How Much Does it Cost to Raise a Child from Birth to Age Eighteen? Part 2: Housing

This is Part 2 in a series on the cost of raising children. Part 1 can be found here.

We’ve been talking about that big, scary number all over the Internet, $226,920, also known as what some people will tell you it “costs” to raise a child. This number is based on a 2010 USDA report called Expenditures on Children by Families. In the intro, I said that I thought that a lot of the spending done by the families whose survey data went into the report was done out of choice not necessity, and now I’d like to start into a category breakdown.

But before I get into the nitty-gritty, I want to introduce the principle of Can vs. Should. Throughout this series, I’m going talk a lot about how little you can spend in each of the categories. But I will never, ever presume to tell you how much you should spend. In other words, I am (in my imperfect way) aiming to provide all hope and zero condemnation. If any of the things I discuss in this series is so important to you that you would honestly not bring a child into the world if you couldn’t provide it (like a bedroom for every child, or brand-new school clothes), then that is between you and God. I didn’t write this to make you feel bad. I wrote it for people who very much want a child but don’t know if they can afford one to give them some ideas for ways to economize. So no fair writing comments about how I’m mean and bad and unreasonable for telling you not to shop at Children’s Gap.

Today’s category is HOUSING, the #1 category by cost in the USDA report. This accounts for an average of 31% of spending, or $70,345.20 per child, which comes to $3,908.07 per year per child or $325.67 per month per child. And what exactly are people spending $325.67 per month on? It all boils down to an extra bedroom. The USDA figures (wisely) that most families don’t get extra kitchens or living rooms when they have a baby. But they do figure that most families need to get an extra bedroom for each child (no sharing with siblings . . . um, right). Getting that extra bedroom means a bigger house or a bigger apartment, and a bigger home means more utilities for heating and lighting and maybe cooling that extra space, plus the cost of furnishing the bedroom. And that brings us to $325.67 per month.

Now the $200,000 question (or maybe the $226,920 question) is: Is that going to be what YOU would need to spend? Well, to start with, do you really need another bedroom? Depending on local laws, you probably do if you are renting a one-bedroom apartment. But if you have a two-bedroom apartment or anything larger, you don’t technically NEED to have more space. You would, therefore, not need to pay anything more for rent or heating/cooling if you had a baby. You will probably need to pay a little more for electricity, especially if your baby ever becomes a disgruntled teenager who likes to spend lots of alone time on his or her bed staring at the ceiling . . . er, I mean, a productive young adult who likes to stay up really late working on entrepreneurial pursuits with the lights on. How much will you have to pay to keep an extra light on? That’s really hard to estimate, but according to this site, keeping a single 100 watt bulb on constantly will run you $131 per year ($10.92 per month, or $2358 over eighteen years). Most bedroom light fixtures have two bulbs, but I think it’s safe to assume that your child will turn the lights off some of the time. Running two bulbs half the time would cost about the same.

OK, so maybe it wasn’t your dream to raise your family in a two-bedroom apartment. Maybe you had envisioned a vine-covered cottage, or at least a house with a yard. Those are awesome. I’ve got one of those (the house with the yard–no vines). But if the choice is between Family in Apartment and No Family, personally, I’d go with Family in Apartment. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it a whole bunch more times before we’re done with this series: I’m really glad to be alive. Really. My parents had me when they lived in a two-bedroom apartment, and we kept on living in apartments, sometimes with two, sometimes with three bedrooms until I was nearly fourteen. In fact, the apartment we had right before we got our first house was a two-bedroom. I had one of the bedrooms, my elderly grandmother with Alzheimer’s had the other bedroom, and my parents and baby brother slept in the living room. (This is probably illegal now, so I’m technically not advocating it, but it makes a point.) Did I like it? No. Did I wish we had a house? Yes, especially when the college students next door had drunken beer parties outside my window. Was my mom thrilled out of her mind to have a crib as living room decor? Probably not, although she never complained. But you know what? It’s all over. My grandmother has passed away, and my parents have the peace of knowing they took care of her. I’m grown up, out of the house, and writing blog posts about how it wasn’t really so bad. And my brother is going on six feet tall and my mom’s bestest hiking and mountain biking buddy. Not bad for a few rough years of coping with “cozy.” If my parents had waited until they had a house, my brother and I would never have been born. And, not to sound like a broken record or anything, but I’m glad to be alive. So if you want to have a baby, but the vine-covered cottage is out of the question, I’d like to humbly submit that with a lot of careful parenting and love, your baby could grow up glad to be alive, too.

So let’s recap: extra rent may or may not be an issue depending on what you start with and extra utilities will be more or less of an issue, again depending on what you start with. That brings us to furniture. Babies don’t really need much, but eventually, you will definitely need a bed for your growing older child. Bedroom furniture can cost as much or as little as you care to spend. We have two sets of bunk beds, both of which were given to us for free as hand-me-downs. And we are hanging our children’s clothes up in their closets, so we aren’t using dressers, which means that we have spent practically nothing on bedroom furniture unless you count that giant bouncy horse, which was a poor choice, but that’s a different post. Obviously, you can’t count on being given furniture, but you are very likely to be able to find some reasonably priced items at garage sales, a resale shop, or on Craig’s list. I just did a little poking around on our local Craig’s list and found several twin bed frames with mattresses for under $100. Even if you go whole hog and buy a used bedroom set with a dresser and everything, you are still probably looking at a one-time cost of less than the monthly estimate from USDA.

But will your children hate you if they have to live in a small space with used furniture? I can’t promise that they won’t hate you even if you give them their own suite of rooms and remodel it annually, but there are a few things that I think will make a difference in how much your children suffer if they have to live with less. First, give them your best. Remember my parents who slept in the living room while I had my own room? If your kids see that you’re sacrificing to give them more of what limited resources you have, they’ll be much less likely to resent you for what you can’t give. Second, work together to make things better. I still remember the fun my mom and I had repainting a free hand-me-down dressing table for my room. My mom knew what I wanted. We looked for it together, and then we worked to make it just right for my vision–all for the cost of thought and effort, perseverance and a can of paint. And third, make sure your kids have friends who will build them up rather than tear them down. I’ll probably talk about this a lot, especially when we get to the part about clothes, but if your children’s friends are constantly telling them how ugly and inadequate their home is, they will feel poor no matter how much you give them. Be the parent. Make sure that doesn’t happen. You won’t be able to protect your children from all self-important haranguing, especially if it comes from family, but if your children spend most of their time surrounded by people who don’t criticize their lifestyle, they’ll be much more able to handle the few who do. And fourth, and most important, point your children towards the Lord. When I struggled with hating our cramped quarters, my mom advised me to pray about it and ask the Lord to show me things to like about that home. And He did. He really did. I came to love the morning sun on my hardwood floor, the little pink rose bush unfurling outside my window, and the peaceful color of the light that came in from the north. I’ll never forget those things or the lesson. Kids who have everything don’t need anything and sometimes miss out on needing God.

So, how much of that $70,345.20 can you safely disregard? Possibly, quite a lot. If all you’re paying for is a little extra electricity, maybe around $68,000 or so. Finding your own number means looking at what you have to start with (maybe checking your local laws) and making some educated guesses. With commitment to thinking outside the standard American box, the biggest chunk of child cost may not need to be so big after all.