Saturday, April 16, 2016



What is the six month cost of ownership for a baby? We've tracked several expenses that are directly attributable to the baby and aggregated them here.

 

What Expenses are Included?

  • Medical - cost of delivery/c-section + cost of hospital stay (including NICU) + all associated trips to doctors' offices (all are what we owed after insurance) + cost of his insurance
  • Diapers - cost of diapers + cost of wet wipes used in diaper changes
  • Formula - cost of baby formula
  • Baby Safety - cost of car seats + cost of rug and pad for baby to lie on for tummy time, play time, etc.
  • Daycare - cost of daycare
  • Lost Wages - wages lost from mother's FMLA + cost of mother's benefits during FMLA - disability insurance payout - wages gained by cashing in vacation and sick leave
  • Nursery - cost to set up the nursery
Note that this leaves out many expenses that we either did not track separately and/or could not directly attribute to the baby. Examples of these are baby clothes, bottle expenses, and utilities. This means that the cost estimates that follow are likely underestimates.

If you would like to see these same costs at three months, they can be found here.

Results

The six month totals for each category are listed in the table below:



The expenses listed above are plotted vs. time as they accumulated in the interactive (non-mobile) chart below:



As can be easily seen from either one, the total cost is ~$16,500. If you would like to remove the lost wages section because it is a lost income rather than direct expense, you end up with a total cost of ~$10,300. At the rate we're going, daycare will be the largest cost by the end of this year. However...as was noted in previous posts, insurance does not protect you very well from giant medical expenses, so any medical emergencies will result in medical expenses being the largest.

It's also clear at this point that the costs of things like formula and diapers are nothing compared to the other costs. For perspective...two weeks of daycare is more expensive than the combined cost of six months of diapers, disposable wipes, and formula. Thus, if you're looking for ways to save, things like the following will be much more effective than, say, switching to cloth diapers:
  • Find a job that pays you for parental leave or has really good short-term disability coverage
  • Find an insurance provider that has good coverage for pregnancy expenses
  • Find a cheap daycare (note that you do get what you pay for to some degree so be careful with this)
  • Get second-hand nursery items


11 comments :

  1. For first-time guardians, it can be hard to know precisely what's in store from a youngster amid the initial six months. Each kid is distinctive. In addition, unseasoned parents who have restricted involvement with newborn children frequently envision that forward and backward correspondence starts quickly after birth.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can learn Spanish in six months or less. When traveling to Peru, or any Latin country, it would be in your best interest to at least have a working knowledge of the language. This article shows you how.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great article! thanks for sharing :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. People who share their knowledge are the best kind of people. Thanks for sharing your ideas in this precious blog. Marketing Assignment Help

    ReplyDelete
  5. I never thought I will come in contact with a real and potential hacker until I knew   brillianthackers800 at Gmail and he delivered a professional job,he is intelligent and understanding to control jobs that comes his way
    Contact him and be happy

    ReplyDelete
  6. Essay Help Zone is offering online essay help for the students who are looking for online expert essay writing services in the UK. They offer the most affordable prices to the customers. The complete team of professional writers provides you with complete and quality essay writing services.

    ReplyDelete
  7. He should be able to work in different environments and deliver as per expectations of his superiors while showing co-cooperativeness as insubordination will not be tolerated.
    essay help

    ReplyDelete
  8. Live captioning services help people to understand the message behind what gets spoken in the video by giving a musical effect. These videos may be related to television shows or movies going on. If you are searching for some impressive captions, then these Live Captioning Services are here for your assistance.
    closed captioning companies

    ReplyDelete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete