Cost to raise a child: $226,920 (BLOG)

Every year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issues new statistics on the cost of raising a child from birth to age 18. The latest report says the average cost is $226,920 -- almost  40% more than a decade ago, CNNMoney reports. 

That's for a middle-income, two-parent family with two kids in 2010. The numbers (.pdf file) change if you have a different income, or live in certain areas.

You can go to the USDA website and use its cost of raising a child calculator to get a more personalized view of the cost. According to my income and location, the USDA predicts I'll spend $26,463 a year on my son from birth through age 17. I'm pretty sure I'm not spending that much now. But I thought I'd work it out anyway.

How much am I spending to raise my son?
Looking at the USDA numbers is kind of daunting. Costs listed include housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, child care and education, and other.

The biggest expense on the list is housing, which I think is kind of silly in my case because my husband and I would probably live in the same size house, regardless of whether we had our son or not. At any rate, here is how we stack up so far this year.

I used actual figures for the first three quarters of the year, and then estimated fourth-quarter spending based on our current pace, assuming it stays the same (although I bet we actually cut back a little). The only exception is "other," where I include toys, since my son's birthday and Christmas are both coming up. I based that on last year's spending.
Also, since I work from home, and have no need of child care beyond baby-sitting when my husband and I go out, I include my son's summer camps in that category, as well as sports activities and music lessons.

For food, health care, housing (including utilities) and transportation, I took my family's total costs and divided them by three to get the individual amount for my son. (USDA bases the housing expense on the cost of providing an additional bedroom, plus utilities and furniture for that room.)

	USDA	Actual
Housing	$10,450	$6,560
Food	$3,200	$4,371
Transportation	$3,263	$1,096
Clothing	$1,238	$574
Health care	$1,238	$1,368
Child care & education	$4,450	$2,362
Other	$2,625	$980
Total	$26,463	$17,311

That's more than I expected it to cost, and more than I spent last year on my son, but he is also involved in more activities this year. And we clearly spend a substantial amount of money eating out, which is why the average food cost is higher. However, I doubt that my son is eating as much as the adults at this point (and he doesn't eat out with us each time, even though I included all our restaurant visits in food costs).

As I mentioned before, my son really isn't adding to our housing costs. Without housing costs added in for my son, the yearly spending on him drops to being on track for $10,751 this year.

It's clear that spending on my son doesn't have to be what the USDA and others expect. How much do you spend on your kids?