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I Like Jell-O posted:Its crazypants numbers. I will soon have 3 kids. By those numbers, I would be $42000 richer if I didn't have those kids. Would it take me $70000 per year to raise 5 kids? That is so blatantly a headline grabbing, exaggerated number that I can't believe that anyone would take it seriously. I'm not saying you COULDN'T spend $14000 per year on a kid, you just don't HAVE to. Its not what a kid "costs". I think having all those kids must have hosed up your brain, since absolutely nobody is claiming that 5 kids = 5x the cost.
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Mar 20, 2016 06:20
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Devian666 posted:When did the american dream have two cars? I thought it was a house, a truck and a horse? Turn that house into a houseboat!
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Mar 20, 2016 06:22
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Magic Underwear posted:I think having all those kids must have hosed up your brain, since absolutely nobody is claiming that 5 kids = 5x the cost. Yeah, these definitely include local school district taxes, which are flat for everyone.
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Mar 20, 2016 06:29
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Magic Underwear posted:I think having all those kids must have hosed up your brain, since absolutely nobody is claiming that 5 kids = 5x the cost. The original article claimed that it would cost ~$250000 to raise a child through the age of 18. I realize that the numbers don't directly scale (which begs the question why the original article was written with such an exact number, but whatever). So whats the number supposed to be with 5 kids? $35000 per year (half off!)? $20000 per year? At this point, we're just making up numbers. Which I'm pretty sure is what the original article was doing as well, so at least we're all on the same page. Seriously, the numbers don't add up. Try matching them to real families you know. I would say those numbers may be on the high end of a range for what kids cost, but certainly not average.
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Mar 20, 2016 06:36
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Well, we all know that if you're spending $450,000 on your kid before they're 18 it's probably punishment: guillotine
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Mar 20, 2016 06:37
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Well little Bobby needs his own pad in the central business district!
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Mar 20, 2016 08:51
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I dunno. Here's a conservative napkin estimate for a single kid, which seems reasonable to me (it doesn't even include transportation or an additional vehicles):
~10,000 a year ($180,000 over 18 years) I did that and then looked at the USDA report and the first bullet point says: quote:Child-rearing expenses vary considerably by household income level. For a child in a two child, husband-wife family, annual expenses ranged from $9,130 to $10,400, on average, So. Bingo. Also, none of this includes the big losses such as lost income from one partner taking time off of work to raise the kids or even working fewer hours or socking away less in interest-bearing savings. If you have two 60K income people and one person takes time off, that foregone income could make the costs far greater than 250K. That being said, if you look at those major cost categories it's clear why the cost doesn't double: The kids share bedrooms, clothing, and child care costs, the insurance costs flatten out as you add more people. Basically, if you put up the cash for one kid, the second and third one's on the house. El Mero Mero fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Mar 20, 2016 |
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Mar 20, 2016 08:54
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El Mero Mero posted:[*] Child Care: $200 a month That seems a mite low.
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Mar 20, 2016 08:58
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FrozenVent posted:That seems a mite low.
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Mar 20, 2016 09:07
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Cicero posted:Maybe he's thinking of after-school childcare, not full-time daycare? Yeah I was thinking babysitter money. I assumed the kid was going to be in HeadStart or not at all to keep costs low. Point being, 250K isn't unreasonable.
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Mar 20, 2016 09:13
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El Mero Mero posted:Yeah I was thinking babysitter money. I assumed the kid was going to be in HeadStart or not at all to keep costs low. Point being, 250K isn't unreasonable. I think a lot of childless people overestimate savings from "economies of scale" you get as your family gets bigger. A large part of the reason for what looks like economies of scale is just families doing fewer expensive things. Like, my sister has 4 kids. They pretty rarely fly anywhere, even though her husband is a very well paid chemical engineer and they live in a pretty low cost part of the country, so if they were DINKs then flying would be a no-brainer. 6x plane tickets are just very expensive. Or take going on a dinner date with your spouse: as soon as you have even one kid, those outings just got 2-3x as expensive due to having a babysitter...so you just don't do it as much.
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Mar 20, 2016 09:21
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When you go for a mortgage here, banks look at what your monthly income would be after paying existing debt and new mortgage repayments. Kids are costed at 250e a month after childcare. I have one kid but this gels with my experience. Child care is the big hit, either you pay 800e a month or you lose an income. You're also paying for a bigger house. I think the 250k figure makes sense but most of it is opportunity cost.
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Mar 20, 2016 11:55
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Those numbers are nuts. I had my first and only kid (getting a vasectomy) 2 years ago. Not considering wife's lost wages from staying home with her, which wouldn't be a ton anyways because she is a near min-wage earner, I would hazard to guess we haven't spent more on my daughter than the additional $3000ish in tax credits we've gotten as a result of having the child. Having Tricare has been a huge mitigating factor in this too, though. 2 weeks spent in the NICU after birth, total expense to us for the entire pregnancy/childbirth process other than traveling to appointments: $0. Having your kid while in the military: GWM. Gray Matter fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Mar 20, 2016 |
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Mar 20, 2016 11:56
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Hey guys, let's disprove this number based off averages with my anecdotal evidence!
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Mar 20, 2016 12:39
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Keep in mind if you have lovely insurance or don't live in a state where newborns get supplemental coverage, one trip to the ER could eat up your entire $5000 deductible.
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Mar 20, 2016 12:54
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:Hey guys, let's disprove this number based off averages with my anecdotal evidence! I actually looked into this when we were planning on getting pregnant and I don't think it's based on overall averages. From what I can tell, they looked at what the typical family would have to pay for or lose (upgrade +1 bedroom, etc) and then derived overall averages for those increases for the population (the cost of a 3 bedroom over a 2 bedroom, or a 2 bedroom over a 1 bedroom, etc). Then added it all together. Not very scientific. I still somewhat buy it, I budgeted $500/month per baby (since the number is largely additional housing cost and child care - both of which are already accounted for by other things in our budget) and an additional $500/month per baby for their college fund. I also don't think economy of scale really comes into play for some families. I'm not sure I'd have my kids share esp if they're different genders, past the age of 5. Rurutia fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Mar 20, 2016 |
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Mar 20, 2016 13:52
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A friend of mine got knocked up, switched to earning under the table and moved in with her mother. She now has healthy baby, welfare, daycare assistance, Medicaid, and makes more money then she did before pregnancy, untaxed. My anecdote is best, suck it nerds.
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Mar 20, 2016 14:43
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Yes tax evasion is what we should all strive for.
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Mar 20, 2016 14:59
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Justidying your actions by appealing to the average is loser mentality.
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Mar 20, 2016 14:59
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I actually ran the child care numbers for my one kid. We spend 900/month for daycare. Since my kid won't start school until he's 5.5, and we started daycare at 6 months, we'll spend 54k on daycare. Not counting any after school care from 5.5 to 10? That sucks.
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Mar 20, 2016 15:05
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Rurutia posted:I actually looked into this when we were planning on getting pregnant and I don't think it's based on overall averages. From what I can tell, they looked at what the typical family would have to pay for or lose (upgrade +1 bedroom, etc) and then derived overall averages for those increases for the population (the cost of a 3 bedroom over a 2 bedroom, or a 2 bedroom over a 1 bedroom, etc). Then added it all together. This is really the heart of the problem. The number they came up with has so many assumptions built in to be worthless for any practical purposes. The 2 biggest expenses, housing and childcare, are going to vary wildly depending on individual circumstances and age of the child. The study assumes extracurricular activities for kids that are going to vary a bunch from kid to kid. Even things that are easier to predict (food and clothing) change quite a bit based on choices parents make. Remember that the original question was "how much does it cost to raise a kid?". The real answer is "somewhere between a few thousand and a few dozen thousand per year, depending on choices and individual circumstances." Thats not a very useful range, but it's more honest. I look forward to more stories of people making poor financial choices for my amusement.
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Mar 20, 2016 15:40
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:Hey guys, let's disprove this number based off averages with my anecdotal evidence! It looks like we're well on our way of having enough anecdotes in this thread to start doing proper analyses
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Mar 20, 2016 15:53
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Yeah it's kind of 'worst case scenario' for the average family I guess.
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Mar 20, 2016 15:58
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I'm pretty sure the point of the study is to compare costs from year to year, not to provide an model for how much it will actually cost you. The important part is how much it's grown in the past few years.
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Mar 20, 2016 16:30
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Hoshi posted:I'm pretty sure the point of the study is to compare costs from year to year, not to provide an model for how much it will actually cost you. The important part is how much it's grown in the past few years. It's still a silly way to compare it, in my opinion, but I can see it being a quick way to do so with minimal resource investment. I can appreciate what it's trying to do in its very limited form, and the study people are probably aware of the exact limitations. But the way it's reported in the news with clickbait headlines (and what was first linked here to spark the conversation) and the way it's used by lay people who get a hold of it is problematic. There's not a problem with pointing out the flaws.
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Mar 20, 2016 16:58
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I would love to end the "having kids is BWM" derail. You really get into some tough moral territory here. Do you require an income test to have children, so that poor people aren't allowed to have kids?
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Mar 20, 2016 17:11
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Yeah just like we have an income test for buying horses
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Mar 20, 2016 17:21
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I Like Jell-O posted:I mainly object to the concept that there is some "enough" amount of money you need to be making before you "should" have kids. If that's what you're waiting for, then you will never have kids. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. If you set a specific target, you'll never reach it 
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Mar 20, 2016 17:25
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Nail Rat posted:That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. If you set a specific target, you'll never reach it Come the gently caress on. They're clearly referring to the idea that 'enough' is often a moving financial target when it comes to kids. If you want kids you absolutely should have your finances figured out and make room in your budget to fit in kids. But the metric of enough is ambiguous enough that it's rarely ever possible to justify having kids unless you're some multi-millionaire (because it's not enough until you can send the kid off to the best private school in the area, because it's not enough until you can afford to feed them only free range organic food, because it's not enough until you can afford to send them overseas for diversity education every year, etcetc). Having kids is super expensive even if you're as frugal as hell and rarely a winning financial decision in this day and age unless you want to mistreat/neglect them. That's reality.
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Mar 20, 2016 17:41
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As someone who witnesses human abortions carting around 8 malnourished kids while they waste their spare money on lottery and alcohol...there should absolutely be a means test for having children. Or at least getting to keep them.
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Mar 20, 2016 17:48
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EugeneJ posted:As someone who witnesses human abortions carting around 8 malnourished kids while they waste their spare money on lottery and alcohol...there should absolutely be a means test for having children. That can actually be solved with a better education and societal safety net. Empowered, educated women don't have tons of kids.
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Mar 20, 2016 17:54
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^^^ this is part-truth. I lived in El Salvador where even smart educated and empowered women got knocked up regularly. They were stuck because there was no access to birth control and cultural norms made convincing men to use condoms a non-starter. Women had to make the choice between getting sterilized (and abandoning the option of having kids in the future) or risking pregnancy - they just didn't have the power to control that decision to the degree they wanted. It's really not a "worst case scenario." It's just that the costs are extended out 18 years and don't include subsidies which is why people get all shocked. I mean, over the next 18 years I'm going to be spending just under half-a million dollars on rent. If you take any re-occurring expense and extend it 18 years into the future it's going to be a big number. That being said why are people saying that the tax-credit is $3,000 (or $54,000 over 18 years!)? I keep seeing $1000/child when I look online. El Mero Mero fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Mar 20, 2016 |
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Mar 20, 2016 18:02
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EugeneJ posted:As someone who witnesses human abortions carting around 8 malnourished kids while they waste their spare money on lottery and alcohol...there should absolutely be a means test for having children. Yeah but there is that thing where societal attempts to decide and control who is fit to reproduce are consistently viewed as atrocious human rights violations in retrospect
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Mar 20, 2016 18:16
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:Yeah but there is that thing where societal attempts to decide and control who is fit to reproduce are consistently viewed as atrocious human rights violations in retrospect Would a 2-kid limit unless you have $100,000 in assets be fair? America is a Christian society that frowns upon abortion, but can't stand people being on welfare. I think Conservatives need to realize making abortion easily available would reduce the number of kids being born into poverty. But, you know, God's little angels and all that jazz
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Mar 20, 2016 18:36
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Rurutia posted:Come the gently caress on. They're clearly referring to the idea that 'enough' is often a moving financial target when it comes to kids. If you want kids you absolutely should have your finances figured out and make room in your budget to fit in kids. But the metric of enough is ambiguous enough that it's rarely ever possible to justify having kids unless you're some multi-millionaire (because it's not enough until you can send the kid off to the best private school in the area, because it's not enough until you can afford to feed them only free range organic food, because it's not enough until you can afford to send them overseas for diversity education every year, etcetc). Having kids is super expensive even if you're as frugal as hell and rarely a winning financial decision in this day and age unless you want to mistreat/neglect them. That's reality. No, I said the person should set their a financial goal for having kids and he seemed to disagree with that. If moving in with your parents is feasible, fine have then with only a 3 month emergency fund. Everyone will have a different situation, I just think money should be considered. I have certain goals for example and probably won't have a kid until I'm 37 (I'm 33 now). That's later than some other people but it's not "never " Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Mar 20, 2016 |
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Mar 20, 2016 18:41
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I never thought anything could make me miss car chat 
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Mar 20, 2016 18:43
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EugeneJ posted:As someone who witnesses human abortions carting around 8 malnourished kids while they waste their spare money on lottery and alcohol...there should absolutely be a means test for having children. BWM: literally the UN definition of genocide
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Mar 20, 2016 18:44
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Having kids fits into the adage "you can afford anything, but you can't afford everything" If you choose to have 4 kids your vacations are going to look less like "backpacking in Thailand" and more like "camping at the state park"
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Mar 20, 2016 18:48
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EugeneJ posted:As someone who witnesses human abortions carting around 8 malnourished kids while they waste their spare money on lottery and alcohol...there should absolutely be a means test for having children. You have some good ideas. Let's come up with a name for your theory. Since you're EugeneJ, how about "Eugenics", has anyone taken that yet?
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Mar 20, 2016 18:48
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Nail Rat posted:No, I said the person should set their a financial goal for having kids and he seemed to disagree with that. If moving in with your parents is feasible, fine have then with only a 3 month emergency fund. Everyone will have a different situation, I just think money should be considered. I have certain goals for example and probably won't have a kid until I'm 37 (I'm 33 now). That's later than some other people but it's not "never " I read it as they agreed with you in that they were deficient because they were irresponsible with the kids and also their money. They were irresponsible with their money by not considering it or having a financial goal. It was a symptom of their overall immaturity. I don't think the three of us disagree in any significant way, it's just the idea of enough is weird when it comes to kids. It's very easy to fall into the trap of what Eugene J is talking about.
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Mar 20, 2016 18:52
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