I recently had a conversation with a dear friend of mine about how much money our children cost. She said that, as a first time Mom, she was expecting the first year of her daughter’s life to cost a fair amount of money because they started off with nothing for children, but she expected the years after that to not be so bad.
Being a Mom to a 4 year old and newly turned 8 year old, I can say that from our experience, the cost has not gone down, rather it has done the opposite!
The financial commitment to having children includes so many factors including (but not limited to):
- food
- clothing
- extra curricular activities
- entertainment
- gifts
- travel & vacations
- school costs (e.g. supplies, field trips, fundraising)
- and more
Earlier this week, I wrote a post about saving money for our childrens’ RESP and educational future. This post, however, is about the day to day spending.
There are many ways to cut costs as a parent.
One way is to visit stores that sell used clothing, toys and books for very decent prices.
Creating a budget for your family that takes into consideration how much money is coming in and how much can go out along with how it should be divided is a good idea to help your family be organized with their spending. You don’t have to follow it “to a T”, but at least it will give you a guideline for your spending and when bigger financial decisions arise, you will be prepared to discuss them.
Having children isn’t inexpensive, but it certainly is rewarding!
We dont have an actual budget but have a hierarchy of paying the bills. Like mortagage and utilities first, trickling down to optional grocery and entertainment ‘wants’. But Im starting to see as my son grows how that grocery bill is going to start growing too!
We don’t have a formal budget, but I generally keep track of our fixed/monthly expenses, and make sure those are minimized and stay fairly stable. Then we see what we have for extra expenses.
Victoria Ess