The Personal Finance Playbook

I wonder if the cost of that phone call is included in their calculations?

There’s a song by Ben Folds called Still Fighting It.  He wrote it after his son was born.  In the song, he sings about the ways his son has changed his life.  In the song, he’s explaining to his new born son that he doesn’t have to pay for his meals;)  If I had kids, maybe that song would make me think about what it’s like to be a father.  Since I don’t, it always makes me think about my dad.  It makes me think about how you never pay for anything as a kid – something you don’t appreciate until much later.  You couldn’t pay for anything, of course, so it’s just the natural way things have to go.  The song makes me think of the general selflessness that goes along with being a parent, too.  It makes me think of how my dad used to get an Almond Joy at a gas station and give me half of it, how he used to give me his jacket when I forgot mine, or how he cut up his back that time I lost my mat at the water slide to make sure I didn’t cut mine.  To be honest, when I think about all those things, I’m not sure I could be a parent.  Not a good one, anyway.  I’m not sure I could be selfless enough, or generous enough, or able enough to endure all the ups and downs that a kid growing up goes through.  Luckily, my competence to be a parent going forward isn’t the subject of this post.  This post is about the monetary cost of having a children.

I didn’t compile this data, the good people at the Department of Agriculture did that for us.  They do it every year.  The 2008 data just came out in July of 2009.  Unsurprisingly, it costs more to have a kid if you have more money to begin with.  Consider these numbers:

“Child rearing expenses vary considerably by household income level.  For a child in a two child, husband-wife family, annual expenses ranged from $8,330 to $9,450, on average (depending on the age of the child) for households with before tax income less than $56,870, from $11,610 to $13,480 for households with before tax income between $56,870 and $98,470, and from $19,250 to $22,960 for households with before tax income more than $98,470.”

(Assume for a second you’re at the high end of the middle group and have two kids – that’s just under half a million dollars by the time they’re 17 (and you haven’t paid for college yet!))

Thinking of having only one?  More than two?  Consider this:

“Compared with expenditures on each child in a two-child, husband-wife family, expenditures by husband-wife households with one child average 25% more on the single child and expenditures by households with three or more children average 22% less on each child.”

That makes sense.  With extra kids you can share resources.  I think it’s cheaper per person, to feed a family of four than a family of two in most cases.  I don’t have the data to back that assertion up, but that’s my perception as a member of a family of two.

Single parent households spent an average of 7% less per child.  That makes sense to me.  Most single parent households fell into the lowest income group.  That makes sense as well.  It would have to be more difficult to pursue a high octane career as a single parent.  The numbers above don’t even include expenses for college, or for lost earnings while pursuing your glamorous life as a parent.  If you haven’t already abandoned reading this to do so, go thank the people that raised you.  While you’re at it, try to get the other half of their Almond Joy.  Thanks for reading.

Related posts:

1. 5 Ways to Make Your Kids Wealthy My wife and I talk about what we’ll do...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

almond joy, Ben Folds, child, cost of having children, Department of Agriculture, expenses, how much, how much does having a baby cost, raising children, rearing, Still Fighting It

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.