New parents be warned: It could cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars to raise your child — and that’s not even including the cost of college.
To raise a child born in 2013 to the age of 18, it will cost a middle-income couple just over $245,000, according to newly released estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s up $4,260, or almost 2%, from the year before.
Estimates can vary widely depending on where you live and how much you earn.
High-income families who live in the urban Northeast, for example, are projected to spend nearly $455,000 to raise their child to the age of 18, while low-income rural families will spend much less, an estimated $145,500, according to the report.
The figures are based on the cost of housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, education, child care and miscellaneous expenses, like haircuts and cell phones. But the estimates don’t include the cost of college — a big-ticket expense that keeps rising.
The good news: overall costs have grown more slowly in recent years thanks to low inflation, said economist Mark Lino, who has written the annual report for the USDA since 1987.
But many families are still having to do more with less. The country’s median income remains more than 8% below where it was before the recession, while child care and health care costs continue to grow faster than inflation.
Child care, in particular, is a huge burden — often costing as much as the family home.
In 2012, center-based care for one infant was greater than median rent payments in nearly half of the states, according to Child Care Aware of America’s most recent report.
In Seattle, Britta Gidican and her boyfriend spend $1,380 each month on daycare for their 17-month-old son, just $20 less than they spend on their mortgage each month.
“When I was pregnant I knew daycare would be expensive,” said Gidican, a public relations manager. “But I didn’t expect to pay two mortgages.”
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