Impact on Your Finances
Having a baby drains your bank account, yet it pays you back in immeasurable love. Babies are not cheap. Many people think they are, for how can something so small that only drinks free breast milk be expensive? Babies are in fact a huge expense.
The costs begin in pregnancy, when you have regular medical expenses, the cost of classes and books, and an entire new wardrobe for yourself. Move on to birth, with hospital costs for mom and baby. Then consider loss of income from taking time off or leaving or cutting back your hours at work, or from your partner doing the same thing. If one of you needs to switch to a family health insurance policy, there may be additional costs there. Then consider the costs of diapers, baby clothes, baby equipment, baby toys and books, baby food, formula, baby doctor visits, child care, and more. If you need a bigger home at some point, you'll have the costs of that as well. In short, babies are not cheap, and they don't get any less expensive as they grow older.
It costs the average family approximately $269,000 to raise a child from birth to age seventeen, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And that does not take into account the cost of college! All told, that tiny little bundle of joy will end up costing you well over a third of a million dollars.
