Budget Item for Children?

[Bonny]

My response to a post by Zib made me think about how does a parent budget for children? We don't have kids so I'm really curious.

Do you have a line item? How do you come up with a number? Is it a fixed number or a % of your income. Do you use some kind of guideline or do you just wing it?

Enquiring minds gotta know!

[swamp]

I don't have a budget.   Kids are expensive, that's all i can say. 

[skubikky]

Depends on how many and what your situation is.

At first, if you'll require day care obviously that probably becomes a top line item.

Clothing, formula(if applicable), diapers(cloth or disposable...each have some cost), medication(if your child requires it)...it could go on and on.
Often, as we did, we handled it as we went.  DH was still in college and I was out of college and working.

Our kids were and are still a major priority in our lives.   Finding  a way to provide them with what they needed
always seemed to work out because we were highly motivated and able.

[skubikky]

Jan 24, 2018 11:52:06 GMT -5 swamp said:

I don't have a budget.   Kids are expensive, that's all i can say. 

There it is.   You provide those things that you perceive that they need and that you perceive that you want to provide.
Bottom line is driven by what you can manage.
Some parents push that line to the point of their own detriment.
Each parent will give a somewhat different answer.....it's highly personal.

[cktc]

In theory I budget $150/month for baby supplies. I'm terrible and don't actually track it though unless it's a 100% baby shopping excursion. Really need to get better about tracking my Amazon spending. I came up with that number based on need for diapers/wipes and some slush for new clothes and toys. Activities go under our normal entertainment budget, as does food. Basically, I wing it.

Once they get to school age I'll have to be a bit more mindful about setting money aside as I'm sure they will get more expensive and have more independent needs and wants.  

[tractor]

No kids budget, they cost money, how much is dependent upon how you want to raise them. If you choose not to clothe or feed them, they don’t cost as much. If you provide them with every need/want they are very expensive. Whatever budget you set, expect the reality to be double 🙂

[pooks]

The only line item on our budget that is solely for DD is college savings.  Otherwise her expenses are lumped in with ours (Food, clothing, insurance, cell phone.....). In the past there were line items for braces and daycare.  I have no idea what we spend on her, but do know it is a lot.  I don't work out a percentage or fixed amount. She costs what she costs.  

[Deleted]

I don't have an all encompassing "KIDS" line item in the budget, but I do have these line items that are exclusive to them.

Daycare
Private School Tuition
Activities and school supplies
College savings
Christmas (mostly stuff for them)
Allowance
 
The rest is all combined costs that I don't parse out between what is for me and what is for the kids.  Food, dining out, phone bills, electricity, added insurance for teen driver, medical, toiletries, haircuts...etc. 

[giramomma]

We don't budget for them. But, to be fair, we don't really budget anymore, either.

It all depends. None of my kids have the same needs and personalities.  And our finance fluctuate.

We raise our kids that fair does not mean equal. They all get their needs met and some of their wants.

I do expect to have some free money once #1 and #2 are more adult-ish. I'm guessing right now, we spend about 35% of our net on our kids. Private school tuition runs 15%..

Then again, we may not experience spending less money on kids. #4 could be a sister and an aunt before she turns 18.

[whoisjohngalt]

Yes. Not only I have separate line, I actually have lines - for their clothes, personal supplies, activities, homeschooling crap.

I set up our annual budget the first weekend in Jan and their budget line gets balanced with all other stuff we will need for the year

[busymom]

We did have a budget when they were babies, but it was simple then to figure out monthly costs for things like diapers.  Once they got older, it got more difficult to estimate an "average" monthly expense.  Especially once they started school.  

[hoops902]

We budget for the kid being born (because it seems so super easy to overspend on cribs, furniture, etc). We budget for recurring expenses like daycare, we increase the grocery budget for food/formula/diapers and things like that. We budget for them for Christmas as a line item of our Christmas-gift budget. We don't really budget for their clothes or things like that though (we don't budget that for ourselves either).

In general though, we aren't strict budgeters.  We have simple/frugal tastes to begin with, so when the kid needs new socks...we get them new socks knowing we're going to get cheap ones (If we budgeted $500/year for the kid's clothes...and we're at the limit and they've grown out of everything, we know we're going to get them bigger clothes anyways, so any budget number would be meaningless for us).  We basically budget for everything for 1 of 2 reasons.  1.  It is a significant expenditure (so when the child is born and needs things right away, home renovations, new car, etc...big stuff that we need more than just a sense of frugality to keep under control). 2.  Recurring expenses for planning purposes (food, diapers, insurance payments, daycare, etc).

To answer another of your questions, we budget everything by a dollar amount.  We don't budget anything by a % of income.  How we come up with numbers is by doing a little pre-shopping (again, much easier to do when you only budget big things).  We also do a little bit just by reasonableness to ourselves.  For our first kid, it seemed reasonable for us to spend a couple of thousand on setting up the nursery...so we earmarked that money for the nursery, then we started doing some pre-shopping for bigger items to make sure we were good on our overall number.  Then we broke that total budget down to individual things to make sure we wouldn't miss anything that would send us over budget later. 

After the initial setup, it has primarily been actual cost driving the budget.  We quickly figured out how much diapers cost and how often we needed them, so we just added that into the budget.  Same with daycare, we found something we felt was reasonable and just added the cost to the budget.

[Tiny]

So, if you don't have a budget when the kid gets to school and needs $300 for something (like a musical instrument, or sport equipment, or IDK, a field trip) you just pull $300 out of your, um, wallet?

If your kid comes home from school and sez 'everyone else uses a GeeGaw at school! I must have one too!" you again pull money out of your wallet and buy a GeeGaw?

Wouldn't NOT having a budget cause parents to run up huge Credit card bills? keeping up with all the stuff you "have to buy" for you kid?  (you don't want to deprive your kid, so it seems like you'd spend just $$ to avoid that)  

Basically, what I'm asking is if you don't know how much you can spend on your kid's extra stuff (a budget) - how can you make good decisions about those expenses (and how to pay for them)?

ADDED: I don't have kids. So I don't know what kinds of expenses they have.
 

[Bonny]

Jan 24, 2018 12:53:07 GMT -5 Tiny said:

So, if you don't have a budget when the kid gets to school and needs $300 for something (like a musical instrument, or sport equipment, or IDK, a field trip) you just pull $300 out of your, um, wallet?

If your kid comes home from school and sez 'everyone else uses a GeeGaw at school! I must have one too!" you again pull money out of your wallet and buy a GeeGaw?

Wouldn't NOT having a budget cause parents to run up huge Credit card bills? keeping up with all the stuff you "have to buy" for you kid?  (you don't want to deprive your kid, so it seems like you'd spend just $$ to avoid that)  

Basically, what I'm asking is if you don't know how much you can spend on your kid's extra stuff (a budget) - how can you make good decisions about those expenses (and how to pay for them)?

ADDED: I don't have kids. So I don't know what kinds of expenses they have.
 

Yeah, so many saying "Kids are damned expensive" with no spending plan seems odd for this crowd.

I would think there was a preliminary budget when the kid(s) were first born based on some preliminary costs. For sure a lot of it in the beginning would be a WAG but I'd think after a couple of years you'd get better at it. Every year would have some kind of "exception" but I'd think some of that would be in your "irregular" category.

Otherwise, I think you're right. People would just keep running up their credit cards or empting out their savings.

[gs11rmb]

Tiny - if the kids need or want something that we think is appropriate and we have the money to pay for it then we do.  It's really that simple.

[sesfw]

My child is 56 years old ..... and when we had her she was a part of our basic living expenses.  She was an 'oooopppss' so no budget planned at all

Home, food, cloth diapers, hand-me-down clothes, no credit cards ...... if we didn't have the funds, it didn't get purchased.

I started working full time when she went to school to pay for that.  We put her in a Christian School because they had after hours care, and a bus picked her up in the morning and brought her home in the afternoon.

She never did get a bad case of the 'gimmees' ..... mostly because the kids of those days didn't have all the garbage that is available today.

Sometimes I don't see how young families make it .... with all the 'stuff' the kids want.  Parents have forgotten who the parent is and how to say no in a kind and loving manner.

[Bonny]

Jan 24, 2018 12:23:27 GMT -5 whoisjohngalt said:

Yes. Not only I have separate line, I actually have lines - for their clothes, personal supplies, activities, homeschooling crap.

I set up our annual budget the first weekend in Jan and their budget line gets balanced with all other stuff we will need for the year

This makes sense to me. Do you have some kind of "contingency" line item for unplanned items?

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Field trips are free so that is not something I worry about.  By the time she is old enough to do things that would require money upfront we'll long be done with daycare so our budget won't be so tight.   If I had to answer today about $300 for a field trip the answer would be no.

Sports don't start till middle school so if either one wanted to do them we'd have time to plan.  DH and I already discussed it and we don't have any desire to be sports parents nor do we feel Gwen is ready for the amount of time being in a league would take.  We told her no on soccer.

Gwen wants to play the cello.   I  talked to the music teacher and they start strings in 5th grade.  If she's still interested then we can talk about renting one thru the school.  That's 3 years to plan for that potential expense.

If I am signing them up for something I've already planned for the expense.  Gwen has done dance, karate and cheerleading.  I did the research long before I signed the dotted line. 

I know art classes are $50 at the Joslyn.  The calendar comes out months in advance, I have plenty of time to decide if I want to sign her up and set aside the money.

If the kid comes home saying everyone has a GeeGaw and she wants one it depends on what it is.   If it is something I can easily afford I'll consider it.  I bought her $10 light up shoes at Sam's Club a couple of weeks ago.   Hardly budget breaking.

If it's something we can't afford or I consider overpriced crap then she doesn't get it.   There are always going to be people who have more/better stuff than you, mommy isn't going to break the bank keeping up with it.

I make decisions about their expenses the same way that I make decisions about my own expenses.   When they are old enough to pay for things then they can make decisions about their stuff.  Until then all their stuff falls under my terms.

[cktc]

Jan 24, 2018 12:53:07 GMT -5 Tiny said:

So, if you don't have a budget when the kid gets to school and needs $300 for something (like a musical instrument, or sport equipment, or IDK, a field trip) you just pull $300 out of your, um, wallet?

If your kid comes home from school and sez 'everyone else uses a GeeGaw at school! I must have one too!" you again pull money out of your wallet and buy a GeeGaw?

Wouldn't NOT having a budget cause parents to run up huge Credit card bills? keeping up with all the stuff you "have to buy" for you kid?  (you don't want to deprive your kid, so it seems like you'd spend just $$ to avoid that)  

Basically, what I'm asking is if you don't know how much you can spend on your kid's extra stuff (a budget) - how can you make good decisions about those expenses (and how to pay for them)?

ADDED: I don't have kids. So I don't know what kinds of expenses they have.
 

Same as any irregular expense. Put it on credit, adjust spending to other flexible categories like food, shopping and entertainment, if there is a shortage at the end of the month pull from short term savings or use rewards points. As for how to make the decision, my spending tends to be more about value than a specific dollar amount. If there are activities that are $150/month, I'm not going to sign up for one that is $400. For a special school trip I would expect expenses to be in line with a well planned group trip. I'm not going to pay extra just because it's for school. I might try to get more involved with planning the next year to make sure they aren't missing out.

[Bonny]

Jan 24, 2018 13:18:19 GMT -5 sesfw said:

My child is 56 years old ..... and when we had her she was a part of our basic living expenses.  She was an 'oooopppss' so no budget planned at all

Home, food, cloth diapers, hand-me-down clothes, no credit cards ...... if we didn't have the funds, it didn't get purchased.

I started working full time when she went to school to pay for that.  We put her in a Christian School because they had after hours care, and a bus picked her up in the morning and brought her home in the afternoon.

She never did get a bad case of the 'gimmees' ..... mostly because the kids of those days didn't have all the garbage that is available today.

Sometimes I don't see how young families make it .... with all the 'stuff' the kids want.  Parents have forgotten who the parent is and how to say no in a kind and loving manner.

Or giving the kid a budget with some options.

One of the sweetest things I heard from one of our friends who grew up pretty poor (she's 51 now) was her mom asking her "Do we get a record or go see a movie (each paycheck)?" I thought that was pretty cool that her single mom let her be a part of the decision process for the "entertainment" part of the budget.

Her stepbrother told the cute story about how hearing about that made him understand that not everyone had to make choices about how to spend a limited amount of money. I think he was just told "yes" or "no".

[Deleted]

I'm not sure they cost more than in the daycare years, but I've found as they get older the expenses are more sporadic and more expensive.  It's harder to budget for the high schooler than it is for the 2nd grader. 

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

So far ::knocks on wood:::  ::throws salt over shoulder:: :clutches rabbit foot:  I have yet to encounter a kid expense that could not be planned for in some form if we wanted to accomplish it that badly. 

Things like clothes and shoes are not that big of a deal they come out of whatever is leftover after the bills are paid.  If they outgrow their shoes I can't exactly tell them sorry but you already got your alloted dollar amount for shoes this year.

I suppose an exception would be the odd dental and medical bill but that's not really a kid thing.  DH could just as easily slip on the sidewalk and break an ankle which would be an unexpected medical bill.   Either it comes out of savings or we tighten our belt and cash flow.

[whoisjohngalt]

Jan 24, 2018 13:19:26 GMT -5 Bonny said:

Jan 24, 2018 12:23:27 GMT -5 whoisjohngalt said:

Yes. Not only I have separate line, I actually have lines - for their clothes, personal supplies, activities, homeschooling crap.

I set up our annual budget the first weekend in Jan and their budget line gets balanced with all other stuff we will need for the year

This makes sense to me. Do you have some kind of "contingency" line item for unplanned items?

 I have NO unplanned items

Well, except food.  I have never stayed on-budget there.

Seriously, though, I am VERY anal when it comes to budgeting, so I do try to predict all our potential expenses.

[MJ2.0]

Jan 24, 2018 13:17:58 GMT -5 gs11rmb said:

Tiny - if the kids need or want something that we think is appropriate and we have the money to pay for it then we do.  It's really that simple.

exactly.  it doesn't need to be more complicated than that.

[pooks]

Jan 24, 2018 12:53:07 GMT -5 Tiny said:

So, if you don't have a budget when the kid gets to school and needs $300 for something (like a musical instrument, or sport equipment, or IDK, a field trip) you just pull $300 out of your, um, wallet?

If your kid comes home from school and sez 'everyone else uses a GeeGaw at school! I must have one too!" you again pull money out of your wallet and buy a GeeGaw?

Wouldn't NOT having a budget cause parents to run up huge Credit card bills? keeping up with all the stuff you "have to buy" for you kid?  (you don't want to deprive your kid, so it seems like you'd spend just $$ to avoid that)  

Basically, what I'm asking is if you don't know how much you can spend on your kid's extra stuff (a budget) - how can you make good decisions about those expenses (and how to pay for them)?

ADDED: I don't have kids. So I don't know what kinds of expenses they have.
 

Most of her irregular expenses come out of the Misc. Expenses line item.  We keep that line item pretty large to absorb most things.  If we know something big is coming we save over several months for that item.    

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2018 13:29:16 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

Jan 24, 2018 13:17:58 GMT -5 gs11rmb said:

Tiny - if the kids need or want something that we think is appropriate and we have the money to pay for it then we do.  It's really that simple.

exactly.  it doesn't need to be more complicated than that.

But, you'd still almost have to budget a line item at the very least for monthly savings that you could tap if something came up.  I'm coming for a zero based budget mindset, so every dime either is coming from a budgeted line item or stealing from another one. 

Like last year the robotics team was "this close" to going to Nationals.  Had they made the cut it would have been a trip to Houston with only a month's notice.  Not time to save up, and it would have made me sick to just say no because the money wasn't there.

[giramomma]

Jan 24, 2018 12:53:07 GMT -5 Tiny said:

So, if you don't have a budget when the kid gets to school and needs $300 for something (like a musical instrument, or sport equipment, or IDK, a field trip) you just pull $300 out of your, um, wallet?

If your kid comes home from school and sez 'everyone else uses a GeeGaw at school! I must have one too!" you again pull money out of your wallet and buy a GeeGaw?

Wouldn't NOT having a budget cause parents to run up huge Credit card bills? keeping up with all the stuff you "have to buy" for you kid?  (you don't want to deprive your kid, so it seems like you'd spend just $$ to avoid that)  

Basically, what I'm asking is if you don't know how much you can spend on your kid's extra stuff (a budget) - how can you make good decisions about those expenses (and how to pay for them)?

ADDED: I don't have kids. So I don't know what kinds of expenses they have.
 

I have a sinking fund pot. Money for kids that we can't absorb in the monthly budget gets pulled from there.

I'm a sucker for spending on my kids, in terms of activities.

My rules are to try something out cheaply, for the most part. If they like it and stick with it, I'll pony up for better quality instruction.

If they they will not go anywhere with said activity, we try to find alternatives.
Example: DD1 does not have the body for gymnastics. No upper arm strength. Doesn't make sense to spend $600+ when it's clear she's not going to pass out of levels.

So, we found a tumbling/trampoline class instead. Cheaper. Once a week. Plays to her strengths and keeps her active.

The peanut expressed an interest in doing Karate. We found a groupon for six weeks of lessons and a uniform for $30. After the second week, she fought us about going.  So, we gave activities a rest. A year later, we're willing to try a few things.

But, t-ball skills at the Y, introductory Karate, etc run like $50. This, we cash flow from day to day spending I'd be more stressed that we couldn't find an extra $30 in day to day spending at all than anything else.

DS has a field trip next week. Bowling. The cost was $5. (Normally, they are free). Again, if I can't cash-flow $5 from the normal budget, I've got bigger problems...

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Well of course I save, I thought that was pretty much a given.    We are loose on what we constitute an "emergency" so our EF is pretty fluid.  So long as more money is going in than coming out I am fine.

With the upheaval in our lives resulting in living paycheck to paycheck we had to say no to a lot of stuff.   It sucked but that's life.  I can't make money appear that isn't there.

We made the decision take a step back from structured activities that require monthly payments after karate became a giant money/time suck.  We agreed she can start tumbling again at the dance studio for $30 a month.   Other activities that require more expense and time commitment we have said no to.  We will revisit when she's older and we feel she's ready to give us a return on our investment.

Could we afford more if we pinched pennies and budgeted harder?  Probably.   Do I want to?  No.  

[Lizard Queen]

Jan 24, 2018 12:53:07 GMT -5 Tiny said:

So, if you don't have a budget when the kid gets to school and needs $300 for something (like a musical instrument, or sport equipment, or IDK, a field trip) you just pull $300 out of your, um, wallet?

If your kid comes home from school and sez 'everyone else uses a GeeGaw at school! I must have one too!" you again pull money out of your wallet and buy a GeeGaw?

Wouldn't NOT having a budget cause parents to run up huge Credit card bills? keeping up with all the stuff you "have to buy" for you kid?  (you don't want to deprive your kid, so it seems like you'd spend just $$ to avoid that)  

Basically, what I'm asking is if you don't know how much you can spend on your kid's extra stuff (a budget) - how can you make good decisions about those expenses (and how to pay for them)?

ADDED: I don't have kids. So I don't know what kinds of expenses they have.
 

Would I buy myself a GeeGaw?  No, not without a lot of thought and research.  I tend to be frugal, so I'm frugal with the kids wants as well as my own.  If they need something for $300 for school, I'd be like, WTF do you need something so expensive for?  I may spring for it, but not without some scrutiny first.  Folks that will pay without thought for their kids, will do the same for themselves.  If they can't afford everything for themselves + their kids, they just shift that tendency to spend over.

I'm older and had kids after I had some savings, though.  Someone much younger and just starting out might need to budget.  I already have levels of affordability established in my brain from way back.  $10?--no problem.  $50? --Ugh why?  $5,000---Is it a car?

[Tiny]

Jan 24, 2018 13:17:58 GMT -5 gs11rmb said:

Tiny - if the kids need or want something that we think is appropriate and we have the money to pay for it then we do.  It's really that simple.

That sucks. what if your kid wants to take up the Tuba and you don't have $300 for the tuba rental (this month)? Or what if you don't plan ahead and you find out late in the school year that there's some event that requires $$ but you don't have any extra bucks in your wallet?

Honestly, I get what you are saying you do... but it seems my friends kids have a steady year round "expense" of some kind due to hobby, sports, music, or something and I'm pretty sure they aren't paying "as they go" out of whatever money is left at the end of the month.


Maybe the question should be is "do you have a spending plan" for your kid - so you've got some $$ amount in your head that you are willing to spend on your kid's activities BASED on your overall spending for the year and then use that amount when deciding what's appropriate for your kid?