Raising a Kid Costs How Much???

Apparently raising an infant to age 18 in Canada jumped from $160,000 in 2004 to a crazy high of $243,660 today. Across the globe, the cost of having kids is going way up. Some woman in the UK, Hattie Garlick, started a blog (here) about her plan to not spend a dime on her toddler for one year, except for daycare and medical costs.

Responses to such an idea have varied according to the comments I've read under 2 articles about it. (Yahoo! and Embrace the Chaos) For the most part, people are like, Good for you! Awesome idea!

And then other people are like, I'm a poor person and you just insulted me by saying you're going to live like I have to in order to make ends meet.

I don't know what Garlick and her husband's annual income is. I doubt she's rich. I can extrapolate from the article that everything her son owns is brand new and she's bought her son things he doesn't necessarily need, but is probably convenient. I bet her and her husband are just an average middle income family.

You don't have to be rich to spend too much money on your kids. There's so much kid shit out there and if you're a first time parent, you can get caught up in what you think your kid will need and what will make your life better or easier. (Head's up, wet wipes warmers are really dumb!)

People want things that look attractive. People buy things based on their functionality, but for the most part people buy things based on how it looks. There's a warm, fuzzy feeling that washes over you when you walk into a beautifully decorated room with all matching furniture and accents. Parents want that for their baby. They want their mobile over the crib to match the baby blanket and the wall art.

They want their baby to look good and to have entire matching ensembles, where even the bib and socks and hat match perfectly and would look stupid if worn with any other outfit.

They want the diaper bag to match the stroller and the car seat. Does it matter if it matches? No, of course not, but also, yes, it really does matter to a lot of people. They want to look stylish and well put together and not like a multi-family yard sale threw up in their house.

People want things that are convenient. That's where the specialized diaper pails, bottle warmers, bottle sterilizers, and toddler food comes in. Baby Mum-Mum? It's rice cakes and cookies with zero nutritional value. I've done the research. You don't need to buy this stuff, but it makes life easy because you don't have to portion control it and it travels well.

People want smart babies. Even non-competitive parents want smart babies. All those mommy and me classes, special toddler gymnastics and kinder-music are nice if you can afford them, but in reality, if you want to introduce your child to something, it's cheaper and better to do it yourself. A 2 year old that knows how to somersault is no more ahead in life than the 2 year old who doesn't.

Spending zero dollars on a toddler should actually be simple if you're part of a network of moms who can give or lend you toys and clothes for free. Having worked with many toddlers, I've come to the conclusion that all they need is a place to run, a place to colour, and a place to sleep. Everything else you can improvise.

Personally speaking, almost everything Tesla owns was either given as a gift or handed down to her. Excluding formula - which we've spent around about $600 on so far - I've spent about $175 on Telsa. I bought brand new bottles, nipples, diapers, wipes, 2 Christmas outfits, and a bumper book that broke. That's all I got for my money.

I'm lucky enough to have a large and generous network of friends and family, but as you can see, well over $700 has been spent on a 5 month old with barely anything to show for it. If I were to add up the cost of all the gifts and hand me down given to me and buy them myself brand new... I bet I could get married and throw a wedding reception for less money.

No offense to the many poor people insulted by Hattie Garlick's experiment, but any time you fight consumerism, no matter what your income is, you are doing a good thing. Anytime you reuse or recycle you are doing a good thing. Anyone can be frugal, and I think spending zero on her son is going to be a great lesson for everyone involved and great for the environment too.