What budget? Why worry? How do people do it?

[crisi]

T.

Transportation? $2000 per year per kid? Where the heck am I taking my kids? 99% of the time when the kids are in the car, we'd be in the car anyways. We also probably would have purchased a more expensive car instead of what we have to haul around the kids. Thus, the 2000 per kid per year would be 154,000 miles hauling the kids around per year with fuel usage. That's a lot of driving the kids around when I drive my work car 20k/year and my wife drives the family car to work as well as everything else at 25k/year. That's not taking into consideration the cost of 2 kids, only 1 kid. Factor in 2000/year for each of the kids and it's over 300,000 miles worth of gas per year.

With three, you get minivan. I suspect that is where a lot of the transportation costs come from. People who could have a smaller, less expensive, fuel efficient car having minivans. Even with one or two children (need to haul those Scouts) Not many minivan owners in the child free set.

 

[shallwechat]

well said Eliza 61!

 

[drcmk]

I also completely disagree with those charts and numbers. I stay at home and have never spent a penny on childcare for my children. As for clothes, I buy the vast majority at garage sales or thrift shops. I'm talking .25-.50 for jeans and shirts. They have bigger wardrobes than I do and all are in excellent condition.

My DH makes $35,000 a year and I babysit part time.

You aren't disagreeing with the chart. You are just indicating that your family income and expenditures are WAY below average. Most people are close to average and some people are well above average. Your family differs from the average but that doesn't change the average.

 

[MomToOne]

Old thread

 

[cats mom]

Old thread

The first dozen pages, yes.

Looks like the thread got a bump several days ago and new discussions have been ongoing since.

If the subject interests you I wouldn't dismiss the thread entirely just because the initial post was months ago.





.

 

[wishing4PA]

Transportation? $2000 per year per kid? Where the heck am I taking my kids? 99% of the time when the kids are in the car, we'd be in the car anyways. We also probably would have purchased a more expensive car instead of what we have to haul around the kids.

Thanks! You reminded me to check the handy "spending analysis" chart my credit card provider has on its site. Your kids may not cost $2000/year, but I charged (and paid off) $1480 on gasolline for my old car over the past year. This car is used almost entirely to drive DD to/from school and after school activities. Sometimes we use DH's car, but he pays cash, so isn't part of that $1480. I am sure that the amount of gas I put in my car for trips of my own (doctor's office?, only occasional shopping which is not for DD?) is more than offset by the times DH drives her or I take her in DH's car.

If you add in the airfare my folks paid for DD going on one summer trip, and her share of the gas for a car-based trip with the grandparents, she easily hits the $2000.

Yay! My kid is "average!"

Wait a moment ... considering we still do have a car loan on DH's car, and we have occasional car maintenance expenses on mine... my kid is "above average!"

 

[MomToOne]

The first dozen pages, yes.

Looks like the thread got a bump several days ago and new discussions have been ongoing since.

If the subject interests you I wouldn't dismiss the thread entirely just because the initial post was months ago.





.

Actually, the entire thread was dead until someone bumped it yesterday - a month after the last reply - with "well said Eliza 61!". It's an old thread, that's been hashed to death - several times!

 

[LauraR]

No pure -ism works in real life. Pure capitalism offers little for the worker and pure socialism offers little to the entrepreneur; an effective and thriving economy lies in the gray area between pure ideologies, where sensible regulation reins in the extremes of human nature and limits the "externalized costs" of capitalism while allowing the risk-reward mechanism and market forces to continue to function. But we haven't had that in a long time; what we have is sponsored lawmaking where the big players get to write the rules they play by and massive externalized costs that impact us all.

Wow, I haven't seen anyone summarize things that well in a long time. Nicely put, Colleen27.

 

[mefordis]

Well, you may not, but other people have their kids tutored by Sylvan. They sign them up for piano, dance, traveling hockey or traveling soccer. They have them in $20k a year private schools and have them head off for $2k camp in the summer.

The number of "median-type" income families I know who spend $10k per year per child on those sorts of fees is pretty high. A lot of "its a good investment for the hockey scholarship we'll get."

And IIRC, your wife was a SAHM for many years, I suspect they are putting in her lost income into child care expenses. Just six years home with a child to get them to first grade at $30k a year is $180k. Spread that over 17 years and you have $10,600 a year in "education" costs.

You are a doctor Steve, you know how it feels when your patients look at professional research and call it nonsense (I don't need to loose weight, quit smoking, lower my blood sugar, vaccinate my kids.....I don't believe the studies). Do other professionals the same favor of knowing their field. This isn't a journalist making up numbers, this is from a peer reviewed government report. You also know that some people can smoke three packs a day and live to be 90 with few or no ill effects - studies suck at predicting individual behavior.

Just to speak to the lost income, I will have lost well over 2 million in gross income from staying at home with my kids, by the time my youngest is 18. Before anyone says I could go back to work, that isn't the point. I had them to raise them, not leave them in childcare. And I feel extremely lucky I can do that. The loss in income still exists, though. Just sayin....

And Steve, you have every right to disregard "professional" research. Just because they are doctors or number crunchers or whatever professional, doesn't mean they aren't full of you know what. I always do my own research and analysis.

 

[tajz90]

Well... I had a friend who was barely hanging on, but hanging on she was. She had a husband and a daughter. The husband gets notice from work that his salary is being reduced, but they were so very happy that he was able to have a job. Christmas rolls around and the woman feels terrible because her only child wouldn't get much. We felt bad. We wanted to help. She didn't want help. She wouldn't take money from us. So we asked if she'd make a list and we would pick up the items for her. GREAT! That was a good deal for her. We shopped and we shopped happily. We delivered. We helped. We did a good thing. Santa came that year after all. TURNS OUT, with what she saved by not having to purchase for her daughter, she went and bought a BRAND NEW, THE LATEST PLAYSTATION!!!!! Hello! We didn't even have one of those.

Whatever. I'm sick of people not doing the right thing and spitting in the face of the ones who do!