With USDA’s Cost of Raising a Child Calculator, you can estimate how much it will annually cost to raise a child. This may help you plan better for overall expenses including food, or to purchase adequate life insurance.

The amount of money you spend depends on how many children you have, the age of the children, your marital status, where you live, and your household income. The results are based on what families similar to your family spend in a year and include a breakdown by major budgetary components (see results page for these budgetary components and what they include).

If your yearly expenses are different than average, you can type in your actual expense for a specific budgetary component by just going to Calculator Results, typing in your actual expenses on the results table, and hitting the Recalculate button. (Click here for a sample of Results as a PDF*.) You may especially want to do this for child care and education as these expenses vary greatly among families.

Please note that the calculator applies to children less than 18 years old. So, it does not include expenses on older children, including the cost of a college education. The expenses are updated annually. The most recent figures are for 2011.

* To view PDFs, use the free Adobe Reader.

Important legal information: This is an educational tool based on USDA’s Expenditures on Children by Families, 2011 report. This tool is not a recommendation to buy or invest in any particular product or security.
 

Last Modified: June 13, 2012 05:19 PM