I just did a recap of YNAB last month. Excluding childcare, our overall household spending was the same in 2022 and 2019 (before baby). Direct (baby costs) and indirect (nursing mama needs more food) spending grew, but fancy sports gear, home improvement, entertainment, and travel decreased. For some of these categories, it was just a natural ebb and flow, but I also think we just have less time.
ETA: I hope it doesn’t read like fun decreased! Between covid and baby, though, we’ve started doing more travel to explore cool nooks of the US within 2-6 hours’ drive rather than flights.
Ok - I hesistate to actually show all these numbers because I don’t want to to scare you! But here’s the honest truth about our spending from day 1 of pregnancy through Pipsqueak’s first birthday.
A few caveats
I did not include healthcare or childcare costs
I got free hand-me-downs for some of the big things like crib, pack-n-play, and glider and we used our budget for those to upgrade our crib mattress and carseat picks rather than saving the money
I was pregnant through the early (scary) days of the pandemic and Pipsqueak was born at the start of the first COVID winter wave in LA which definitely skews some of these costs. Hospitals weren’t doing any parenting classes (birth/lactation/breastfeeding/first aid) so we paid for them through a local private shop that was quite expenses. We also paid for expensive but lifesaving virtual parent + me classes while I was on maternity leave because no one was leaving the house and I didn’t see anyone other than my spouse and my parents (for 2 weeks total) for the first 3 months after giving birth.
Blue: “Other”
Green: “Baby Stuff”
Orange: “Pregnancy & Postpartum Supplies”
Red: I should have removed that category which is called “Parking Racket” and is from our dr/hospitals parking structure
ETA: Naturpedic was the fancy-pants crib mattress that spouse wanted. The blanked out $451 was for a tripp trapp high chair I think
Costco is mostly diapers and Target includes fancy formula from 8-12 months when I stopped breastfeeding and Pipsqueak had allergies but also impulse buys like baby clothes.
Btw, Pipsqueak was born late Oct’20 and you can definitely see the panic purchases in October and 3am desperation purchases in Nov’20. You should budget for some of these
In terms of LA prices, our doula’s normal rates were actually $3000 but with COVID she was only charging 50% for the pre-birth support meetings up-front and 50% if she actually was allowed to come to the hospital for the birth (which she wasn’t).
Are cloth nappies viable when using a laundromat?
They were barely viable for us with our own laundry, washing machine and dryer. A few problems are the process we followed was a hot pre wash then a normal wash with other stuff. Plus we didn’t care that our machine was washing poo stuff. And those liners take forever to dry in a dryer. Way longer than normal clothes.
Right there with you on the 4th trimester panic purchases.
And wow, doula costs in my mid/large NE city are much lower (but so is cost of living, especially housing). Back in 2020 she charged $700 for virtual support (with 10 years of experience including training other doulas) and $195 for group birthing classes (3 sessions x 2 hours). Three years later she’s charging $1,200 which might be closer to market rate.
Yep! But with hanging. But lifestyle dependent. I think I would have quit at about a year, maybe 18 months when you start wanting to potty train because you think it will free you from pee and poo.
You go to the laundromat with diapers and put them in on a hot but regular cycle. Then you go back home and get your clothes and a little snack. You go to the laundromat and check if the cycle is done, then you add clothes and do another full cycle. Then you go to the pizza place or for groceries or for a walk, then you take the laundry home and hang.
Pricing really depends on whether you are paying over the table or under the table. We also paid over the table (i.e. paying taxes) so if that’s what you’re thinking about I can write up our various costs.
Here are the current rates for our bougie daycare. It’s not the most expensive in the area, but I think the others are only another $100/month or so. Tuition includes snacks 2x/day but we have to provide lunch. Like many of the higher-end daycares here, there are also requests throughout the year for extra donations for teachers or community fundraisers.
Before this, we had her in a Montessori preschool that was $2090 for toddlers 5 days a week and an extra $90/month for hot lunches which everyone did.
Nannies are a whole different ballgame. First, you need to decide what kind of nanny you are looking for. To way overgeneralize/stereotype there are three categories of people we met along the way:
Someone originally from another country who doesn’t speak a lot of English. Generally the cheapest/hour and more likely to want to be paid under the table. I know families who know and love their nannies in this category but we were paying over the table and most people weren’t interested in that. In our HCOL area people were generally asking for $18-20/hr.
“Granny Nannies”. Mostly retired teachers or stay at home moms who’s kids had grown. Generally very kind but also were up front that they were mostly interested in supervising and keeping the kid safe but weren’t going to be planning outings or enrichment activities, they were going to act like the grandma would. I don’t remember what they were charging because I never got a good vibe from anyone in this category. I’m sure there are great people but everyone I talked to gave me a lecture on how screen time was fine or something similar.
Young Professionals. Generally women in their early twenties who had done some college or maybe an overseas au pair gig and ha e realized they can make a decent wage nannying. Many have taken at least a couple early childhood development classes, and make a point of discussion how they’ll support your child’s emotional, social, etc. development. One woman I interviewed said she came up with a new theme every week (i.e. flowers) and planned an activity each day around the theme, like drawing flowers, or looking for different colored flowers outside to even plating lunch in the shape of a flower. Mostly these people want to be paid over the table and in LA are getting somewhere between $26-35/hr. Plus you have to pay employment taxes and usually a monthly service fee for a company to help with payroll and all the paperwork. We were paying $26/hr for 40 hr/week and it averaged $5.5K a monthly including taxes and fees.
If you have a nanny you are also responsible for paying for any art supplies, enrichment classes, etc. which are generally taken care of by a daycare.
Daycare centers generally have extended hours vs the strict 8:30-4:30 that our nanny was working. Some smaller in-home daycares may have less hours, but they’re also usually cheaper.
That’s going to be so location dependent. My monthly daycare cost was probably 1/4th a nanny cost, but my monthly daycare cost is also probably 1/4th the cost of daycare in a VHCOL area. I think it’s the “two in daycare” cost that starts to tip the balance into nanny being more cost effective for a lot of people. Nanny-share is a way to save costs even with care for one, but availability of that (or nannies at all) will also be location dependent.
We looked into getting an Au Pair when we tipped into 2 kids in daycare. It would have been less than centers here but about the same as in home daycares. We both work from home and do have a space we could have used for an Au Pair but in the end found a great in home daycare. We are people though who eventually want to host at least 1 foreign exchange student though.
Just to circle back because I’m about to do a grocery run and between inflation and the fact that my income makes me frugal by necessity as well as desire, I’ve been thinking about the grocery budget impact.
There’s a wide, perfectly healthy medium between “all hot dogs all the time” and “all out of season fresh berries all the time” and your baby/toddler budget can definitely adjust as needed for your reality. I get fresh raspberries when they are in season, but she doesn’t get to eat a whole carton in one sitting. No one is going to therapy because their mom told them to save some berries for the next meal, lol! Bananas are cheap, oranges are cheap, apples are cheap, grapes are relatively cheap, frozen fruit is relatively cheap and consistent in flavor all year round.
You’re exactly right that people have been raising kids on a careful budget for generations, and while it’s nice not to have to be careful, it’s certainly not a deprivation to do so. You’ve got this!
I’ve been tracking nanny /nanny share in our area. Nannies tend to want $25-30 per hour for one child, or $30-40 per hour for two children so if you do a nanny share each family pays $15-20.
