The cost of a child, by year
Not the headline figure. The actual shape of the spending, from the first year to the eighteenth, and where it peaks...
The lifetime figures quoted in newspapers are large, round and useless, because nobody pays them at once. What matters is the shape: which years are expensive, and why. Tom and I put our own figures together for this one.
Years one and two
Cheaper than you expect if you accept second-hand, and more expensive than anything if one parent stops working. The equipment is a few hundred. The lost income is the real cost, and it is the one people forget to count.
Years two to four
The peak. Full-time childcare for one child costs more than most mortgages, and it arrives at the point when the household income is lowest. Every plan for a family should start here.
Years five to eleven
School takes the childcare cost away and replaces it with wraparound care, clubs and holidays. Roughly a third of what you were paying before. This is the decade to rebuild savings.
Years twelve to eighteen
Food, phones, trips and a slow climb. Not a peak, but a long plateau that ends in the question of university, which is a post of its own.
The number that matters
Not the total. The peak-year cost, and whether the household can carry it. If it can, everything after is easier. If it cannot, the answer is usually about hours worked and not about spending less on the child.
Anita Desai
Twelve years in pensions administration, now writing Atlas full time. Believes every money question has a worked example, and that most advice skips it.
All Posts →Tom Ferreira
Writes the family posts. Two children, one spreadsheet, and a lot of receipts.
All Posts →Atlas
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