



UPDATE 1

Our daughter is currently 4 months old and we have already spent close to $7000! However, a lot of this is towards things she isn't using quite yet (bigger sized clothing, 529 Savings account, etc.), but I can see us spending $10,000 to $14,000 just for her first year! I will update this post once again after a year and let you all know what the outcome is!





UPDATE 2 Our daughter is now a year old and honestly, I lost track of costs as being a parent and a blogger is a lot of work, haha! So I can only make a rough guess based on our grocery bill, which went up of course. It ends up coming close to $10,000 in just the first year. I don't intend to track everything from here on out, but I know a promised an update after the first year, so here it is!







Attribution: Image used in blog post photo does not belong to me and was found on Pexels.





I made this spreadsheet to estimate how much a baby would cost for his or her lifetime. It seems to range from around $160,000 to $600,000 depending on how much you are willing to spend on your child. Keep in mind that this is just for one child.I got my estimates/numbers from looking at prices listed on Craigslist/Facebook groups versus prices in stores/online sites in my area.Costs will vary from person to person for many reasons (freebies from family/friends, different areas have different prices, etc.), but I decided to share this for those interested in having children in the future so they can see how much they might end up spending, which is why I created the spreadsheet in the first place.Again, this is only for ONE child so costs might double if you have twins or choose to have a second child. It also does not include when your children have kids and you become grandparents. As many of us know, grandparents can contribute quite a bit to the cost of a grandchild. You might want to tack on a few thousand for the future grandkids if you plan on helping out your children raise their children.I would just like to reiterate that this is just an ESTIMATE and there are MANY factors that can affect how much it costs YOU to have a child, but making this spreadsheet was very helpful for us in deciding on when we think we are ready to add to our family, and so I thought it might be helpful for others who also want to plan ahead rather than just jumping in.