The Cost of Raising A Child To Adulthood

This morning I was going through my usual routine of catching the latest breaking news (Anthony Weiner again???) on CNN and they had a story about the cost of raising a child born last year to the age of 18. I couldn't find an article on CNN.com so here's the official press release. This was based on an annual report the U.S. Department of Agriculture releases.

The report  takes how much parents spent on raisin' their kids (in 2010) and extrapolates that out for 18 years however statisticians do what they do (magic). They came to the conclusion that a family making under $57,000 per year will spend up to $163,444 to bring up a child. With an income between $57,000-$99,730 a family can expect to spend $226,920. The more you make the more you spend on your kids (and everything else usually) Those numbers includes housing, food, transportation, clothes, healthcare, child care, education and miscellaneous expenses. 


These amounts come out to $9080-$12,610 per year depending on income (DOI) but this does include child care costs. The report itself has annual child care costs at $1950-$2640 DOI for people in the "Urban West" of the USA, where we live. I don't know where these people are that can get it that cheap though. Just figure you have your child in someone's care for 8 hours a day for 5 days a week for 50 weeks a year (2000 hours), that comes out to $0.97-$1.32 per hour. What a bargain! I realize these are averages and some probably only have their kid in care one day a week.

I have found some postings on Craigslist that offer child care at $4/hour. At that rate it would cost $8000 per year (or $666 per month) for full time child care. And this is just from some Jane Doe who may or may not provide great care. So I don't know how accurate this report is just based on that. I am gonna go ahead and say that the actual cost would be far greater than what they have reported.

Which makes having a "Stay At Home Brad" an even greater proposition. Sure I could get a day job and make lots of money (LOL, thanks economy!), but I would have to just go ahead and give that money to someone to take care of our baby. Plus I wouldn't get to spend quality time with her (or him).

And that concludes another post on why it's great that Brad is staying at home with his and his wife's baby when it is born. Stay tuned for more later.