Costs of children

[FTMbg]

I'm looking into whether we could afford another child.
Have I missed anything significant beyond this list? Thank you.

Childcare up to age 3 ( and maybe small amounts after)
We have travel system, car seat, cot, crib, bath supports etc etc already.
Food
Clothes & nappies
Toys, books and presents
Extra curricular activities eg ballet, music.
Holidays/ day trips.
Big enough house and car for family.
Try to help with driving lessons/university/house deposit.

Anything else?
If anyone has costed it out I'd love to hear your results!
Thank you.

Loss of earnings while on ml. Childcare you need to budget up to 4 (ey funding is limited hours during term-time) and for wrap around care/school holidays until secondary.

Thank you @LIZS, good point!

For me, our biggest costs have been childcare and education costs in to the future (private schooling plus university) and then the other costs such as a bigger house or bigger car may also have to be factored.

Oh yes, private school would be an enormous cost, but not one we will be worrying about unless we win the lottery.

I’d question whether you’ve got the right figures for childcare post 3. My nursery fees didn’t go down massively once the free hours kicked in. Holiday clubs and wrap around care are also not insignificant. No where near nursery in total but a good 2-3k a year depending on how many days you need. Eg near us holiday clubs range from £35-55 a day. Wrap around is just under £15.

Thanks for the heads up on that. I was hoping it would all get a lot cheaper from age 3 but maybe I'm kidding myself.

I only stopped paying £220 a month (term time) for my youngest in the last term of primary! Holidays I don’t remember - but there were holiday clubs to pay too.

Thanks @Cocomarine . It hits home seeing concrete numbers, paying that for an extra child would make a big difference. I hope though that in my case we could probably flex working hours to cover the school pickups and a lot of the holidays between us.

FTMbg It is quite easy to forget about the school aged childcare costs. We have quite a detailed spreadsheet but hadn’t really factored in wrap-around until my sister pointed it out. We manage to juggle quite a few of the holidays between us and grandparents will often take my older one for a full week which helps massively. I think we maybe paid for 4 weeks of holiday clubs over the last year (out of the 13 weeks of holiday). Inset days can be a pain as often no childcare so you do need to use annual leave. Also our school does an early finish at the end of each term so again more annual leave gone (tend to take a half day). When you’re looking at your school options I’d recommend seeing what is available and local costs. You might find lots of free clubs for an hour (which would help massively) or nothing but paid for care etc.

When the 30 hours funding came in for DD1 when she was 3 our nursery bill dropped by £500 a month, so a big saving. However after she started school we didn't really have any further saving as needed to pay for after school club, holiday clubs etc so there's definitely still costs attached.

DD2 gets her 30 free hours next September and we're counting down the months as then we'll see a significant improvement in our finances. For us, the biggest cost of having children has been nursery fees and also the bigger house we bought after having DD2!

I don’t think they get any cheaper.
A 2 year old might need full time childcare at £1000 per month.
But a 10 year old will still need someone around after and before school, and holidays ( whether that’s a parent at home or childcare/ clubs). They eat more, have to pay higher entry fees, course expenses etc.

For example a friend just said it cost her £200 on new uniform, £150 on ‘essential’ art school and sport supplies of school list, and £650 for annual school bus pass. This was just to start secondary. Next month there’s school trip expenses.

A 2 year old is happy in coffee shop with beaker of own water and a £1ginger bread man. Teenager wants some frappe ice frappe mix , and triple fudge delight.