To have a child or not to have a child

[Lorelei12]

It is a hardship to lose 1/2 or 1/3 of household income, which is what is going to happen when the OP’s wife quits her job. It’s not impossible to deal with (and I think you’re correct that the OP is financially savvy), but it is a substantial obstacle. If they currently have $300 extra a month counting just his salary, even fairly basic baby expenses will evaporate that. For example, let’s say that they have $50 a month diaper expenses plus an extra $150-$200 a month in food expenses once the baby starts eating a lot of table food. Add in a wobble in the cost of utilities or gas, and their $300 is gone and they have no money to save toward the purchase of a home or to save for emergencies. I was just looking at a foodstamp eligibility site, and they add $154 a month in food stamp allowance when going from a 2 person to a 3 person household, so I think we have to assume that the OP and his wife will need at least that.

I don’t get why so many people say babies are not expensive.

Just the basic stuff ended up being way more expensive than we had anticipated. Then we ended up needing hypoallergenic formula ($400/month) and stuff like crazy-expensive eczema cream ($40/month) because he was allergic to oats, which is a normal ingredient in most creams. So many seemingly small, unanticipated costs have really added up in a way we never expected.

That $300 extra will go very, very fast.

 

[Xantippe]

I’m aware that it could be a lot worse. That doesn’t mean what I do now isn’t hard (and acknowledging that it is very hard doesn’t also mean that I can’t count my blessings.)

If the OP can do a little now to avoid extreme measures (and I mean extreme - you can see examples on other threads about the things I do to save money) then I think that’s going to be better for his family’s financial and emotional health. Of course crises are unavoidable, but it’s not wise to invite one in. (And like I said, they’ve got at least nine months anyway to learn a bit.)

Right. If they start living their parenting budget now, it won’t be as hard to make the adjustment later.

 

[MamaJewel]

In this thread, which happens to be on personal finance.

If you want Bible quotes, let’s do Bible quotes.

Proverbs 22:7 “The borrower is slave to the lender.”

Proverbs 13:22 "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous. "

1 Timothy 5:8 “If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

2 Thessalonians 3:6-12: “6 Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, 8 we did not eat any one’s bread without paying, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you. 9 It was not because we have not that right, but to give you in our conduct an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living.”

I don’t have the time to do a really thorough search, but there’s lots more where those came from. St. Paul and the authors of Proverbs would have had very little patience for Mr. Becker.

Excellent verses to consider. Thanks for sharing.

 

[UbiCaritas]

I don’t get why so many people say babies are not expensive.

Just the basic stuff ended up being way more expensive than we had anticipated. Then we ended up needing hypoallergenic formula ($400/month) and stuff like crazy-expensive eczema cream ($40/month) because he was allergic to oats, which is a normal ingredient in most creams. So many seemingly small, unanticipated costs have really added up in a way we never expected.

That $300 extra will go very, very fast.

Quite. Now, some babies won’t be expensive; if they don’t have health issues, and if mom doesn’t work out of the house, and *if *breastfeeding does work, and *if *mom decides to cloth diaper, and if the parents get a lot of hand-me-downs from friends, then sure, the parents may not see a significant income decrease. That’s an awful lot of ifs, though, and many of them you really can’t know until baby’s here, or been here for some time.

OP, I would point out that adding DD onto our health insurance alone cost over $300/month, and she’s had all of a couple of colds her entire life, never anything except well-child visits at the pediatrician’s. At a minimum, it might not be a bad idea to find out how much it’ll cost to add a dependent to yours.

 

[ThePCWife]

Something to think about for the OP. The median household income for married-couple families of 2, 3, 4 or 5+ children (they stopped counting after five kids, it’s a very small group of people nationwide going up to and past five these days) is about 90k/year. For one child it’s 85k as the median. Obviously half of all married-couples with kids are providing for them on less than the median, but it’s nearly twice as high as the national household median income, which is around 50k/yr.

This means that even many families with “many” children are not providing for them on small incomes. You don’t have to be rich to have kids, but the people having a lot of kids are not that poor as a group.

 

[Xantippe]

Something to think about for the OP. The median household income for married-couple families of 2, 3, 4 or 5+ children (they stopped counting after five kids, it’s a very small group of people nationwide going up to and past five these days) is about 90k/year. For one child it’s 85k as the median. Obviously half of all married-couples with kids are providing for them on less than the median, but it’s nearly twice as high as the national household median income, which is around 50k/yr.

This means that even many families with “many” children are not providing for them on small incomes. You don’t have to be rich to have kids, but the people having a lot of kids are not that poor as a group.

I’d like a link, but I think you are in the right ballpark–while US median household income hovers around $50k, family income is actually much higher. The number I’ve seen for a family of four is $70k.

work.chron.com/average-yearly-income-middle-class-family-16547.html

There are a lot of double income families contributing to that relatively high number.

 

[ThePCWife]

I’d like a link, but I think you are in the right ballpark–while US median household income hovers around $50k, family income is actually much higher. The number I’ve seen for a family of four is $70k.

work.chron.com/average-yearly-income-middle-class-family-16547.html

There are a lot of double income families contributing to that relatively high number.

I got it from one of the historical income pages at the census bureau’s income. It went back decades and adjusted to current dollars. The interesting thing was that the convergence is recent, bigger families used to have a lower median.

census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/index.html was my starting point.

 

[ThePCWife]

I can’t edit, but finding the exact table was driving me nuts, and I did find it, but it was for all families, not just married-couple families.

 

[Xantippe]

I can’t edit, but finding the exact table was driving me nuts, and I did find it, but it was for all families, not just married-couple families.

Ah, that’s a big distinction.

I looked briefly at the tables, but my eyeglass prescription and math abilities weren’t up to it.

 

[Xantippe]

I just found something relevant:

thepracticalconservative.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/marriage-and-children-in-wedlock-do-cost-100k-per-year-to-have/

The blogger there finds that median family income among married parents with children is surprisingly high (and this is ALL married parent families–all races, all economic and educational levels, all immigration statuses). Here are the medians for different numbers of children (I’ll round) with the percentage at $75k and $100k in paranethesis like this (percentage at $75k or higher/percentage at $100k or higher):

–1 child–$91k (62/44)
–2 children–$92k (62/46)
–3 children–$78k (52/37)
–4 children–$66k (42/29)
–5 children–$57k (40/28)
–6 children–$50k (38/22)
–7 children–$70k (45/27)
–8 children–$61k (46/39)

I’m pre-coffee, so if anybody is really interested, look at the Practical Conservative’s numbers–I may have miscopied. She notes that the figures also give the raw number of families at each size level. As she notes, there are certain cliffs where the number of families drops sharply. She points out to the ones after 3 and 5 children, but there’s also a big drop-off after 2, 4 and 6.

In fact, after two children, the standard pattern is that the number of families in the next bigger category tends to be 2/3 lower than the previous. That’s how we get from 10 million married parent families with 2 children to less than 17,000 married parent families in the with 8 or more children.

The Practical Conservative says, “And there you have it. A majority of households having kids in wedlock are not doing it on the cheap and significant pluralities are not doing so at larger family sizes. Definitely something for conservatives to think about when discussing family and marriage issues. Even at high incomes, it’s possible to feel broke raising kids these days because the prices are being set by very high income households.”

She doesn’t mention this, but those high household income medians for families are very relevant when it comes to house-buying time–it means that the relatively lower-income married couple is going to have a very hard time buying into a safe neighborhood.

On average, married families aren’t poor and poor families aren’t married.

I’d also point out that the income shown at different numbers of children resembles a truncated V–from 3-6 children household income is going down and down and down, but it bounces up again at 7-8 kids.

There also seems to be a major income penalty for going beyond 2 children–probably reflecting the household’s decreased ability to send a second parent out to work.

I may repost the link as its own thread, because there’s a lot of meat in here.

Something to think about for the OP. The median household income for married-couple families of 2, 3, 4 or 5+ children (they stopped counting after five kids, it’s a very small group of people nationwide going up to and past five these days) is about 90k/year. For one child it’s 85k as the median. Obviously half of all married-couples with kids are providing for them on less than the median, but it’s nearly twice as high as the national household median income, which is around 50k/yr.

This means that even many families with “many” children are not providing for them on small incomes. You don’t have to be rich to have kids, but the people having a lot of kids are not that poor as a group.