The expenses of middle childhood
Middle childhood is actually one of the most awesome times to be a parent. Your kids are old enough to admire you still, but don’t need the same physical support for bathing, sleeping and toileting in most cases. It is an expensive time though. Here are some of the costs of two active kids.
Sports; sports is a lot more expensive than it used to be which in part is due to just how expensive it is for kid’s sports programs to get insurance in this litigous environment. Also more parents work, which means there are less volunteers and more paid staff. We pay $1000pa to keep the kids in one sport each year round and we are at the very cheap end of this cost. It can easily set you back $2000+pa if your kid has an expensive sport.
Food; the kids eat a lot. I always figured the kids would be somewhere around 1/3–1/2 of an adult food budget but it turns out they regularly eat more than us as they are growing. The child health nurse assured me that an average 1 year old should eat more than an adult due to growth needs!
Clothing; hand-me-downs are a thing of the past in this age group if you have an active kid. I’ve also found that the absolute cheapest brands tend to get easily torn and stretched so I need to invest a little more for them to even last one season and even those clothes are not in hand-me-down quality.
Public school; this isn’t the free expense it’s often seen as, but it is great value. It’s about $400 a year in books, supplies and fees. The school also has a loose uniform (logoed polo shirts and black pants) that runs to about $200 per child.
Music lessons; I want my kids to learn an instrument as I didn’t get the chance growing up. In my area this runs to about $25/per child per week.
Holidays; If you do decide you want to go on a holiday it is quite expensive to take older kids. They need their own seats on planes and often can’t stay free in hotel rooms unlike younger kids. Luckily options like Airbnb are making it easier to rent apartments and homes which can make staying in exotic locations for holidays.
Do you have middle childhood aged kids? What are some of the expenses that surprised you?
