{"id":23584,"date":"2014-10-19T06:00:35","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T10:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=23584"},"modified":"2014-10-18T13:24:53","modified_gmt":"2014-10-18T17:24:53","slug":"kids-are-surprisingly-expensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=23584","title":{"rendered":"Kids are surprisingly expensive"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a bit shocking when you think how much we spend on our kids, but it’s worth it<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Kelly Hockenberry<\/strong>, Columnist, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"UTKellyColumn<\/a>I read a really interesting article on one of my favorite websites, Refinery 29, about the cost\u00a0of raising children (read it here: http:\/\/r29.co\/1sA1VcH<\/a>). While they were focused on the\u00a0necessities like food and shelter, I was thinking this:<\/p>\n

Nike Elite socks<\/p>\n

Limited Edition high-top sneakers<\/p>\n

i-Phone upgrades<\/p>\n

Orthodontia<\/p>\n

Basketball camp<\/p>\n

Car insurance<\/p>\n

Future college applications, eventual college tuition<\/p>\n

Etc, etc\u2026<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides a handy-dandy calculator to estimate how\u00a0much your kids will drain your life savings. Lucky for us, the Northeast suburbs happen to be\u00a0one of the most expensive areas of the country in which to provide for a family. I sat down and\u00a0plugged in our numbers. According to the government, my husband and I spend approximately\u00a0SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS per year on our two sons.<\/p>\n

And that is not taking into account most of my aforementioned list. Good thing we only have two\u00a0offspring. Jeez.<\/p>\n

The frightening part is that I think we are rather conservative when it comes to spending on\u00a0our kids. Don\u2019t get me wrong, they certainly do not want for much; however, they are not\u00a0automatically rewarded with materialistic things simply because some of their friends have\u00a0them. We have instilled a sense of work ethic and responsibility and they are genuinely\u00a0appreciative of the gifts they receive. (Most of the time)<\/p>\n

We are fortunate to live in a beautiful area with access to fantastic schools. I would argue\u00a0that the only potentially hazardous side effect of our good fortune is the \u201ckeeping up with the\u00a0Joneses\u201d attitude that rears its ugly head every once in a while. But, the overwhelming amount\u00a0of the time the cost of parenting for us is more emotional than financial.<\/p>\n

Because, in reality, while being a mom really isn\u2019t \u201cpriceless\u201d as evidenced by this tirade, there\u00a0is no amount of money that would replace it.<\/p>\n

Happy Weekend<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a bit shocking when you think how much we spend on our kids, but it’s worth it By Kelly Hockenberry, Columnist, The Times I read a really interesting article on one of my favorite websites, Refinery 29, about the cost\u00a0of raising children (read it here: http:\/\/r29.co\/1sA1VcH). While they were focused on the\u00a0necessities like food […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[245,7],"tags":[6268,76,796],"class_list":["post-23584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-featured","tag-cost-of-raising-kids","tag-kids","tag-spending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23585,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23584\/revisions\/23585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}