12
Kickboxing £12
We are a good £800 for school clothes in the summer hols.
Clothes are when needed, I do buy a lot of bundles of eBay saves a good bit x

I think a lot of people spend money on kids clothes ad-hoc, and would be surprised, if they worked out how much they actually spend.

I have a budget for everything I expect to buy in a year - including uniforms, coats, sports wear, standard clothes for summer and winter, school shoes, boots, trainers, swimwear, waterproofs, PJs etc.

I budget ~£10 per pair of trousers and £5 per t-shirt, for example. However, I do like to make sure I have enough sets that I won't need to do washing on holiday. We also need decent outdoors stuff, as it is cold here.

I divide that by 12, and pay it into a separate account every month,and it comes to almost £100 for two children (5 & 8). We could certainly cut that back, but I don't think it's outrageous.

Maybe £4000 for 2 . Taking into account increased housing costs and cost of time out of work/not going for promotions etc. I thought what pp said was very important :

" You haven’t allowed anything for housing them.

Or for the lost income / career/ promotion / pension costs for the parent who looks after them for the 3/ 5 days they are not in childcare and the 13 weeks a year that the 5 year old is not in school.

I think you will find that the other bills soon pale into insignificance compared to these."

School dinners 45 per week
Beavers 50
Scouts 25
School uniform £200
Trips £300
Shoes £300
Day trips £200

@OfstedOffred

£700 school fees

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

I mean. The poster who spends £700 on fees didn’t ask for it to be avoided, so why point out the obvious?!

800 euros wrap around
40 euros swimming
15 euros hurling
140 food
Maybe 50 euros clothes
Probably another 50 euros sundry
That's for one child.

I estimate 1200 euro a month all in. But the wrap around allows me to work in a reasonable job, so by the time she leaves primary we'll be flying it and gain back the 800 a month.

I've 2-year old twins.
I spend over €3,000 a month on childcare.
Every other expense is dwarfed by the childcare cost, so I don't even track it.
They do a baby class at €170 for 7 weeks. I've enrolled in a second class at a similar cost.
I love JoJoMamanBebe clothes, so bought stuff in bigger sizes in the sales. They still wear clothes from 12-18 and 18-24 months, so I haven't bought them any clothes in ages. Shoes are €120 every 4 months approx.
Toys and books, I buy as and when I think of something they'd like.
WaterWipes, I bulk-buy when there's a discount.
Days out are an insignificant cost compared to the childcare (Eg on Sunday we went to the aquarium for €14).

Nursery is about £720 for 4 days a week after the tax free childcare taken off but it goes up again next month by 8%. We don’t get 30hrs until Jan which will knock about 30% off.

Clothes/toys/days out/crafts/replacement stuff eg car seats £100 max. We try to stick within the child benefit amount on average. We get most clothes and toys secondhand, we don’t do any regular paid for classes since mat leave ended as she is knackered after nursery and is happy to just play/paint/craft or be outside. I will start swimming lessons next year but she’s had so much recurrent illness plus Covid it’s not been worth it yet.

I think DD adds about £20 a week to the food budget with her fruit consumption. As she eats most of the week at nursery her main meals aren’t really noticeable but her strawberry/raspberry/blueberry snacking etc adds up!

She was BF until 26 months though and we used cloth nappies and wipes (which I have just sold on for £300ish) so in the early years she was pretty cheap to be fair!

So I reckon about £900 on average as a monthly cost. Decreasing to about £600 when she is 3+3

@yoyo1234

Maybe £4000 for 2 . Taking into account increased housing costs and cost of time out of work/not going for promotions etc. I thought what pp said was very important :

" You haven’t allowed anything for housing them.

Or for the lost income / career/ promotion / pension costs for the parent who looks after them for the 3/ 5 days they are not in childcare and the 13 weeks a year that the 5 year old is not in school.

I think you will find that the other bills soon pale into insignificance compared to these."

I had my DD at the top of my career (I was older at 41) so an advantage for me is it’s had no impact at all career wise. Pension will be very marginally impacted as I dropped a few hours and am on defined benefits but I also dropped a tax band so net pay is similar. Our housing costs haven’t changed as yet either. But it’s a good point that there is often some sacrifice that’s hard to quantify.

Both DSs play a very expensive sport, made more expensive by our location meaning very expensive travel costs for matches. They only do this sport, no other paid sports/clubs and we go without holidays/only do inexpensive days out to allow them to do it, as they both have ASD and it is the only thing they truly love. All these costs are monthly for the 2 of them combined -

Training fees -£145
Private coaching - £80
Club membership -£35
Match fees - Anywhere from £45 to £400 per month depending on no of matches
Kit - Average £50 per month, just replacing things as they are outgrown/damaged.
Gym sessions for DS1 - £25

Non-sports related -

School dinners - £48
Food - Honestly no idea how much specifically for DSs, say 30% of household grocery bill so £30 per week??! Very rough guess
Haircuts - £24 per month
Clothes - £20 per month maybe? Not very much, generous Granny & a lovely friend who passes on amazing hand-me-downs

I'm sure I'm missing something!

DFS is 15 and very sporty = expensive.
Cricket winter nets X 2 £40
Cricket group coaching £40
Swimming X2 £40
Karate x1 £15 + gradings/belts
Running is free
Come summer he will be back to 1-1 cricket coaching 2 hours per week £240
Cricket match fees/travel £40
He no longer does Stagecoach so that saved a lot.
Pocket money £40
He gets DLA so that pays towards his sports.

DC are 9, 7 and 9months

Swimming (2 dc) £60 pcm
Beavers/Cubs (2 dc) £12 pcm (paid termly, averaged out)
Football (2 dc) £20 pcm
Clothing (3dc, replaced as and when) I’d guess at £30-40 averaged out over the year including a fast growing baby, uniform, shoes etc
Pocket money (2dc) £4 pcm in return for little chores
Toys mainly bday and Christmas, only the odd thing bought in between

I think clothing and days out definitely do add up to a fair amount divided over the year.

I think we would spend €100 per month on clothing if we didn’t take gifts into account. ie granny bought ds rain dungarees/jacket/ wellingtons a few months back which were prob €100 alone. He gets some other pricier things throughout the year from both grandparents, but we didn’t pay for so not ‘our expense.

And days out, entry fees, food are expensive. It’s only because Ds is 2 that most places still don’t charge at his age, but no doubt this cost will increase in a few years.

Cost per child for toys will change if you have other children already or friends with children who pass things on. Or a good second hand trade. We have none of these, so every book/ toy he owns we buy or are gifts from people.

@Caspianberg

I think clothing and days out definitely do add up to a fair amount divided over the year.

I think we would spend €100 per month on clothing if we didn’t take gifts into account. ie granny bought ds rain dungarees/jacket/ wellingtons a few months back which were prob €100 alone. He gets some other pricier things throughout the year from both grandparents, but we didn’t pay for so not ‘our expense.

And days out, entry fees, food are expensive. It’s only because Ds is 2 that most places still don’t charge at his age, but no doubt this cost will increase in a few years.

Cost per child for toys will change if you have other children already or friends with children who pass things on. Or a good second hand trade. We have none of these, so every book/ toy he owns we buy or are gifts from people.

Second hand clothes save a huge amount. The only thing I buy new is vests as it's hard to get those second hand. Everything else I get from eBay or friends.

@Caspianberg

I think clothing and days out definitely do add up to a fair amount divided over the year.

I think we would spend €100 per month on clothing if we didn’t take gifts into account. ie granny bought ds rain dungarees/jacket/ wellingtons a few months back which were prob €100 alone. He gets some other pricier things throughout the year from both grandparents, but we didn’t pay for so not ‘our expense.

And days out, entry fees, food are expensive. It’s only because Ds is 2 that most places still don’t charge at his age, but no doubt this cost will increase in a few years.

Cost per child for toys will change if you have other children already or friends with children who pass things on. Or a good second hand trade. We have none of these, so every book/ toy he owns we buy or are gifts from people.

Also eBay great for 2nd hand books for a couple of quid.

5 yr old

£25 swimming lessons
£50osh for day trips
£20 for weekend lunches out (we go to a place that's cheap and really good food)
£150 for Christmas
£100 for birthday maximum
£6 Disney plus but we all use it
£30 food budget
£100 clothes/shoes as an when required ( we are lucky that grans help with that)
£150 School uniform ( throughout the year)
£30 into bank account

Hang on - how do you get the children to all these clubs so frequently?

Surely one parent either doesn't work or finishes at school time?

I'm "lucky" to live in a deprived area, so all breakfast, after school, and local sports activities are free. My kids go to breakfast club every day, after school dodgeball, karate, football and dance 4 days a week, and are on free school meals. I can't think of anything specific to the kids that I pay for outside of general household costs.

I'd say my biggest cost is the hit I take in salary in order to be flexible and present as a single parent, and I'm not sure I can quantify that.

What do your kids eat, air?
Do you also need a bigger house to accommodate them? Surely that bumps up your housing cost?