Children cost a lot of money. In the US, the average cost of raising a child from birth to age 18 is $237,482, according to one 2023 study. And that’s just the price of the “bare bones” expenses – necessities like rent, food and childcare. In the UK, raising a child costs on average £223,256.
But those numbers can feel abstract. So, to get a better understanding of what parenting costs really look like, we asked four sets of parents to break down how much they spend on their child or children per month.
