The cost of raising a child to the age of 11 soars to £87,000

Updated
Mother and baby son face to face
Mother and baby son face to face




If you wondered why you never seem to have any spare cash to spend on yourself, then a new study has revealed exactly who is to blame: your children. The Halifax Cost of Children research has revealed that it costs £86,943.12 to raise a child to secondary school age - that's up 4% in the past 12 months.

The most expensive year is the first one, when your baby will set you back an astonishing average of £10,000 - or over £820 a month. This is often because one or more of the parents will take parental leave - which usually sees a dramatic drop in earnings. If they then go back to work, they face the horror of the cost of childcare.

Biggest costs

Childcare is by far the biggest expense for children under the age of 11 - coming in at a staggering £320.54 per month - which is around half of the total monthly cost. This will come as no surprise to those with very young children, many of whom pay more for childcare than they actually earn.

The second biggest expense is food, which tends to start as a bargain (especially if you are breastfeeding), then grow dramatically as your children develop the ability to eat whole loaves of bread and entire roast chickens in one sitting. On average parents spend £80.33 a month on food.
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The third biggest expense is holidays - which cost an average of £62.38 a month. Every parent has experienced the horror of suddenly finding themselves tied to expensive summer holidays - and paying for a couple of extra people - which pushes the cost of a break into the stratosphere.

The study also found we spend an average of £42.65 on schooling. This is clearly heavily weighted towards parents who send their children to private school, and reveals just how pricey this approach can be.

Leisure and hobbies is the next biggest monthly expense - at £42.02. This includes the myriad of clubs children are desperate to go to (which often provide useful childcare). It also covers the extortionate cost of going out for the day anywhere from the cinema to a theme park, which is always an alarmingly expensive experience.

Other major costs in the study were £39.95 a month on clothes, £26.66 on toys, £22.26 on personal care and £21.87 on furniture.

Unexpected

To add insult to injury, the researchers also found that while we struggle to meet these regular costs, we are continually assaulted by one-off unexpected expenses. Some 81% of people say they have faced these, with a third having to pay for new furniture, a third needing a new car, and one in five realising they need to move to a bigger house.

To help pay for these things, the study found that half of parents have cut back on socialising and reduced the number of meals out they have. Another 40% spend less on holidays and 34% have cut back on takeaways.

All of this is likely to make miserable reading for those who have recently embarked on the joy of parenting - and those considering starting a family. They can apparently look forward to a decade of staying in and counting the pennies to enable their children grow out of every pair of shoes within a week, break toys within an hour, and complain every minute or so about what a terrible life they have.

If they live outside London, at least they can take some comfort from the fact that things could be worse. The cost of raising a child in London is significantly higher than the country average at almost £122,500.

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