Did You Consider the Cost of Children Before Having Them?

Here's an interesting discussion on the costs of kids. It covers the issue of whether or not couples consider costs as part of the decision to have or not have children. I would guess that most people do NOT consider the cost before having kids, but given the expense involved, it's reasonable to think that many (most?) should.

We had our kids later in life and so our finances were fairly firm before our first child -- we "knew" we could support the expenses associated with having a child. That said, we didn't go to the trouble of calculating the costs and weighing them before we had either of our children.

How about you?  Did you consider (or are you considering) finances in deciding to have your first child or ones after that?

Comments

[mysticaltyger]

I think it's obvious most people don't think about the cost of children before having them. If they did, we wouldn't have 1 out of 3 kids in America being born out of wedlock.

[JBR]

We have definitely considered the costs -- but we are looking at starting our family via adoption and having the $30-40k to do that forces you to have the finances to support a child!

[Sam]

I knew I wanted to have kids before I went to college or chose a career. So its just been a process of figuring out how to afford it.

[anon]

We are considering the costs and plan on having them soon. We actually plan on having $5000 or so saved up for start-up costs and maternity leave, and even though we don't know the exact costs of diapers and daycare, we have looked at estimates and know we can fit it into the budget.

[Laurie]

We have definitely thought more about the costs now that we are considering a second child. We are going to cut down the daycare by not having the kids in full time and me working from home more and/or utilizing family for two days a week. It still worries us, but we are getting older and I do not want to wait until my late 30s to have more kids, when it could be more difficult physically to do so.

[Kevin]

We tried to figure out how things would change before our son was born. Things like child care, health insurance (since my wife was going down to part-time) and her decreased earnings were immediate concerns. But it never factored into whether or not we would have a baby, just how we would pay for it all. Luckily for us most of it fell into place - we get free child care at my wife's work, my company started paying our health insurance and we haven't been hurt too much by the wife making less money so far.

Not to mention that in the 7 months since our son's birth, he has given us more joy than any amount of money could.

[segfault]

I don't have kids and don't plan on having them. I did consider the cost, but the primary consideration was my quality of life.

[Cheap Like Me]

We did think about the costs. I am self-employed and funding a maternity leave involved a great deal of financial planning. Now we are considering a second child, and the costs look more manageable, but definitely still a consideration.

[AdamCO]

Wife and I want a kid, sort of, but the cost is keeping us from taking the plunge right now. She makes a good hourly wage but we have to buy individual insurance. Without an HMO, there aren't any real options that cover maternity.

So, we'd be looking at a completely uninsured birth, so we want to save up at least $10,000 before having the baby. Our "baby fund" started last August and has about $2,500 in it right now. Technically, I guess we could use our emergency fund, but I don't think the purpose of that fund is for self-created emergencies.

Financially, I think we'll be there in a couple of years. We'd look into jobs with better benefits for her, but there are so few options where we live.

[GBlogger]

We considered things like what school district we lived in and whether the possibility that that might drive us toward private school might mean it made more sense to move to a better school district. But like FMF, our finances were reasonable stable by the time we had kids.

[Dedicated]

I'm probably 100% on my own here, but I don't believe "cost" should ever be a deciding factor when contemplating children. I believe they are a gift, a most precious gift from God. One that says "love, nurture and support this child". And by support I mean emotionally.

When a parent provides a stable, loving and secure home - a mature person is added to our world. All the money in the world can not dictate your success as a parent. There are many, many children with very little in the things area - that are living better then their richer counter parts.

Parents have worked so hard to make everything "better" then what they had, that in the end they neglect the most important part of what they had.

Family - Love. Money can not even measure up. Children are not that expensive - if your not buying the latest gadgets and crap that they will toss to the side in 6 months when the new thing hits the market.

I used to joke, back in the day when money was tight - with 3 small ones, by saying "the object is to spend less then the deduction I receive on my taxes for each one - and then we are making money."

That said, my children have never went without. No, they don't live with the toys that others have always had around them. But you ask any of them, or their friends with the toys - and they got it the best.

That my friend is worth everything. I'd rather be broke and share in what is important.

[Jennifer/GA]

I married for the first time when I was 36 years old. My husband was 42. Having children was not important to us, having someone to share our lives with was. We are individualists, as I call us. We don't go with what everyone else does, because we don't like playing catch up or keep up with the Jones', the Smiths' or anyone else. So when we married, it was for love and not because it was expected of us to grow up, go to college, get married, have children, throw large parties for the children and spend money like we have all money in the world. As a logical person, and probably a selfish one as well, we did consider the costs of having children and decided that we were nowhere ready for them financially. But if we change our minds and have children, or adopt them, we will certainly not be lavish parents, but will be loving parents who teach their children to be thrifty and wise with finances. My husband was taught well when it came to finances, but me coming from a poor family, didn't learn much about finances because we didn't have any extra to do anything with, and sometimes we did without things because we didn't have the money. As an adult, I learned for myself about finances and with my husband's and other's help, I am heading in the right direction for our future.

[Emily]

I have a 5 year plan. I am currently almost through with year 1 and so far so good. I live in the DC area so the cost of living/daycare is high. I want to have the option to stay home with my kids so here is my financial plan:
Have 6 months living expences saved
Have 100K plus in my retirement account
Have my new car paid off and have cash for another car
And here is the big question- my husband has to make at least 65 K a year (which I really am hoping for, we just graduated from collage a few years ago so this shouldnt be a problem I hope!).
If all of this works out we should be good financially when kids come. Mind you I am only 24 right now, so I think we are doing quite well... I believe in being financially prepared and I do not buy the motto that you will never be financially prepared for kids.

[AdamCO]

Dedicated,

I appreciate your point of view and I think you are far from on your own in that sentiment.

I'm not sure if my lack of religion has much to do with it, but I look at starting a family as a practical matter. I imagine once I see little Jonny I'll be into all the lovey-dovey stuff, but in the mean-time, I need to make sure I have enough money saved to cover the cost of delivery and care.

[Becky@FamilyandFinances]

My husband and I are considering finances with our plans to have children, but it's not our main driving factor.

It happens to work out well that it will take three years for me to get braces and then oral surgery. I want to wait until after the oral surgery to have a baby, so we have three years to plan financially for the baby. Then I get to be a stay-at-home mom!

[Kevin]

AdamCO - have you looked into prepaying for birth at a hospital near you? Some hospitals have this program in place so they get the money up front and you get the benefit of the fixed cost. Might be worth a quick phone call. I've heard some hospitals offer pretty good discounts if they know they'll get the money with little trouble.

[Moneymonk]

I never though about the cost be we had a child. However she does not cost much

[Jennifer]

Unfortunately no. We were young and made very little money. So we figured we would go ahead and have kids. What were we thinking? I wish we had known something, anything, about finances. Neither of our parents ever taught us anything about it, other than to tell me not to go into debt. I didn't but dh was and we spent the first 3 years of marriage digging him out.

AFter we had our second child we did discuss finances regarding having a third child. We had everything for either a boy or a girl so figured it woudn't impact us that much. Ha! Now we have a special needs child. Then we had a surprise and now we have 4 kids. The older they get the more expensive they are.

I have taught myself everything I know about finances and we live very frugally. I just wish we had waited a few years to have kids instead of right after we got married. I wouldn't trade my kids for anything, but had we waited a few more years we would have been in a much better position financially than we are now.

[Tony]

Kevin, you really touched on something that helped my wife and I a lot when we found out we were having a baby. One of the local hospitals gave a huge price break for those that were willing to pay up-front. I believe it was about 2/3s of what they charged if you didn't pay up-front.

We also checked with several different hospitals to see the differences in price and service. Once hospital offered the same services and was just as good as another and the price was two grand less! It made as huge difference for us.

[Amy]

I think if I would have thought about it before I had kids, I probably wouldn't have had any :)

[Kay]

If you save until you have enough money to have kids, you will never have kids. With that said, we paid off the cars and student loans until we had only the mortgage. I planned to continue working after our baby was born, but surprise twins changed that. We determined it would save us money if I stayed home instead of day care for two infants (over $1200/month) and gas for my car and the one hour commute each way. Financially we determined that I could stay home for one year.

Eight and a half years later (that half is VERY important to eight year olds) I am still at home. Cutting back and deciding what was really important makes it possible.

[AdamCO]

Kevin: Thanks for the tip about pre-paying. I'll definitely look into that.

The other option would be some sort of loan. The concept of loans is "pay while you use it," and this concept is of course shunned by us finance snobs except in the case of a house loan (or maybe a business loan). Perhaps an argument could be made that a loan for a baby is worth the interest. You get to enjoy the child while still paying for him/her. So long as it doesn't break the budget, maybe this isn't such a bad idea. Right now we easily contribute $400/month to the "baby fund" and this amount would easily cover a $5,000 loan for delivery and costs (we'd have about $5,000 saved up by baby time if we conceived now).

D'oh. Wife can't work if she has a baby. There goes a big chunk of our savings!

[Ken Adams]

If people look at children as a financial burden then they should problably never have kids. I think the costs should be examined when there are dual income earners with similar incomes. Also, the stage in life when people have children is important. My wife and I decided to have children earlier. We have 2 boys and are both 25. The thought process in this one is that we are having children in our early stages and our lifestyle is diiferent in our 20's than later in life. We were married and bought a house when our first was born so our kids will be out on there own (hopefully) when we are in our fortys well before our projected retirement age. Also, it would be harder later in life because our careers would be harder to put on hold and deal with the loss of income when it is higher.However,being a father is the best thing I have ever done and I would not trade it for anything.

[Richard]

Yes, we have run the numbers and thats why we are putting off kids.

[Bob]

When we first started having kids I estimated that it was about $400 per month per kid. As they get older it only gets more expensive.

[fathersez]

I took an eventful taxi ride just before I got married. The taxi driver, a retired Malaysian army guy asked me if I was married. I said no, but we have fixed a date.

The taxi driver then gave me a sort of a sermon on how many people put off marrying and having children because of finances. He told me never to do that. And quoted his story about how he was earning a pittance and everyone told him that he should not marry. He went ahead, then they advised him not to have kids, and he went ahead.

He had 6 children, all reasonably educated, having families of their own etc. He and his wife had to work hard to raise the kids, but no regrets.

THis is the story I keep telling my newphews and younger colleagues.

And my wife and I never did consider finances at all.

[anon]

I think it's particularly important for the woman to consider her finances before having a child. Everyone who gets married believes it lasts forever...but half of them don't. I aim to have a full year's salary in the bank before I will consider having children. It's so hard to get back into a professional job after a few years out, and daycare is so expensive!

[aaktx]

Have as many kids as you want and if you become poor enough, the government will help out. Otherwise it is a struggle if you are starting out in life and want to have some security or quality existence. I think it is definitely worth it.

[plonkee]

One of the benefits of not planning to have kids is that I'll have more money. That's as far as my thinking has got. It would take a lot of persuading for someone to convince that I could 'afford' to have children (in terms of money, time, enjoyment, etc).

[Teri]

We definitely considered the costs. We started planning for kids very young (teens). We knew we wanted one of us home with the kids, and it would take some significant planning.

Likewise, we wanted to own a home and have a large emergency fun before we had our first child.

Of course, I personally was never big on having children. So I wasn't really willing to take the financial risks of leaving my career. I told my spouse if he wanted kids, he could stay home with them. It actually has worked well for us.

Our kids will cost us a LOT of money over the years, yes. But they are priceless. I can't believe I never wanted kids.

These days I think if we had waited 5 more years maybe we could have paid off the mortgage first. We could have been 10 times more financially secure. But, well, I wouldn't change a thing. I think there's a balance there between jumping in without thinking and between waiting too long for all your ducks to be in a row. Middle ground is generally best.

Sorry, one more thing. I am sick of people who make twice the money telling us we are so lucky my spouse doesn't have to work. Yeesh. It's not that we had more or it just fell in our lap. We planned for it many years ahead.

[Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck]

We certainly thought about it. Any pregnancy that is not a "surprise" is, by definition, planned. If you're talking about having a child, money is usually going to come up in the conversation. It's how important a consideration money is that will vary from couple to couple.

But as I look through the comments above, there seems to be agreement on two things: 1) kids are expensive, and 2) all who have kids wouldn't change a thing.

To those who choose not to have children - hey, it's exactly that: a choice, your choice. There's no right or wrong answer.

[James]

Absolutely-- that's why we stopped after 2. Who can afford more- either financially or in time, attention, and love?

[Anja]

We never thought about all the financial implications of having children, but we did well when organizing our lifes around them. I think that there is never a perfect time for starting a family, there are just too many variables that can change anything that you thought you have prepared for. Kids are a lot of fun,they are worth all the costs.
The one thing I am glad that we did not do is wait until we were in our late 30's. Yes, one is likely better prepared fiancially, but ones energy level is lower, and I would not want my kid to return to live home from college just as I am retiring. We did good by having them in our mid 20's.

[ryan]

I know my girlfriend wants to start having kids in the near future b/c she believes that having a child before 30 gives the best chance of your body bouncing back.

I am against it for the cost and the time constraint. I want to wait until the cost is negligible, which I foresee being in my mid 30's.

but yes, the cost is my #1 concern on the issue.

[Anitra]

This is very timely for me - we're expecting our first child later this year. We did talk about money issues beforehand... but we also thought it would take a lot longer to conceive. We weren't even "trying" yet! We had planned to have more of our debt paid off before kids entered the picture.

Every few weeks, we sit down and examine the finances again. We don't really know what most of the costs will be in baby's first year; most of the estimates I've seen seem very high, and are dependent on formula, disposable diapers, and day care. (In theory, we won't need any of these.)

We are determined to make it work, but it will probably involve additional sacrifices we weren't planning on - either I'll have to remain at work for a while, or we'll both take part-time jobs to supplement my husband's income, or we'll have a relative come live with us to avoid paying for child-care, etc. It won't be fun, but I think it will be worth the pain.

[kitty]

"We had our kids later in life and so our finances were fairly firm before our first child"
You were lucky that you still could, and that you had a healthy child. A lot of people postpone the birth of the first child only to be devastated later when they find out they no longer can.

Woman's fertility is the greatest in her 20s, starts slowly go down in her 30s, drops more significatly after 35 and even more after 40. The risk of miscarriage increases as well. As one ObGyn put it "there is no cure for the year 35 bug". Not even the miracles of modern technology can help. Even expensive fertility treatments have very low chance of success. Sure the majority of women can still have kids after 30, maybe even at 35, but the risk of not being able to is still large.

The risk of having a baby with Dawn Syndrome goes up exponentially every year after the age of 30. It might still be small in absolute numbers, but it is large if you are this one person. The risks of other birth defects go up too. Shall everyone waiting also save enough to be able to care for a baby with Dawn?

Risks to mother's health also go up with age.

BTW - do you know that woman's risk of post menopausal breast cancer is significantly higher if she has kids after 30?, higher yet if she has kids later. It is even higher that that of a woman who doesn't have children. At the same time having children before 25 decreases the risk. Sure it is a relative risk increase, maybe not as big in absolute numbers but still significant. Having kids early is the single most effective thing a woman can do to reduce her future risk of breast cancer.

I find that the advice of waiting to have children is very irresponsible and can devastate people or hurt their health. At the very least it has to be accompanied by the warnings about fertility and health issues so that those who choose to wait are making a truly informed decision.

[Dennis]

From above "I think it's obvious most people don't think about the cost of children before having them. If they did, we wouldn't have 1 out of 3 kids in America being born out of wedlock."

Being married has nothing to do with financially being able to support a child. There are plenty of non-married couples that can afford to support a child. While I do think its important to have stable income and financials before you have children, I don't think it's overly important to how a child turns out. There are plenty of people who raise children dirt poor and they turn out to be great people. Some would even argue that growing up that way makes you a better person.

[AdamCO]

I'm very jealous of my German sister-in-law. She would not only have the baby delivery fully paid for by the govt but would receive cash just for having a kid!

Only to live in a country with a declining population!

In the meantime, we would have to scrape together $10k to get us through delivery (although this would be free, naturally, if we couldn't "afford" it)

[Melissa]

Also a timely question for me, as my first child is due in June. We did consider the financial aspect of it, and had 5k banked for first year expenses before conceiving (ok, to be fair, we hit 5k about 3 months into the pregnancy). However, finances were in no way the deciding factor, as we were fitting children into our careers and our education. Timing was first priority. It just so happened that as we were waiting for 'the right time' we were also putting money by for it.

[Ron]

Did we think of the cost before having kids? Lord, no. My kids could easily be named "Oops", "Uh Oh" and "You've Got To Be Kidding Me", considering the 11 year spread between No. 2 son and my last child.

Here's the deal. Plan all you want. Go ahead and save all the money you can. It doesn't matter. They will still cause you to spend until you are turned into a whimpering puddle on the living room floor which they will, of course, step through instead of over. It doesn't matter, though. You will tough out the lean times and breath easier when things are fat but through it all having kids will be the best thing you will ever do. Besides, who else is going to wheel your wrinkled butt into the nursing home when roles have reversed and you are using the bib and diapers?

[AdamCO]

I checked with the local hospital today. They do a "pre-paid" delivery for $4,000 and that includes a standard delivery (no complications or c-sections) plus 48 hours in the hospital. Complications (not including a C section) are actually covered by wife's insurance, so that wouldn't be a major issue.

What are some of the more experienced parents experience with prenatal care? What is it, like an ultrasound or two?

[Emily]

I really hate these questions because its always filled with people who either wait or don't wait, thinking their decision was better. Honestly, i think this is a dumb thread.

[Sarah]

I'm not entirely sure what it means to consider the costs of having children since it really can vary so much. Many of the costs of having kids can be entirely avoided with certain decisions. That being said, my husband and I waited until he was in a stable job and making a good salary. We were lucky that happened when we were in our early 20's. I'm glad we were able to feel secure at the time but three kids later, my husband was laid off and we weren't prepared. I think it's a good idea to be in a stable situation when you have kids but there is never going to be a perfect time and a perfect situation and things can change pretty fast so you might not always be in a good financial place. I still would have had at least one child before I was 30 (my cut off for having kids) regardless of our finances because we felt it was important. Finances can be worked out, waiting forever to have kids can backfire.

[nada]

I'm waiting to have children in order to secure our financial position to ensure that we are able to raise our children in a middle class or upper middle class lifestyle.

Due to the need of two incomes, it is necessary to wait until a married couple has the ability to live off of one income. However, to live where I live, that one income needs to be over 100k. Luckily, my husband and I are doing very well for ourselves and it looks as if this will be happening within the next few years. We bought a home in a good school district, we are saving money, and 100% of my take home salary will go to savings all within the next few years. I am only 26 so as long as I have two children before I'm 35 that's fine with me.

My husband and I are well aware of the expenses a child brings, we have even found out prices of local daycares. Inevitably, this will make anyone wait. I wish that we were able to have children sooner because I very much so want children. However, I know that when we do within the next few years, we will be very ready (And I think this is worth the wait!).