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Having a baby is a major lifetime milestone for any parents, especially for moms.
From that precious moment you discover a little peanut is growing inside your belly to watching it inflate into a melon size, you can’t help but wonder what is the cost of having this baby?
Okay, that is definitely not the main thing that should be keeping mamas awake at night.
I mean, just look at this cutie patootie. She’s priceless!
Although having a baby is amazing and all that jazz, I’m still curious to know if it would break the bank like what many parents said.
As a Financial Manager by day, spreadsheet is my “best friend.” So I decided what better way to track baby expenses than by listing them one by one.
Having a view on what we spent on the baby would help us gain a sense of understanding of how much we need to plan in the future that doesn’t derail our financial independence goal.
In addition, I can bill my baby in the future! Perfect! (Just kidding, of course.)
How Much Does It Cost to Raise A Child?
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the cost estimated to raise a child from birth to 17 years old is about $233,610. This excludes higher education cost and prenatal cost.
That amounts to an average of $13,742 per year. This sounds reasonably and ridiculously high to me at the same time – I can’t decide on which one because I truly didn’t know how much it cost to raise a child.
That’s why I want to embark on this journey to find out. Some of the questions I have are:
- How much is too much?
- Do I absolutely need certain items in order to be a good parent?
- How can people afford a child if the median US household income is at $59k while the average spending is at $13k? That’s a whopping 23% of income!
To find out, I decided to track all of the baby expenses item by item starting from pregnancy till at least 1 year old. I may decide to continue if it gets interesting and not overburdening.
By doing so, it would allow me to better plan our finances and provide greater understanding to our household spending habits.
In addition, since both Papa Bear and I have a passion for traveling, I want to track these additional expenses including flight, hotel, and food cost for the baby.
Related: Traveling with A Baby For the First Time: The Planning
My objective is to spend much less than the $13k average in the beginning years while we get to choose what to buy. Once she grows older, I’m sure she’ll have expensive demands (I know I did, sorry mom!). Hopefully we can teach her to become a responsible spender by then.
Babies are cute, but that doesn’t mean we have to blow up our wallets. Let’s try to find a happy medium of raising our children by not spending too much while spoiling them at the same time (mostly with love, of course)!
Find out next: How much does it cost to raise a baby? 0-6 months, 7th month, 8th month, 9th month, 10th month, 11th month, and 12th Month
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Do you track every expense you spend for the baby? Was it helpful or was it a burden? How much did you spend for your baby’s first year?