According to MSN.com, that's how much you'll pay to raise a kid from birth to age 17 (note that that figure doesn't even factor in those wonderful college expenses). So how are so many people from modest means go about raising a child without going (too far) into hock?
As someone who is in the home stretch of our most expensive year of parenting, thus far (including a trip to China to adopt one child, day care/preschool expenses for both kids, and diapering the baby), I have to say it isn't easy. Especially when the economy pulls the rug out from under your relatively successful business.
Our entertainment expenses have been practically nil, since we've basically had a sitter exactly three times in the past year (and every time was free). A wild night for us is a glass of wine and a game of dominoes.
Since I'm able to accomplish most of my writing and content strategy work from the comfort of my couch, I'm saving oodles on commuting and wardrobe (since I don't even have to move out of my pajamas on any given day, if I really don't want to).
And of course, there's always debt. We are in the hole right now, due to a faster-than-expected adoption, and a miserable fourth quarter for my business. But I'm expecting, with my growing uptick in work, the fact that my oldest is heading for a (free! blessedly free!) wonderful kindergarten down the street, and my hope that we'll make it through the next quarter without a major home-repair catastrophe (fingers crossed and knocking on wood), we'll be, with the exception of our mortgage, debt free by January.
Just in time to really buckle down and start saving up for college—the other quarter million we'll need to raise by 2022.
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