What a child actually costs

You will see a total for raising a child to eighteen and it will frighten you. Ignore it. Nobody pays that in a lump and the number tells you nothing useful.

The shape of it, roughly

• Year one is cheaper than you expect. Nappies, formula if you use it, and a burst of equipment at the start. Hand-me-downs cover most clothing.
• Childcare is the cliff. For most families it is the single largest cost of the pre-school years, and it can rival a mortgage. It arrives when leave ends.
• Then it flattens through primary, and climbs again with teenagers: food, phones, trips, kit, and the slow discovery that they eat like adults.

Three decisions that matter more than budgeting

• Claim Child Benefit even if your income means it gets clawed back. Claiming protects National Insurance credits for whoever is at home, which affects their state pension. People miss this constantly and it is worth thousands.
• Check childcare support properly, once, with both of you at the table. Tax-Free Childcare, funded hours, and Universal Credit childcare all exist and all have eligibility quirks. An hour on gov.uk beats guessing.
• Set up something automatic and small. A standing order into a separate pot the day after payday. The amount matters far less than it existing, because you will never find a spare hundred pounds at the end of a month.

The unglamorous stuff that protects them

Life insurance and income protection, and a will. If you are not married and have no will, the default outcomes are often not what you would choose. Twenty minutes and it is done.

The bit that is not about money

Most of what your child will remember costs nothing. Being taken to the park, being read to, being listened to at length about something you find dull. It is genuinely worth remembering when the childcare invoice arrives.