LONG POST! Brith to 5 Yeas old :£50K+ ?

Lillibet_2

I don't know how many of you will have see the recent media reports on the "real" cost of raising a child in the pre-school years, here is the link to a short report on the BBC new site :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4312395.stm
Unfortuantely this story doesn't break it down very much but it was broken down in yesterdays Daily Mail & that is what I am basing a lot of this thread on.

I am almost 19 weeks pregnant with my first so it's all a learning curve but I like to think I am well researched in the costs I am going to encounter, even if I haven't actually put my research into practise yet. I was, quite honestly, amused at most of the findings. Maybe I'm still looking at things through rose tinted glasses, maybe beacuse I'm a saver rather than a spender by nature I like to think that I can see the cheaper route through these things, but if these costs are remotely accurate then I'll undoubtdly be bankrupt by 2010.

According to the report pre-birth costs are over £600. It didn't say what all these pre-birth costs were supposed to be? So far I have spent £60, inc P & P, on used & new maternity clothes from ebay. This inculdes 7 pairs of trousers & jeans, 2 dresses, various tops etc &, with a few supplements from my husbands & mothers wardrobes, I do not anticpate I will need anything further to see me through my spring & summer beached whale impression (inculding 2 fancy weddings & working in a smart office enviroment) except underwear, which I intend to buy new but cheaply as I need it. As an example, so far I have had to spalsh out on some new bras, £3 for 4 from Tescos. Whats the point in buying expensive ones, I don't know how long they will fit for? I also anticipate that between the birth & now I may want to buy some new pillows to aid comfort at night as I get bigger. I can get 4 from BHS for £12 less a 10% loyalty discount. OK, most women might want to buy a pregnancy & birth book or 2. I borrowed one from the libriay but had I wanted to buy it I coudl have got it from Amazon at £7.25 inc P & P. Lets say we also build in £100 for a few luxuries between now & the brith and another £100 contigency. Maybe some people would want to sign up to the NCT classes at a further £150. Oh, and the pregnancy test cost £10 for 3 from Tesco. Thats only £442.25 for pre-birth costs, unless I am missing something? The report suggest that in addition to this expetant mothers will spend an extra £680 on additional fruit & vegtables? I already eat 5 portions of fruit & veg a day, do I need anymore? £5 a month for vitamins for the first 4 months took care of any deficinces due to morning sickness.

Then there is the cost of the birth, listed in the report as £170. That can't be a private birth as that would cost lots more. So £170 to give birth on the NHS? Say I am in hospital for 5 days, I would need a couple of new night-shirts, £10 each, some women might like a new dressing gown at £20? I'm not going to use any toilteries I wouldn't use anyway except for maternity pads, say £15 for these for the duration of my stay. Say the food is terrible & I have a bowl of fruit, a couple of bottles of mineral water & a take away pizza, £25. £10 for phone calls & incidentals? Thats still only £80.

Nursery furniture was estimated at over £800. We have orded a cot bed, including linen & mattress, for £132, we plan to buy a couple of chests of drawers from ikea at £40 for the 2 & a futon (for those bad nights when it's easier for one of us to be on hand in baby's room), for £100. We are being given a swinging crib but if we had bought a similar one it would only have been £100 inculding the mattress. Say £40 for paint to refersh the room.

In the report a pram & sling were estimated to cost over £600. I bought a sling off ebay for £17 (new it would have been £45) and the pram, which is actually being paid for by my MIL is costing in the region of £200 including rain cover, foot muff etc. Even the car seat will cost less than £100 full price, with special offers & comparing of like for like models I expect it to be nearer £50.

Feeding our little Spud will cost £610 a year for the first 5 years? What on earth is it going to eat, pureed gold bars? I only budget £450 a year per adult & we don't spend all of that!

According to the report clothing our little bundle of joy will cost between £450-600 per year for the first year alone, depending on it's sex. Not with Tescos & Wilkos selling 3 baby grows for £5 & 2 grannies trying to out knit each other, surely?

Of course the biggest cost on the report is for childcare, reported to be over £30k for the first 5 years. I don't actually have any beef with this cost except that the same report says tha the average cost of childcare is £73 per week. Now somebodys maths here is just plain wrong. At £73 per week for the AVERAGE cost (surely this report is be based on averages?), 5 years at an unrealistc 52 weeks of the year costs £19k, not £30K. In my case the cost of child care will far exceed this beacuse by preference I will be giving up a £20k per annum job for as long as I can (hopefully 5 years but I suspect nearer 3) but I don't believe I can put a price on myself as a mother, not to mention the reductions in some costs as a benefit of my being at home.

Obviously these examples are not the be all & end all of the report but I have taken up enough of your time & I'm sure you've all got the gist.

The purpose of my incredibly long & rambling post is to ask am I missing something or are these reports just based on top-of-the-range figures that no self-respecting MSEer would pay out for? Even proportionally I just cannot imagne spending 60% of our take home income on Spud in the next 5 years?

The good news? 5 to 16 years of age only costs a further £55K!

Thanks very much for yoru patience in reading this.

Cheers
Lillibet x.

leftieM

Hi Lillibet
The NHS figure must include the extra people pay for a private room averaged out. Our local hospital charges between £40 and £100 a night.

Galtizz

Hi Lillibet, I saw these figures too and thought eak! I'll never be able to afford to have kids. But then I thought, I know parents with 3 kids who's annual income is a lot less than £30K (£10K per kid per year) and they still manage to pay bills, go on holiday and enjoy life and the kids don't suffer or go without.

I think you have to bare in mind that these are AVERAGE figures and, unfortunatly the average person doesn't tend to visit MSE very often. The figures include the daft b*ggers who are prepared to go into vast debt on their credit cards for the sake of buying there babies designer clothes they will grow out of in a month. It also probably includes the Beckhams, who's kids probably do eat pureed gold bars

I feel sure, as a self respecting MSE'r you will spend no where near this amount so don't panic and go back to enjoying your time before spud arrives and the sleepless nights begin!

carpool72

Hi Lillibet, I agree with Galtizz.
My bundle of joy is 20 months now and I don't think I've spent anywhere near £5k never mind the 15+ I should have. I won't go into the boring details of what I don't spend, but for example:

Pram £40 secondhand from local paper,
moses basket, cot etc hand-me-downs,
clothes & toys from car boots, nct nearly new sales and if I really had to buy new, in the sale or with me boots points, as opposed to a friend who buys everything in Next and can easily spend £100 on one outfit.
I always buy whatever nappies & wipes are on special
I don't get the food thing cos she eats what I eat now and increasing the amount of pasta or whatever by 1/3 again doesn't seem to have cost much. Maybe it's bumped up by using formula, which might as well be made of gold at that price.

Anyway, a seasoned moneysaver like yourself will spend a fraction of this so relax!

Dormouse

Yes, I saw this report on the news yesterday and it did make me laugh. My little boy is 20 months old and we sure as heck haven't spent 20K on him

I completely agree with Lillibet and no, I can't see how all those things have to cost so much. My pre-birth costs, for example, were probably in the region of £250 at the most (just think how much money you're saving by giving up booze )

I guess what the study didn't take into account is how much stuff you get from other people. I don't think anyone has to buy everything, even the essentials, if you know what I mean! I can probably count on one hand the toys that we have bought ourselves, all the rest were presents or hand-me-downs from my niece.

Clothes, too, are something that other people enjoy giving and I don't object (although it does mean that your child might have to wear things that you'd never buy yourself!)

Perhaps the food is supposed to cost so much because there are people who feed their kids baby food jars until they're 3? I don't know. Needless to say, breastfeeding helps to keep the cost down (just need to fork out on a few bras, pads and a pump if that's what you want).

All in all, I strongly believe it does not have to cost anywhere near what the report said. Perhaps, us MSErs all being on the same wavelenght, that's why we all seem to agree on this

Dormouse

carpool72 wrote:

My bundle of joy is 20 months now and I don't think I've spent anywhere near £5k never mind the 15+ I should have.

Gosh, I posted my message before reading yours and when I did start reading yours, I thought it WAS mine! LOL

robindunne1

These figures are just a joke. I don't honestly see the point in studies like this that are obviously over the top, is their only reason to stop people having children? The numbers are so outlandish what's the point in publishing them at all - unless it is just to gain publicity. Plain scaremongering in my opinion.

I have a 2 year old daughter. When she was born our household income wasn't even 10k all together. We clothed and dressed her well, feed her good food. Does the fact that we didn't spend £100s on her during Christmas and birthdays make us bad parents?

If they are average figures, there must be a few millionaires out there spoiling their children. All the people I know with kids have no need to spend the amounts in the report.

bigb66

The people that write this must be of the millionare crowd and then put some normal people in for good luck.I have two under 3 and O.k I've forgoten the amount of money i have spent but no way is it the amounts that this report is saying.

Or is it cause this site help the likes of you and me save money ? so we dont have to spend, spend, spend.

Barry T :eek:

jellyhead

well i hope squid (i already have a spud, he suggests the name squid for the baby lol!) doesn't cost that much lol! it's ridiculous i know but i read the bounty forums and on a thread about shopping for baby things before the birth (some people are susperstitious) one woman said she'd just been out and spent over 2k! on what, i wondered?!

do pre-birth costs factor in some people having private fertility treatment i wonder? i suppose maternity clothes might be expensive if you buy everything new from mothercare. nursery equipment is always available cheaper than mothercare even if you want it new, kiddicare have a cot including mattress, quilt and bumper for £70 delivered free.

young spud is 8 years old and has always been fed and dressed despite my having an income of probably less than 8k when he was born. he hasn't had foreign holidays but i think kids enjoy a caravan at a haven site just as much as they would a hotel somewhere horribly hot. clothes haven't always been new but now we have an asda in our town squid can probably be clothed for less than i spent at oxfam on spud. childcare isn't a factor as i won't be going back to work for the foreseeable future.

some people might have to move house or build an extension to accommodate a baby but still those figures quoted were ridiculous.

Savvy_Sue

There was a bit more of a breakdown in my local paper today, it included spending £450 on a buggy and £920 on maternity clothes, and possibly £100 on pregnancy tests? Well I had 3 babies and a miscarriage and I never took a single pregnancy test, and I certainly didn't spend nearly a grand on maternity clothes, and I had a variety of wheeled transport solutions over the years but if they cost more than £100 all told I'd be astonished!

The paper did say it was a survey by one of these glossy parenting magazines, can't remember which one, and the figure for maternity clothes was inflated by the people who needed to power dress throughout pregnancy - that's not what they said but my interpretation. However, even when I power dress my clothes have usually come from jumble sales and charity shops. ;D

So all you going Eek! we'll never be able to afford to have children, don't panic, these surveys come out every few years but they're not asking the right people! Only someone with more money than sense (or no sense at all!) spends this kind of money in the child's first few years!

Maybe we should get SarahSaver to tell us what it costs to have children?

LearningToSave.

i agree with everyone else!!! my daughter is 2 and im 35 weeks pregnant and it certainly hasnt cost me anywhere near that amount............me and hubby had a bit of a laugh reading the article to be honest.ok so yes i did get second hand maternity clothes from ebay and a few gifts but if i hadnt i certainly wouldnt have spent £900 on them!! most 'normal' people have some new,some second hand,some gifts etc for all their baby stuff.£400 or over for a pushchair!! omg,what is it a gold plated one???? i had a few single pushchairs for my daughter but the dearest was £80,the double i have just bought cost me £72(good old ebay ) but even new would have been £230....yes i do understand there are much dearer ones but again most 'normal' people dont buy them.....food,yes i did bottle feed and formula is expensive but not to that extent and since my daughter was one she has eaten what we eat and like someone else said adding a teeny toddler portion to yours doesnt cost extra....£800 on furniture,erm nooooo!! we bought a cot including bedding for £80 from kiddicare,bunk beds that seperate into two singles for £120 from argos and a few wardrobes from ikea for £100.........ooohhhhh i could go on and tear it to shreds all day but i'll spare you all i think like others have said it includes 'rich' people who pay through the nose for everything and is an average,having spoken to my other friends with children and family members they all agree too.