Baby Calculator: How Much You’ll Spend in Year 1
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Whether you're thinking about becoming a parent or already have a little one relying on you, chances are you've thought quite a bit about the cost of raising a baby.
We've tallied typical costs for a variety of goods and services to give you a sense of roughly how much you might spend in the first year of your baby's life. Use our baby calculator to guide you through the general expenses of Year 1:
To estimate the total cost of raising a baby in the first year of life, we added all annual totals in the following categories:
Housing:
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2015
Amount: Difference between mean housing expenses for a married couple only and married couple with children
Metro area differences: Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 2015
Food:
Source: Official U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Plans, December 2016
Amount: Monthly cost of food for 1-year-old on “thrifty” or “liberal” plan, multiplied by 12
Transportation:
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2015
Amount: Difference between mean transportation expenses for a married couple only and married couple with children
Metro area differences: Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 2015
Child care:
Source: Child Care Aware, Parents and the High Cost of Child Care, 2016
Amount: Average of state-by-state data for full-time, center-based infant care (“simple”) or for nanny care (“deluxe”) assuming 12 weeks of parental leave
Out-of-pocket health care costs:
Source: Health Care Cost Institute, Children’s Health Spending 2010-2014
Amount: Per capita, annual health care spending for children 0-3
Health insurance:
Source: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2015 Employer-Based Health Insurance Premiums
Amount: Employee share of premiums for employer-based coverage; difference between national average prices for family coverage versus “employee plus one” coverage
Cost of starting a college savings account:
Source: Financial Industry Regulatory Authority College Savings Calculator
Amount: Used calculator’s default settings to arrive at typical annual savings rate
Life insurance:
Source: NerdWallet life insurance tool
Amount: One 20-year, $1 million policy each for a healthy 30-year-old man and woman
Toys, clothes and other miscellaneous costs:
Source: NerdWallet Baby Checklist
Using the NerdWallet Baby Checklist, we built a database of thrifty options purchased online, then used a multiplier to determine how much a household with greater income would spend
Diaper estimates were obtained from the Diaper Bank Network
