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!

4 and almost 2:

£1,000 roughly for 2 in nursery for 3 days, only eldest gets funded hours at present. One day is free from GPs and very gratefully accepted.
£20 for dance for eldest.
Probably an extra £15 per month for allergy food over our 'usual' shop - free from milk and bread products.
Probably about £150 per quarter for clothes and shoes for two children. I will admit to having a penchant for frugi and JoJo, but these items do just add to their wardrobes of Sainsbury's, hand me downs and eBay/vinted.

We don't tend to have expensive days out, we only really do national trust, English language or parks, so our memberships amount to about £20 per month, but we'd be paying that whether we had children or not.

My DS had sensory issues - clothing in particular.
I found the answer was second hand stuff- pre worn and softened up, usually much more comfortable and a fraction of the cost.

OP hasn't added the obvious stuff like housing, energy, food etc.

2 year old and 4 month old per month

• nursery three days a week for the eldest - £700
• clothes £50
• activity and petrol when toddler isn't at nursery £200
• extra food (mainly mounds of fruit 😳) £50
• new toys/furniture/bedding (including birthday/Chanukah) £50
• extra cost if we go away £150

...they ain't cheap!

🤣🤣🤣
The childcare expenditure in this thread is obscene.
I'm fact some of the figures are extraordinary.
Are you all mad.
Our regular spend is just £100 per month on dinner money and food shopping.
With other ancillary spending such as clothes, trips, presents etc probably adding to less than £1500 a yr for 2 girls.

It's really quite impossible to say.

Probably £1000 a month in lost earnings for a start!
£600 a month mortgage (we were mortgage free in a much smaller house pre-kids)
Premiums for holidays for being in school holidays, as well as their actual spaces on said holidays
Heating is on more etc

Our whole lifestyle is so different it's impossible to say where it begins and ends. But, for strictly kids-only spending monthly as OP did:

£120 childcare
£200ish kids activities
£100 clothes
£25 (£300 a year) shoes and coats
£20 dinner money
£200 food
£6 Disney Plus
£20 party presents / cards
£80 their own parties (£1000 a year)
£30 birthday presents (£350 a year)
£30 Christmas presents (£350 a year)
£210 holidays (£2500 a year)

And only getting more expensive as they grow... (I have 4 under 11)

I think what we're all missing here though is that life wasn't free before dc.

So whilst I might spend £50 on a Saturday buying us all entry to a farm park and having ice cream etc, that's dwarfed by the £100 plus I would have spent on a new dress and a night out with the girls, or the dinner and drinks with DH that would have been a Saturday night pre dc.
So whilst the little buggers are definitely expensive there are cuts to the budget in other areas to compensate. They are a lifestyle choice

@whytcvv our DC's clubs start at 5 or half 5 so we bring them straight from grandparents where we collect after work.

For us housing isn’t really a child expense. We already bought our house 5 years before child, and so the expense would be the same. It’s only an expense if you need to upsize.

childcare is very expensive in uk. If Ds was at nursery full time (7am-5pm), it’s €180 per month here. He will go in Autumn, mornings only and it’s free basically. There will be €30 ish per month for nursery ’expenses’.

My DC (17 & 11) cost whatever I can throw at them!
Standing charges are the usual stuff:
Phones £30
Clubs £80
Pocket money £120 + the rest
Clothes including shoes ⚫
Food ⚫
Transport ⚫
Miscellaneous ⚫

Can't wait for the 17 year old to get a job and start paying for their own clothes & fun stuff!!

DS8.
His horse - £400 a month
Tennis £60 a term
Swimming £50 a half term
Ice skating £60 a term
Cubs £10 a month
Shooting £10 a month

Food, clothes etc!!

4 and 5 year old.
£200 on before and after school club
£40 school lunches
£56 swimming
£28 violin
£40 average maybe on clothes/shoes etc across the year
£40 a week for food?? As a proportion of our shopping bills
£50 pocket money/treats/ soft play etc etc
So maybe £500 a month?

@Caspianberg goodness, may I ask which country you are in, just out of interest? 180 euros?!

2 kids
£10 sports classes per week
Weekends we go for walks, free activities, visit the beach. National trust etc
Food £20 per week, each.
Clothing, around £200 each per year. £5 per week
Childcare, free. We only use subsidised 30 hours. And grandparents.

£35 each, £70 per week for two preschoolers.

Low income family here with with 13 and 8 year olds.

Swimming £28 (youngest only)
Gymnastics £20(youngest only)
Scouts 24
Clothes £40
Pocket Money £10 (oldest only)
School Dinners 80
Birthdays/Xmas £15

Obviously we feed them aswell but that's in the food budget. Days out are just in school hols now, we've had to cut back on those due to rising living costs.

@CJay81

Could your kids be entitled to free school lunches? Would save you a lot a month if so!

DSD7

Swimming £40
Dance £50
Horse riding £40
Brownies £15
Running £0 park run is free
Treat Friday of hot choc and cake £35
Clothes £60
School dinners £45
Pocket money £20

When there's dance shows, it's another £100+ for costumes etc. + there's paying for all the badges in each club whenever she earns them

DD is 14

Explorer Scout - £8.50/months plus costs for camps or activity at hoc
Dance/Drama - £80
Horse riding - £100
Food - no idea but I basically feed 3 adults
Pocket money - £35 - will increase soon
Phone - £15, contract is over so just the monthly bill . Will increase when she gets a new phone in Summer
Books - £10-20, we all love reading
Clothing - on average I would say £50-75 per month depending what's needed. Luckily she doesn't grow that fast but secondary uniform is expensive. She also needs new riding boots, hiking boots and hiking clothes which can get expensive. As soon as they hit adult sizes you loose the VAT advantage.

I would like to know where everyone is getting such cheap childcare, ours is £800 a month one child for three days 9-5, we send our own lunches, nappies etc… pay extra for dinner and ballet classes. We are lucky we receive
heavily subsidised housing and bills through my husbands job to offset it!

We also have swimming and music classes £120 a month
Clothes probably work out at £70 a month. Lots of it goes for nursery clothes such as £40 a pair fleece lined wellies for a toddler, for which we need to provide to pairs. The rest is probably my fondness for the Little White Company.

I’m glad to see it gets cheaper as they get older 😅

@Eileen101 - Austria. Each region is slightly different but it’s generally very reasonable. I think full time care is also completely free in Vienna.

@OnceuponaRainbow18 unfortunately not cause I get a little working tax credit. Its one of those things we will be cutting back on come October when they stick the energy prices up again.

I'm not able to work so at least £2.5 k a month take home for the last 15 years.

Childcare has always been the biggest cost, but when they got to 3yo they got a number of free hours which helped massively, and now they're at school our biggest bills tend to be during school holidays. They're 5 and 11 (and I can relate to the sensory issues, as 5yo dd is the same and we have to be quite careful about what we buy).

I'd say we now spend £550pm on them including childcare, food and clubs.

Has anyone mentioned DC at uni yet? Reading the comments, I'm thinking now it's not too bad at circa £500/month each to top up their student loans to the full amount.

Depends on the month really. No extra curricular clubs atm because eldest does 3 a week at school which are free and DD’s have no interest in attending any atm. We go swimming once a week which is £11 and most other activities I plan are free or inexpensive. I pay £25 a month for RSPB, National trust and English heritage memberships so we always have free places to walk at the weekend.

Some months they cost a fortune because they need new school shoes, have an expensive residential trip to pay, birthday parties to pay for or gifts to buy for other people’s, birthday/ Christmas presents, need new clothes etc. Eldest is secondary age so he costs £100 a month in bus fare and dinner money which will be £200 a month in September when DD starts. Pay £30 a month for their phone contracts too. Buy them a lot of books but I’ve never had any grievances about this.

We worked it out recently and it's almost £1,000 each per month. They're in their teens though, wear adult clothing and eat twice what I do!

Trust me, I am NOT looking forward to the next few university years... 😧