Does parenting get less expensive or more expensive?

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I'm wondering about our future trajectory! Life got a lot cheaper when my 8 year old left nursery and since then the only things that have gotten more expensive are the amount of food she eats, the fact that we have to pay for school dinners now she's in year 3, and she's signed up to a couple of expensive hobbies. But generally she's much cheaper now than she was as a toddler.
I have a 2 year old as well and I'm looking forward to the end of nursery fees as something that will give us more financial wiggle room, but I'm feeling a sense of foreboding that I'm wrong about that.
Is there stuff that gets more expensive later on besides general uptick of groceries consumed?

Spending £3.5k on topping up your child’s lifestyle at uni is not remotely in the realm of necessary or typical spending, even with twins.

In most cases, if the student is on the minimum maintenance loan, that's possibly the least you can expect to pay. Assuming that you can find accommodation around the £5k/year mark (might be possible in Sheffield but unlikely in Bristol) that £3.5k leaves around £100/week for food, going out, toiletries, travel home, clothes, stationery, clubs/gym etc. Yes, it's doable but many of us are subsiding university by far more than that just to pay for accommodation never mind anything else.

And as others have said, p/t, gap year and holiday jobs are harder to find.

In my experience, the nursery years were horribly expensive (although it might be a bit better now with the free hours). It then felt manageable for a bit before it slowly ramped up as food, holidays, clothes, tech, clubs, meals and days out, trips, uniform, sports kit, driving lessons all added up. And then you meet the university years!

3.5k a month is far from “the least you can expect to pay” for your child to go to uni for god sake you can’t actually be that out of touch.

The poster above was talking about £3.5k a MONTH!

Some parents pay over £1,000 a month, so if you have twins it won't be £3.5k but it won't be cheap

Full maintenance loan is only available if parental income is less than £25k, it then reduces on a sliding scale. Very few parents get away without topping some of it up

Apologies, hadn’t realised that was a monthly figure.

No need to be so rude.

No, I’m not out of touch. I thought the PP was quoting £3.5k/year which is at the very lowest end of the scale. My mistake but in context with the rest of my post.

University was highest cost- £30k/ year all in.

The only time it makes more sense to take the loan (if you have a choice) is if you expect dc to be very low earners for majority of their career or very high earners from early in their career. Middle earners probably feel the biggest bite from loan repayments - 9% of every pay rise or bonus, potentially for the entirety of their career. The loans students are taking today are very different than earlier programmes with higher interest rates(due to inflation), a lower repayment threshold and a longer repayment period.

i plan on paying for uni in entirety if I am able with the aim of allowing dc to keep future earnings rather than pay a graduate tax for life. Not everyone will be in a position to do so, but I do think it is worth saving for if possible.

I think people have covered this but yes it has changed hugely. The cost of accommodation has soared in comparison to the loan that students can take out. Part time jobs are also quite hard to find. So even if dc take out full loans a large portion of parents still have significant costs to cover.

In theory parents are meant to make up the difference between whatever your child gets in their loan and what the maximum loan is.

It largely depends on the student, where they go to university and how frugal they are whether this is enough.

Just don't get your child into horse riding.

I suppose it depends if you want to do tutoring. DS2 has no hobbies beyond a £35 a month gym group membership. He doesn’t have any tutoring. I had to buy more clothes as no uniform in year 12. But it’s all from next - shirts and chinos.

He has my old phone (iPhone 13 and isn’t complaining) I pay for his data on a family plan.

We do need to buy him a new laptop soon.

if you go down the tutoring route it’s expensive and driving lessons from April…

I am still at a younger age than you and I think a lot of the costs we incur not are not optional with nursery fees being the main one. Obviously there are things that are like toys, days out, clothes to some extent.

I am expecting in the future that more of the costs are going to be optional but a lot of things that I want to give my kids will go up - clothes, food , travel costs, extracurricular activities. Then there’s university, help with first house etc which will be very expensive again (maybe not as much as nursery though) but again optional.

Right now though I spend 30k a year on nursery fees, I feel like that I can get a lot of other things (excluding say something like private education which I don’t think I can afford) for that.

I’m currently paying nursery costs and helping with uni costs. Absolutely helping the 18 year old is costing more than my childcare costs each month.

Accommodation issued wasn’t one of her choices. And it’s about 5k more than her student loan. she’s got a high work load so it does limit her ability to work as well. So we are probably funding more than we expected. But that’s if they can find a job near the uni as well.

though if the help towards childcare hadn’t come in then childcare bill would of outweighed the uni costs we currently help with.

I think it depends on what you pay for. I buy phones outright. So a sim is £10 a month.

but they are in to the latest things which Can be alot once into adult clothes and shoes.

Cost of food changes as their portion sizes change. Secondary School money for food I’ve found is more than primary school.

im now paying £800 a year to get her to closest secondary school. Where she could walk to primary school.

The cost of accomodation at uni is more than my friends' mortgages per month - so they all tell me! Loans don't touch the sides of it.

Just take all your disposable income each month and bank transfer it to your teenage children and you'll be fine.

We did supermarket clothing until about age 12. Multipacks of leggings, tops. They can’t then really switch to adult supermarket clothing so that gets MUCH more expensive. We probably pay around £200 a month for sports clubs for 2 teens, including driving to them, parking etc.
Football boots at £50 a time.
School trips - £700 for residential.

Holidays abroad over age 12 you are pretty much paying adult prices.

I happen to live with a very well-healed lady who is highly practical about clothes for her young daughter. She buys many of her daughter’s clothes secondhand online but always top-brands. After her little girl has grown out of them she advertises and sells them And just because they are top brands they tend to still be in good shape.

Definitely more expensive as they've aged- all in university now in the US so exorbitant fees. On the other hand we made more and saved more as we've gone along so financially we're better off than we were when they were little.

The available student loan didn't get near the cost of accommodation. There were over 60 applicants for each local (to the university) job. Some would be 300-400 applicants. They struggled to get

It got very expensive very quickly. Especially if your children weren't spaced far enough apart for one to finish university before the next started.

Mine are way more expensive! My husband jokes that I basically go to work to pay for their activities! If they didn’t do those I’d be loaded! But they enjoy them so I don’t really mind! The amount my teenage son eats though, our food budget is bordering on the ludicrous!

Yes, the food spends on teenagers was eye-opening, particularly our DS. During his growth spurts he ate extraordinary amounts; I was constantly at the shops.

I think a lot depends on what type of parent you are .....
Ours are all 21++ but we are now helping with house deposits/ grandchildren costs / mortgage costs when children are unemployed ..... BUT having seen the post when a son needed help and the number of people who said he was an adult, maybe we are not "normal". I just see it as part of being a parent!
NB We didn't pay their university loans off for them (they can do that as the go along - I think getting on the housing ladder is more important but we did give them living expenses, rent, etc. while at university so they need not work (two did courses where they couldn't work outside uni)

us too!

my child is still a toddler but we have
nanny,
school fees,
piano/horse riding/swiming/ski/tennis camps in the budget
as well as university, driving, car, deposit for a house too

she is expensive at 2 as she is going through more shoes than I currently have fur myself as an adult who loves shoes)
she fed the dog grapes and she had to have her tummy pumped so adding that to her bill as well as the damage to my house! Loves opening taps in the kitchen and bathroom and damaging the cupboards- added to her bill too :)