Your Kids are Why You’re Broke
It’s our job to provide. It’s what we signed up for when we had kids. But who could have known how much it was actually going to cost?
I’m being presumptuous here thinking you have kids, because if you’re fifty and flat broke like me and you don’t have kids, I don’t know what to tell you. What I can tell you though if you are like me and you do have kids, the cost of raising them was so far beyond what you and I thought it was going to be.
I could bombard you here with a whole lot of government statistics about how much it costs to raise a child in Australia but
I’m not going to do that. What I am going to do is tell you how much some of the things I had to provide cost me.
Bear in mind that my husband passed away when my kids were 11, 9 and 5 so I was left to raise them on my own with a single income. There were also some years at the start that I was not well enough to work so it was struggle street for a while.
So all of my kids needed laptops for school and by the time they were in senior school, I had to upgrade them so that’s around $7,000 there. They also all needed braces and extra dental care. Even with private health insurance at the time, I was still out of pocket about $15,000.
The back to school shopping day at the start of the year was what I called my $1,000 day. By the time I got them all new uniforms (even handing down what I could), new shoes, books and stationary and paid the fees, it came pretty close to $1,000 each year. I know you’ll be saying OMG I get all my stuff at Aldi for so much cheaper. Well there wasn’t Aldi when I was doing it OK. Kmart hadn’t brought in their cheap stationary supplies like they have now and we didn’t get any bonuses from the government like you do now.
Then let’s talk about medical and psychological expenses. So all three of my children needed counselling to get through the death of their father. Again, I had private health insurance but this did not cover all of the expenses. So at $70.00 a pop out of pocket per session, by 3 kids, by 12 months at once a week then panning out to once a month, it was a few thousand dollars. Again, there were no mental health care plans like there are now OK so it was rough.
Let’s talk about normal day to day like food and clothing. I had a pretty strict budget where this was concerned. I only shopped every 2 weeks and didn’t top up if we ran out of anything, so shopping day was one of the happiest days of my children’s lives. They would pounce on it and get through it as quickly as possible before it ran out and the second week was spent whining about no Milo or biscuits. Yeah that’s tough. Anyhow I topped up their tummies with lots of homemade biscuits and we only had take away once in the two weeks for a treat. So I was pretty frugal. It still cost about $250.00 every fortnight just for the basics and this is going to markets, using specials and all the tricks. It’s expensive raising 3 hungry kids and one adult.
For clothes I used to supplement with second hand clothes as well as some new ones. My two girls were close together so there was a lot of hand me downs going on. Shoes were always an issue. These were an item I did not want second hand because growing feet need good support and I didn’t want them being moulded into someone else’s foot print. Kids feet grow fast. One pair of shoes I bought my son and put in his cupboard for a couple of weeks. When he went to put them on he had already grown out of them. School shoes needed replacing, basically every term until they got to high school and their feet stopped growing (thank you universe).
Then there’s pocket money which was minimal in our house. I think they got $5.00 a week for tuckshop and $20.00 when they were in high school. Multiply that by 3 and you got yourself an expense.
When we were growing up there was nowhere near the technology there is now, and all of it seems essential. Mobile phones were a luxury I had to have. Not to keep up with the trends (although that did help) but because it was essential for me to be able to know where all my kids were (especially when I went back to work) and for them to be able to talk to each other if they needed each other. I’m not going to argue about whether I should or shouldn’t have done this. I did it and it cost me an extra $300 a month. I should add in here sporting activities, birthday parties (their own and as a guest), school functions etc.
So before we even get to housing, power, water, saving (you can stop laughing) we’re up to about $600 a week in expenses just to raise and feed three kids.
Still wondering why you’re broke? Your money is well invested in those smiling faces.
So don’t feel so bad about why you can’t get ahead just now. The time will come when they’re all off doing their own thing and you’ll be left with a shit ton of debt to pay off as quickly as possible. Just don’t count on that happening until they’re well into their 20’s.
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