Parenting Archives - Modern FImily

Here’s How Much Our Son’s Second Year Cost

Court and Nic — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 02:15:22 +0000

Time for another annual kiddo spending update! For those new here, you can see all our parenting related posts here.

Pull up any article on Google about the costs of raising a kid and they will tell you to get ready to spend anywhere from $10,000-$15,000 per year. MoneySense released an article this August with updated 2023 figures to raise a child in Canada and they calculated an average annual cost of $16,900 CAD/year or $321,020 CAD as the total cost from birth to 18 to raise a child in Canada. And this figure does NOT include any university spending or investing within an RESP to help offset post-secondary costs.

We’re here to dispel this myth that kids MUST be expensive. Really, kids can be as expensive as you choose.

A caveat: We live in Canada where healthcare costs for residents are $0 thanks to our healthcare system. This includes doctor visits, shots/vaccines, trips to the urgent care/hospital, surgeries, eye exams, first pair of glasses for kids, etc.

This coverage does not include things such as elective procedures, physiotherapy, massage, chiro, occupational therapy, dental, prescriptions, etc. There is supplemental coverage options available for these categories but we have elected not to purchase this additional coverage.

The Breakdown:

Diapers & Wipes: $199
- 742 Size 4
- 208 Size 5
- Total: 950
- When Parker was ~1.5 he started to show interest in potty training. We were in Portugal so it was very loosey goosey as we didn’t have any sort of training potty material with us. By the time he turned 2, he was 100% potty trained for poops and 80% trained for pees. We still use diapers for naps and overnight sleeps.
- We found Pampers Swaddlers worked the best for both of our little ones. On average, we spent just under $0.16.5 per diaper during this second year.
- We prefer Costco Kirkland baby wipes. We purchased two more boxes of 900 wipes by the time he turned 2.
- I cannot waittttt to be done with diapers!
Nursery: $62 (all new)
- Mattress sheets ($16) and shelving cubes ($52)
Medicines/hygiene: $248 (all new)
- Diaper cream, Camilia teething drops, hair cut kit (the gift that keeps on giving), Tylenol, soothers, hair goo product, Pedialyte, ear infection prescription x2, pink eye prescription, and hospital parking (for a surgery he had that was $0)
- Not much you can do about these costs and the various medicines and hygiene products will obviously vary on the kid. We currently have no coverage for prescription medicine so we pay the full amount.
Random things: $256
- 5 year passport renewal & passport photos, water bottles x3, Portugal airplane activities, souvenir, replacement ergo carrier (left ours on the plane, thankfully the airline found it, and then we left it again another day at the airport agh!), carnival, games, toys
Activities: $295
- 1/2 sports centre pass October – January
- 1/2 zoo membership
- cabin activities – swimming, ice cream, petting farm
- Big Box indoor play centre
Clothes: -$29
- We spent a whooping $6 on clothes this year and sold $35 of clothes. Clearly, we had many hand me downs from his older sister.
Things we received for free as gifts or for free from random other parents in our community: $0
- I’ve stopped tracking this category but I’m sure there were clothes, shoes and toys that we received for free this year. We are thankful to have friends and family around that have gifted us items over the years. Our local Buy Nothing Group has been a fantastic resource and we love gifting things on there too. There are TONS of free baby-related items out there once you know where to look.
Things we sold: -$206
- baby gate, booster seat, high chair, bike, ride on toys, stroller, random toys

How Much Did We Spend?

Drum roll pleaseeeeeee

We spent a total of $825 during our little guy’s second year. That comes out to $69 per month. During our daughter’s second year, we spent $1,416, so $591 less even though the cost of things has gone up significantly in 3 years time thanks to inflation. This is an example of how the second kiddo likely will cost less than your first.

Not as bad as what a Google search will show you eh? Of course, this is just our personal experience but again we’re here to dispel the myth that babies HAVE to be expensive.

RESP Contributions

We also contributed $2,500 towards his RESP education fund to get the full 20% match ($500) from the government so a total of $3,000 was invested into his future education. If that annual investment of $3,000 grows at an average annual rate of 7% for 18 years, he will have ~$104,000 to put towards his education. Rather than do this for 18 years, we plan to keep this up for 15 years to get the max lifetime grant of $7,200 from the government. Assuming we stop contributing into their RESPs after age 15, at an average annual growth of 7% he will have ~$95,000 in his RESP by the time he’s 18 to account for his post-secondary education. (For those curious, we will still contribute $2,500/year/kid into their investments but will shift from their RESP to their Informal Trust account instead since we’ve maxed out the government grants in their RESP after age 15.)

In Canada, this should be more than enough. And if not, I see nothing wrong with him taking out student loans for the remainder (my $65,000 USD student loans were what kick started me on my interest in personal finance). If he decides to go another route, this money is earmarked for him to use for whatever – be it to travel around the world, take some online courses/certificates, go into the trades, go into the military, start his own business, use as a downpayment for a house, etc.

Food Costs

We haven’t separated how much we spent on his food compared to our overall food spending but during his second year it was likely around $50/month for a total of $600/year.

Adding It All Up

So if we also include the $2,500 RESP contribution and $600 in food, we’re looking at a total of $3,925 total out of pocket for his first year. Of course, the RESP is elective and we recognize our privilege of being able to contribute this $2,500 towards his education each year.

There you have it!

We recognize our privilege of having both parents at home to avoid any sort of day care costs. This is another example of how being aggressive in your FI pursuits at a young age has benefits down the road to help keep your post-FIRE costs down. After he turns 3 we will likely enrol him in 1 day/week of pre-school that will cost $0.

Those with parents, are you as crazy as us and keep track of your baby-related expenses? Would you say you spent more or less than $825 on kiddo-related expenses (excluding education and food) during their second year? How have your child-related costs changed compared to their first few years?

Those without kids yet but considering it in the future, if you’re reading this blog you likely are not part of the herd mentality and hopefully you too can stay well under the average of $10,000-$15,000/year. Any questions for us? Happy to help!

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Here’s How Much Our Daughter’s 5th Year Cost Us

Court — Fri, 19 May 2023 16:52:02 +0000

This is our fifth year outlining details of kid-related items and costs we’ve encountered with our oldest kiddo. If you missed the earlier posts + our post on tips for new baby items, you can check them out here:

Now that our family has expanded, we have started to also track our annual expenses for our son, which can be found here:

Here’s How Much Our Son’s First Year Cost

We’re now going to dig into the costs during our kiddos fifth year. My oh my, where does time go?!

Some caveats:

We live in Canada where healthcare costs for doctor and ER visits are free. Vision is also free for kids under 18. Thankfully she is healthy and the only medical related costs we have for her are dental visits.
For items that we had for our oldest but held on to until our youngest was finished before selling, we will include in oldest’s post after the item has been sold (so those with a single child can see the costs with just one child involved).
Certain items we split between the two of them, such as annual memberships, since it’s something the whole family partakes in

The Breakdown:

Medicines/Hygiene: $204
- We snuck in our last dental cleaning last August while we were still covered with our supplemental health plan from my former employer. Without coverage, this cleaning would have been $180 but with 70% covered it was $54 out of pocket.
- We were smacked with various colds throughout the year and paid for over the counter medicines like kids Advil and Tylenol as well as a few prescriptions too.
- We also saw an allergist and purchased some allergy meds. The appointment with the allergist specialist cost $40.
- Lastly, we got a hearing test done (it’s confirmed, she just has selective listening when asking to clean up the house…) This was free, we just had to pay for parking at the facility.
Random Things: $260
- Pretty much any figurine, play set, game, book, puppet, etc that we purchased for the year was from our local second hand shop. They have an amazing selection of kids items for super reasonable prices. We’ve found more value here than buying things second hand on FB marketplace or Varage Sale.
- Ordered new passport photos and a new 5 year passport
- 3 new water bottles
- Potty seats
- Lego set
- Magic School Bus books
- A shelving cube for her room
- A Save/Spend/Give/Invest piggy bank – woohoo!
Christmas Items: $10
- - Santa delivered two free items – a Polly Pocket set we got from our local Buy Nothing Group and a Science Experiment Kit that one of our FIRE friends gave to us (thanks Chelsey!)
  - We gifted her a set of Disney Fairies figurines and Polly Pocket clothes and accessories. We purchased a mixed fairies lot for $8, kept the 5 figurines, and sold the rest of the lot back for $8. Ba boom. Another FIRE friend gave us a set of Polly Pocket clothes & accessories (thanks Chantal and Shane!).
  - Crafts and stocking stuffers: $10
5th Birthday Items: $36
- - Pet fish ($0, second hand adoption)
  - Frozen castle ($0, second hand)
  - Unicorn stuffy from her brother ($2, second hand)
  - The Fairy Game ($5, second hand)
    - Great purchase (83% off retail price) and we all really love this cooperative learning game
  - Frozen Lego ($7, new)
  - 5th Birthday Party Supplies ($22)
    - Had a low key park party – snacks for adults and kiddos, auntie made cupcakes, piñata, pin the horn on the unicorn, and goodie bags
Clothes: -$159
- We continue to sell more clothes than we bring in
Activities: $702
- Spending at the cabin: $17
  - Swimming pool, ice cream, and the petting farm
- Swimming Lessons: $94
  - Two weeks of swimming lessons over the summer while at the cabin
- 1/2 Annual Zoo Membership: $112
  - This is 1/2 of the cost to have the family membership for the year. We put the other half under Parker’s expenses.
- The Big Box: $11
  - Large indoor entertainment centre
- Bowling: $15
  - Kids bowl free from May 15-September 15. We went 4 times with some friends and just had to pay for shoe rentals each time.
- Gymnastics: $30
  - $5 drop in per class, we went randomly in November, December, January, and April
- Sports Centre: $166
  - This is 1/2 of the cost to have the family membership from mid October – January. We put the other half under Parker’s expenses.
- Skiing: $0
  - Combo of late snow + knowing that we were heading to Portugal in the middle of the winter + Parker napping in the middle of the day, we didn’t make it out to the ski hill this year. We did take Finn out to our sled hill in town with her skis to head down that hill a good 10 times in December/January. It was actually really nice to get her on skis only 5 minutes away from home. Definitely hurt the back not having a magic carpet to bring her back up to the top!
- Portugal costs: $48
  - Airplane activities: $6
  - Carnival: $8
  - Lisbon Oceanarium aquarium: $22
  - Portugal souvenir: $12
  - Note – Of course, there were travel related costs to going to Portugal with kids (plane tickets, staying in a 2 bedroom rental vs a 1 bedroom), but we don’t consider these kid specific costs and rather fall into our overall travel bucket.
- Fall Soccer Registration: $129
  - We signed Finn up for 8 outdoor soccer classes for this upcoming fall
- Preschool: $80
  - The Alberta government rolled out its various subsidies for affordable child care which makes Finns preschool free (2 days a week, 3 hours sessions).
  - We paid $80 at the beginning of the year to go towards various supplies they use during the school year.
Things we received for free as gifts or for free from random other parents in our community on FB Marketplace / Varage Sale: $0
- Gifts from friends & family:
  - Holidays: Frozen magnet book, Picasso tiles (we love these!), a Poop A Lot animal thing, a remote control car, another Polly Pocket set.
  - 5th birthday: MAKE UPPPP (huge hit oh my), clip-on earrings, a necklace, a succulent, stuffies, a fairy garden, Polly Pocket (wait what?!), Lego sets, books, crafts, and a dress.
- Free items (mainly from random other parents via the Varage Sale app):
  - I honestly stopped tracking this but we’ve been reaching out for fewer items these days.
Items we sold: -$347
- The purgeeeeee continues! I love getting rid of stuff!

How Much Did We Spend?

Drum roll pleaseeeeeee…..

We spent a grand total of $706 during our little lady’s fifth year. That comes out to $59 per month.

Wait – I swear, kids are supposed to be expensive dammit!

We should not gloss over that we “made” money this year selling items. In total, we sold $506 of kid related items for the year. Without this included, we spent $1,212 – which still is lower than I was expecting. I don’t see why we wouldn’t include these sales though as these items were things we had picked up for kiddo and now no longer use/need.

We also contributed $2,500 towards her RESP education fund to get the full 20% match ($500) from the government so a total of $3,000 was invested into her future education this year.

I’d say her eating has plateaued the past 2 years and we have a general routine of meals/snacks that she prefers. We are likely spending $75/month on food-related costs for her. Here’s her typical day:

breakfast – toast or wraps or pancakes with Nutella
gummy vitamin “treat”
pre-lunch snack – frozen yogurt tube, cucumbers, almonds, bar
1 treat a day, which we try to do around lunch
lunch – typically some sort of carb related meal with fruit
afternoon snack – garlic peas, seaweed, olives, pickles, apple sauce, rice cake with cream cheese
- Yes, most days it is all of these things
supper – whatever we’re eating, although she’s gotten more picky this year so we might have to tweak it a bit for her – mainly that she doesn’t seem to want anything spicy anymore
stories & snack – apple, fancy old cheddar cheese, frozen mango, red peppers, mini muffin, and likely another frozen yogurt tube

So if we also include the $2,500 RESP contribution and ~$75/month of food ((75*12)=$900) we’re looking at a total of $4,106 out of our pockets in her fifth year. Of course, the RESP is elective and we recognize our privilege of being able to contribute this $2,500 towards her education each year.

There you have it! Short and sweet as we really didn’t spend that much

It really is shocking to me how we have yet to spend over $2,000 in any given year so far (excluding RESP and food). And truly we are not sitting around doing nothing!

Here are some of our typical low/no cost activities that we do:

playgrounds/parks
ride bikes
play in the backyard (sand box, swing, play house, teeter totter, scooter, water table)
chill in the hot tub
read books (lotsssss of books daily – free from the library – we currently have over 100 library books checks out)
play with friends
play with figurines in her pretend world (her fav)
swimming (sports centre in the winters and creeks, lakes, outdoor pools in the summer)
splash park
walk through the dog park
hiking
skate park
pump park
go for a date to get a Timbit
play a board game, cards, play doh, lego, crafts, etc
sledding
skating at an outdoor rink
snowshoeing
watch hockey games at a local rink
zoo
science centre
holiday parades, celebrations, light shows, fireworks
weekly free classes: parented toddler preschool class, music & rhyme, lego day, Kindergarten ABC class, mindfulness/yoga/art classes, story time, rumble & roar class
- It’s a bit of a Catch-22 that those of us who are not working Monday-Friday can access many free activities going on during the week

Stay tuned as we will provide a similar update in the near future for Parker’s annual spend report for his second year. Any guesses on what we spent on his second year??

Those with parents, are you as crazy as us and keep track of all of your kid-related expenses? Would you say you spent more or less than $706 on kiddo-related expenses (not including future education and food) during their fifth year? What was your largest child-related purchase(s) this year? How have your child-related costs changed compared to their first few years?

Those without kids yet, if you’re reading this blog you likely are not part of the herd mentality and hopefully you too can stay well under the average of $8,000-$13,000/year. The Wall Street Journal upped the cost to raise a child from birth – 18… they are now tallying it up to $300,000! That is NUTS!! There is no right or wrong way to parent. We are simply showing that the “norm” $8,000-$13,000 (or more) annually in the first few years can be challenged. We completely recognize our privilege to not have costly childcare costs in the picture.

Any questions for us? Hope this helps!

And again, if you’d like to check out the related posts on this topic, you can check them out here:

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The post Here’s How Much Our Daughter’s 5th Year Cost Us appeared first on Modern FImily.

Here’s How Much Our Son’s First Year Cost

Court and Nic — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 06:34:53 +0000

Similar to what we’ve been doing annually for our daughter, we are recreating for our son now that he’s finished up his first rotation around the sun!

For those new here, you can see all our parenting related posts here.

Pull up any article on Google about the costs of raising a kid and they will tell you to get read to spend anywhere from $10,000-$15,000 per year. We’re here to dispel this myth that kids MUST be expensive. Really, kids can be as expensive as you choose.

Some caveats:

We live in Canada where healthcare costs for childbirth for residents are $0 thanks to our healthcare system. This includes all prenatal costs with our primary doctor and maternity clinic, hospital visit to deliver the baby, post-delivery hospital care (including extended time in the NICU, if needed), follow up doctor visits, shots/vaccines, etc.
- Parker was breeched and Nic had an ECV performed to try and flip him to avoid a c-section. Thankfully it worked (in less than a minute!). This too was covered and came at no cost to us.
We live in Canada which offers 12-18 months of parental leave. With Finn, Nic took the full 18 months to never to return to work again. This time around with Parker, it was my turn to take the full parental leave (as I was the only spouse working). Since I was not the birth parent I could not take the max 18 months leave, but I was able to take 61 weeks off where I was receiving $357/week (total of $21,777).
Thankfully our son took to breastfeeding and we never had to purchase or use any formula. Like his sister, he is also is a weirdo and never took to bottles. Or cows milk. Or soy milk. Or oat milk. Like ever…
As a same sex family, we have a cost to pay to create our family. This post does not include the costs incurred for us to add another little human to our family (vitamins/medicine, sperm storage, donor samples, shipping/storage of donor samples, fertility clinic visits, IUI attempts) which cost us ~$5,300 as most people reading this will not encounter these additional costs (although fertility treatment is becoming more and more common). This was the cost we spent to conceive our son, and not related to what we spent during his first year. For those curious, Nic was successfully pregnant with Finn with IUI attempt #1 and Parker was IUI attempt #3.

The Breakdown:

Diapers & Wipes: $352
- 24 New Born (he was a big boy and in these for only a few days!)
- 315 Size 1
- 304 Size 2
- 82 Size 3
- 762 Size 4
- Total: 1,487
- It’s interesting to me to see how few NB and size 3 diapers we used with Parker and how quickly he jumped to size 4 compared to Finn.
- We found Pampers Swaddlers worked the best for our both of our little ones. On average, we spent just under $0.19 per diaper during this first year.
- We prefer Costco Kirkland baby wipes. We were somewhere on box three of 900 wipes by the time he turned 1.
- Major kudos to the parents out there who go the reusable diapers route! I still cannot believe that we used nearly 1,500 diapers in a single year! Diapers were our most expensive line item during his first year so if you’re able to go reusable, you’re looking at shaving a couple hundred dollars off right there (although I’m always curious how much your water bill increases by with the extra loads of laundry). And if you’re looking to have multiple kiddos, it’s the gift the keeps on giving and will reward you with even more savings down the road.
Nursery: $91 (all new)
- Rug ($40), curtain rod & black out curtains ($39), furniture anchors ($12),
- Many of the other items we had already from when we set up the nursery for Finn. So no need to get the bigger items like a crib, dresser, decor, lamp, crib sheets, rocking chair, end table, etc.
Medicines/hygiene: $116 (all new)
- Bio Gaia (probiotics), oval gas drops, reflux prescription (omeprazole), baby advil
- Some items we still had from his sister – so used but did not have to purchase:
  - Vitamin D, nasal saline, Nose Frieda (lifesaver snot sucker), Camilia (homeopathic teething relief), lotion, baby Tylenol, baby shampoo, forehead thermometer, humidifier.
- Not much you can do about these costs and the various medicines and hygiene products will obviously vary on the kid.
Circumcision: $315
- A circumcision is considered an elective/cosmetic surgery in Canada so this was not covered through our universal health plan. The circumcision itself cost $300 and then we spent another $15 on cream and vaseline for afterwards.
Random things: $208
- Bob stroller ($25, second hand – best $25 we’ve spent!), Finn’s big sister baby blanket gift ($4, new), WeeRide bike carrier ($30, second hand, another awesome purchase), baby memory book ($13, new), car window shades ($22, new), Bento box ($8, new – haven’t used yet), pretend power tools ($10, new – haven’t given to him yet), MEC kids down sleeping bag ($40, second hand – haven’t used yet), wooden toy cars ($5, second hand), soothers ($15, new), 1/2 cost of 100 piece Picasso tiles ($30, new – we love these!), musical shaker ($6, new),
Activities: $175
- 1/2 sports centre pass November – February (granted if we only had a 6 month old and not a 4 year old in the house as well we likely would not have gotten the pass this year)
Clothes: $33
- 0-3 month arm up swaddle ($10, second hand), size 7 rain boots ($3, second hand), grow with me hoodie ($32, new – to support a family member’s business), size 7 native shoes ($4, second hand), size 8 native shoes ($10, second hand), 2T splash suit ($9, new), 4T sweater ($5, new).
- Clearly, we had many hand me downs from Finn. We purposely wanted gender neutral clothes for our first kid so that we could use for baby 2 if they were the opposite sex. Even after downsizing after Finn, we still had wayyyy too many baby clothes in our house.
- We sold many of our clothes that were NB – 2T, of which we tucked into Finn’s numbers not Parker’s since these were clothes we originally had for kiddo 1. We somehow ended up with even more clothes that we were able to sell $40 worth for Parker.
Things we received for free as gifts or for free from random other parents in our community: $0
- We didn’t really receive many gifts from friends and family (thank goodness!) as this seems to be something you give for someone’s first kiddo not second. We didn’t want any sort of baby shower so I suppose if you were having something like this for your second kid you’d likely receive some items. We received a handful of clothes and books from some friends and family and a stuffed bunny which Parker sleeps with at night.
- One of our FIRE friends in town gave us a big box of her Montessori toys that she held onto once her daughter out grew them for us to borrow. Hands down, Parker’s favourite toy was this pop up people toy. It was the first thing he went for every morning. Thank you Marii!
- Free items from others in our community:
  - We still had all the essentials from when Finn was a baby but some items we gifted on our buy nothing group as we didn’t want to hold on to them for 2-3 years and I figured we can always pick up again for free down the road. I didn’t keep track of everything, but some items included are: exersaucer, jolly jumper, baby bath tub, baby swing, and a push car.
  - Our biggest win of the year by far, was scoring a FREE Bob double stroller! These bad boys cost over $1,000 new – what?!? Someone posted an older model on our buy nothing group and thankfully I saw it and pounced on it. She even delivered it to our house for us!? We loveeee Bob strollers and highly recommend searching for used ones.
- Note that the majority of the no-cost items came from parents in our community that we did not know. Please ask around from other parents in your area what platform is commonly used by you (Facebook Marketplace, Varage Sale, etc). There are TONS of free baby-related items out there once you know where to look.
Things we sold: -$70
- travel bassinet ($10), puzzle ($15), talking monkey toy ($25), booster seat ($20),

How Much Did We Spend?

Drum roll pleaseeeeeee

We spent a total of $1,220 during our little guy’s first year. That comes out to $102 per month. You can easily spend that much on a stroller alone. Wow, it’s pretty eerie how similar we were with both kiddos. During our daughter’s first year, we spent $1,241 – so only $21 different!

The big outliers this year that we spent on Parker but didn’t during Finn’s first year are his circumcision and the sports centre pass, which make up nearly 1/2 the cost for his first year. Taking those two items out, we spent $730 on everything else which lines up with what I was expecting.

Again, not as bad as what a Google search will show you eh? Of course, this is just our personal experience but again we’re here to dispel the myth that babies HAVE to be expensive.

RESP Contributions

We also contributed $2,500 towards his RESP education fund to get the full 20% match ($500) from the government so a total of $3,000 was invested into his future education. If that $3,000 grows at an average annual rate of 7% for 18 years, he will have $10,537 to put towards his education just from this one annual contribution alone. We plan to keep this up for 15 years to get the max lifetime grant of $7,200 from the government. Assuming we stop contributing into their RESPs after age 15, at an average annual growth of 7% he will have ~$100,000 in his RESP by the time he’s 18 to account for his post-secondary education. In Canada, this should be more than enough. And if not, I see nothing wrong with him taking out student loans for the remainder (my student loans were what kick started me on my interest in personal finance). If he decides to go another route, this money is earmarked for him to use for whatever – be it to travel around the world, take some online courses/certificates, go into the trades, go into the military, start his own business, use as a downpayment for a house, etc.

Food Costs

We also started to introduce foods around 5 months old. We haven’t separated how much we spent on his food compared to our overall food spending but during these first few feeding months it was likely around $20/month. His favorite foods during his first few months were avocados, peppers, cottage cheese, yogurt, berries, crackers, and cheerios.

Adding It All Up

So if we also include the $2,500 RESP contribution and ~$20/month on food for 7 months (20*7=$140) we’re looking at a total of $3,860 total out of pocket for his first year. Of course, the RESP is elective and we recognize our privilege of being able to contribute this $2,500 towards his education each year.

There you have it!

Those with parents, are you as crazy as us and keep track of your baby-related expenses? Would you say you spent more or less than $1,220 on baby-related expenses (excluding education and food) during their first year? What was your largest baby-related purchase? How have your child-related costs changed compared to their first few years?

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How much are you paying for internet? Canadians, learn more about the various Independent Service Providers out there to see who services your area so you can lower your monthly bills.
How much are you paying for home insurance? We were able to reduce our rates by 25% by switching over to Square One Insurance. If you live in BC, AB, SK, MB, and ON, check out Square One for your home insurance, landlord insurance, and/or tenant insurance. Use this link to receive an extra $15 off your quote. (Note that you must use this link to start the process to get the $15 off even if you prefer to pay over the phone.)
How much are you paying for your monthly utility bills? See how you can likely save on this monthly expense.

The post Here’s How Much Our Son’s First Year Cost appeared first on Modern FImily.

Here’s How Much Our Daughter’s 4th Year Cost Us

Court and Nic — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 05:21:45 +0000

This is our fourth post outlining details of kid-related items and costs we’ve encountered with our oldest kiddo. If you missed the earlier posts + our post on tips for new baby items, you can check them out here:

Now that our family has expanded, we will keep going with Finn’s annual costs but refer to these emails as our daughter’s annual costs and we will start providing a second post with our younger son’s annual costs too so stay tuned for that. For items that we had for Finn but held on to until Parker was finished before selling, we will include in Finn’s post after the item has been sold (so those with single child can see the costs with just one child involved).

We’re now going to dig into the costs during our kiddos fourth year. My oh my, where does time go?!

Some caveats:

We live in Canada where healthcare costs for doctor and ER visits are free. Vision is also free for kids under 18. Thankfully she is healthy and the only medical related costs we have for her are dental visits.

The Breakdown:

Diapers & Wipes: $0
- Finn took to potty training early and we were fortunate that she was done with that phase before turning 2.5.
Medicines/Hygiene: $157
- Thankfully(??) with Covid, none of us were really exposed to any germs so there were no sniffles in our house requiring medicine.
- Sunscreen: $9
- Dentist:t $148 out of pocket this year.
  - This is for two cleanings, once every 6 months (after 70% of it was covered with my employer’s health plan).
- She had her second eye exam this year which is covered through the province. Last year, the only picture she couldn’t identify was a rotary phone…. no one has these now-a-days! This year, I was shocked, without assistance she called it a phone – great memory kiddo! Cost for the eye exam was $0 as Alberta Health funds all eye exams for patients 18 and under (and 65 and over).
Random Things: $450
- bath toys ($7, new),
- popsicle holders ($5, second hand – awesome to freeze smoothies in the summer),
- painting books ($7, new),
- Daniel Tiger figurines ($8, second hand),
- Twister and Life board games ($9, secondhand),
- wooden figurines ($18, new),
- bath mat ($12, new),
- car activities/puzzles/mazes/crafts ($22, new),
- 6 puzzles ($6, second hand),
- waterproof mattress pad ($30, new),
- portable drawing case for the car ($10, new),
- large colouring books ($7, new),
- Peppa & Frozen surprise bags ($4, new),
- silly putty/colouring books/dominoes/math workbooks/telling time workbooks ($30, new),
- bed sheets ($15, new),
- Polly Pocket ($10, second hand),
- Berenstain Bears stuffies x3 ($2, secondhand),
- French leap frog book ($10, second hand),
- puzzles/snakes & ladders/guess who ($5, second hand),
- colouring books ($5, new),
- grow in the water alligator ($2, new),
- portable dimming night light ($31, new – best purchase of the year in my books as she likes it bright to fall asleep and then we lower it once she’s sleeping and can bring it with us anywhere – and looks even cheaper now for anyone interested),
- bath paints ($6, new – found a recipe to make it ourselves now),
- play doh ($5, new),
- crafts/games ($27, new),
- kids toy shelf supplies ($35, new to repurpose a bookshelf),
- kids knives ($9, new),
- workbooks ($5, new),
- doll bed ($4, second hand),
- 1/2 cost of Picasso tiles ($30 of total $60, other half to Parker, new),
- books/barn/flamingo figurines ($10, second hand),
- charades/magical magnet books ($18, new),
- stool ($27, new),
- dollhouse/gears building set ($19, second hand)
Big Sister Gift: $36
- We got her a “gift” from her new baby sibling as a congrats on being a new big sister to me!
- Items included: Paw Patrol busy book (still her favourite figurines to this day), photo album with pictures of family and friends inside that she keeps by her bed, flamingo dinner plate, flamingo romper, bubble machine
Christmas Items: $30
- - $5: 3 pack of mini trucks
  - $4: doll
  - $10 dentist play doh set
  - $11: crafts and stocking stuffers
4th Birthday Items: $53 (wow same exact number as last year!)
- - Animal figurines ($0, second hand)
  - Frozen activity book ($4, new)
  - Small lego set ($4, second hand)
  - Bean bag ($10, second hand)
  - 4th Birthday Party Supplies ($35)
    - Had a low key backyard birthday party with some family – snacks for adults and kiddos, auntie made cupcakes, piñata, animals and books to take home
Clothes: -$349
- Purchased clothes for a total cost of $120 (wow, same exact figure as last year again!)
  - $3: 3 shirts 4-5T
  - $10: MEC rain paints x2
  - $20: MEC Merlino wool base layer
  - $3: Jack and Jan winter gloves (had a $27 store credit from a gift we returned)
  - $10: Native shoes
  - $20: Gloves
  - $20: Mountain Warehouse 5-6T Snowsuit (crazy sale, normally $140!)
  - $20: Mountain Warehouse 6-8 Snowsuit
  - $5 Flamingo costume
  - $9 Balaclava
- Sold clothing items: -$469
  - Finallyyyyy I could sell our baby clothes once Parker was out of them – which was quick! This was broken down into lots of different lots and some items were sold individually as one-off items.
Activities: $1,022
- Spending at the cabin: $30
  - Two long trips which included swimming pool, ice cream, and the petting farm both times
- Camping items: $71 (hydration bag, water bladder, poncho, sleeping bag)
  - Finn finally went on her first overnight camping adventure and it was an amazing blast! Spider hotdogs, bush pies, popcorn over the fire, admiring the full moon, projector stories on the tent walls, hiking in the hoodoos. Her favourite part you ask? Getting to spit outside on the ground when brushing her teeth!
- Outside school: $660
  - Fall and Winter term – 1 half day per week from early September – early March (6 months)
- Gymnastics: $35
  - $5 drop in per class, we went randomly from October-February
- Corn Maze: $22
- Sports Centre: $175
  - This is 1/2 of the cost to have the family membership from November – February. We put the other half under Parker’s expenses.
- Skiing: $51
  - Her annual pass cost $21 for the year and $10 for an adult to enter the bunny hill. We only made it out 3 times this year Tricky with a 6 month old in the house!
Things we received for free as gifts or for free from random other parents in our community on FB Marketplace / Varage Sale: $0
- Gifts from friends & family:
  - Christmas: Princess lego set, human body kit, flamingo light, Frozen figurines, stickers, puzzles.
  - 4th birthday: $17 in coins from grandpa, Polly Pocket, crafts, lego, $4 from a few friends for turning 4, doll house (which she tried to buy with her newly given coins but the lady at checkout insisted it be free), Tinker Bell doll (we are currently really into fairies)
- Free items (mainly from random other parents via the Varage Sale app):
  - I honestly stopped tracking this but I know there were lots of puzzles this year! The highlight was a Tiana barbie doll.
Items we sold: -$522
- $10: baby cups/food feeders
- $70: Books (multiple lots)
- $55: Sleep sacks
- $10: Maternity belt
- $26: Dora, Curious George, and Frozen busy books
- $10: Leap frog book
- $5: Doll crib
- $20: Peppa play set
- $5: Baby toys
- $5: Puzzles
- $8: Dollhouse
- $5: Barbies
- $15: Berenstain bears stuffies
- $15: Bottles
- $10: Playmat
- $8: Cars
- $5: Connect Four
- $5: Bowling Set
- $20: Jolly Jumper
- $10: Waterproof kid mattress pad
- $15: Kid throw pillows
- $20: Diaper bag
- $20: Book sling shelf
- $150: Double stroller

How Much Did We Spend?

Drum roll pleaseeeeeee…..

We spent a grand total of $877 during our little lady’s fourth year. That comes out to $73 per month.

Wait – I swear, kids are supposed to be expensive dammit!

We should not gloss over that we “made” a lot of money this year selling items. In total, we sold $991 of kid related items for the year. Without this included, we spent $1,868 – which still is lower than I was expecting since many activities did begin to open back up. I don’t see why we wouldn’t include these sales though as these items were things we had picked up for kiddo and now no longer use/need.

It is wild for me to see that of the overall $1,868 out of pocket for the year, $660 (or 1/3) was towards outside school (1 day a week for 2.5 hours for 6 months). We love having her go there, but we’re really not sure if it’s worth it in all honesty. She *seems* to enjoy it but every time we ask how was class, what did you do, etc we get the same response “oh Mom/Momma you already know because you were there!” (she carries a picture of us in her backpack). Oy…

We recently decided to switch things up for this upcoming year and instead she will be going to a Reggio inspired indoor preschool. It’s 2 days per week and 3 hours long from early September – late June. The government of Alberta launched it’s child care subsidies in January 2022 and with the subsidies in place, this comes out to a whooping cost of $0. Yes, you read that right and we honestly didn’t believe it for months. (We may end up paying the full price of $195/month during February and March 2023 if we travel then and want her to go back in when we return, but still a steal of a deal!)

We also contributed $2,500 towards her RESP education fund to get the full 20% match ($500) from the government so a total of $3,000 was invested into her future education this year.

I’d say her eating has plateaued and if anything she’s eating a bit less compared to last year (makes sense as her growth has slowed). We are likely spending $75/month on food-related costs for her. Here’s her typical day:

breakfast – some combo of waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs, toast, French toast, yogurt with sprinkles, oatmeal, cheerios, fruit
gummy vitamin “treat”
pre-lunch snack – garlic peas, seaweed, and/or a fruit cereal bar
1 treat a day, which we try to do around lunch
lunch – typically some sort of carb related meal with fruit
afternoon snack – trail mix, olives, yogurt drink, apple sauce, rice cake, salami, or pretzels & cream cheese
supper – whatever we’re eating, although she’s gotten more picky this year so we might have to tweak it a bit for her – mainly that she doesn’t seem to want anything spicy anymore
stories & snack – apple, fancy old cheddar cheese, cucumbers, and red peppers

So if we also include the $2,500 RESP contribution and ~$75/month of food ((75*12)=$900) we’re looking at a total of $4,277 out of our pockets in her fourth year. Of course, the RESP is elective and we recognize our privilege of being able to contribute this $2,500 towards her education each year.

There you have it! Short and sweet as we really didn’t spend that much

It really is shocking to me how we have yet to spend over $2,000 in any given year so far (excluding RESP and food). And truly we are not sitting around doing nothing!

Here are some of our typical low/no cost activities that we do:

playgrounds/parks
ride bikes
play in the backyard (sand box, swing, play house, teeter totter, scooter, water table)
swim in the hot tub
read books (lotsssss of books daily – free from the library)
play with friends
play with figurines in her pretend world (her fav)
swimming (sports centre in the winters and creeks, lakes, outdoor pools in the summer)
splash park
walk through the dog park
hiking
skate park
pump park
go for a date to get a Timbit
play a board game, cards, play doh, lego, crafts, etc
sledding
skating at an outdoor rink
snowshoeing
watch hockey games at a local rink
zoo
science centre
Heritage park (historical village, kids rides, train rides, reenactments, etc)
holiday parades, celebrations, light shows, fireworks
weekly free classes: parented toddler preschool class, music & rhyme, lego day, myths & legends STEM class, mindfulness/yoga/art classes, story time
- It’s a bit of a Catch-22 that those of us who are not working Monday-Friday can access many free activities going on during the week

Stay tuned as we provide a similar update in the near future for Parker’s annual spend report for his first year. Any guesses on what e spent on his first year??

Those with parents, are you as crazy as us and keep track of all of your kid-related expenses? Would you say you spent more or less than $877 on toddler-related expenses (not including future education and food) during their fourth year? What was your largest toddler-related purchase(s)? How have your child-related costs changed compared to their first few years?

Those without kids yet, if you’re reading this blog you likely are not part of the herd mentality and hopefully you too can stay well under the average of $8,000-$13,000/year. Not sure if you saw, but the Wall Street Journal just upped the cost to raise a child from birth – 18… they are now tallying it up to $300,000! That is NUTS!! There is no right or wrong way to parent. We are simply showing that the “norm” $8,000-$13,000 (or more) annually in the first few years can be challenged. We completely recognize our privilege to not have costly childcare costs in the picture.

Any questions for us? Hope this helps!

And again, if you’d like to check out the related posts on this topic, you can check them out here:

Support This Blog

Investing Newbies: Check out our free Investing 101 Series.
How much are you paying for your phone plan? Canadians, learn more about Public Mobile, and see how we are paying $3/mo for our cell phone plan.
How much are you paying for internet? Canadians, learn more about the various Independent Service Providers out there to see who services your area so you can lower your monthly bills.
How much are you paying for home insurance? We were able to reduce our rates by 25% by switching over to Square One Insurance. If you live in BC, AB, SK, MB, and ON, check out Square One for your home insurance, landlord insurance, and/or tenant insurance. Use this link to receive an extra $15 off your quote. (Note that you must use this link to start the process to get the $15 off even if you prefer to pay over the phone.)

The post Here’s How Much Our Daughter’s 4th Year Cost Us appeared first on Modern FImily.

Here’s How Much Our Child’s Third Year Cost

Court and Nic — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 05:46:31 +0000

For anyone following along, this is our third post outlining details of baby-related items and costs we’ve encountered. If you missed the first two posts + our post on tips for new baby items, you can check them out here:

We’re now going to dig into the costs during our ~~baby’s~~ toddler’s third year. Sad… she’s not a baby anymore She is officially a threenager.

Some caveats:

We live in Canada where healthcare costs for doctor and ER visits are free. Vision is also free for kids under 18.
She turned 2 right around when COVID-19 went on a tear and the world shut down. Our activities for the year are thus on the low end as many places were closed or we did not feel comfortable going to.

The Breakdown:

Diapers & Wipes: $78
- 516 Size 4
- We switched over to size 4 right around when she turned 2. We also started potty training right around this time too. She was showing signs that she was ready to start the process and with all the COVID lockdowns we thought the timing made perfect sense since we were going to be spending a lot of time at home anyway.
- We are very grateful and happy that she did such a great job with potty training and 3 months after turning 2 she was 95% potty trained. She would occasionally have a pee accident in the middle of the night (~once a month) and she asked to sleep with a diaper on. For awhile, we were reusing the same diaper at night until it stopped sticking (~1 week) – or of course if there is an accident in it. She has very sensitive skin and was developing a rash on her lower back along the edge of the diaper so we switched to reusable cloth diapers (free, second hand) that are much kinder to her skin. A year later… she still feels more comfortable sleeping with a cloth diaper on at night so that’s how we’re rolling.
- We spent $118 on 516 diapers which comes out to an average cost of $0.22 per diaper (the bigger the size the less per box aka the more expensive the diaper).
- We were able to sell a box of the 900 Costco wipes for $20 as well as 3-4T pullups for $20 as we did not need these.
Medicines/hygiene: $58
- Thankfully those damn teeth are finally in! We had enough Camilia stocked up that we didn’t need to buy anymore but we did pick up some kids Tylenol and ibuprofen.
- She was a damn boss during her first dental cleaning this year and did SO well (proud momma moment as my dad was a dentist and I grew up never being afraid of a dentist and don’t want her to either!). This ended up costing $35 out of pocket after 70% of it was covered with my employer’s health plan.
- She also had her first eye exam this year and crushed that too. Our eye doctor said she listened better than some of the 10 year old’s she sees. She is SUCH a teachers pet and seeing her listen to directions from other adults is another proud momma moment. Funny side note on the eye exam. The only picture she couldn’t identify was a rotary phone…. no one has these now-a-days! Cost for the eye exam was $0 as Alberta Health funds all eye exams for patients 18 and under (and 65 and over).
Random things: $472
- Strider bike ($5, second hand), Schwinn double bike trailer ($75, secondhand), Costco water bottles x3 ($20, new), more water bottles ($20, new), Inside Out Feelings Books ($5, second hand set of 5), velcro catch/ball set ($5, new), tree swing ($10, second hand), barn animal figurines ($3, new), full size sheets ($20, new), rug ($40, new), Martin Luther King book ($5, new), craft beads ($4, new), Chariot double bike trailer ($40, secondhand), ski boots x2 ($10, secondhand), kids skis ($60, second hand – she will be in these for years), Mr. Potato Head ($2, second hand), Dora busy board book ($3, secondhand), Curious George busy book ($7, new), little people figurines and house ($10, second hand), Montessori style sling book shelf ($10, second hand), little people barn ($5), paintbrushes ($4, new), kids cutlery ($2, new), bento box for when in school ($9, new), water beads ($4, new), crafts/coloring books ($7, new), fishing rod ($2, secondhand), bike items – training wheels, streamer, basket ($28, new), sandbox sand ($20, new), black out curtains for the new house ($33, new), bug box & magnifying glass ($4, new)
Christmas items: $35
- - Scribble Scrubbies ($16, new), pink lollipop ($1, new), Xmas jammies ($2, new), kinder surprise ($1, new), set of musical instruments ($5, secondhand), Peppa busy book ($4, new – hands down best purchase of the year), seek and find books ($3, new), reusable sticker book ($2, new), chapstick ($1, new), shapes and colors flashcards ($0, secondhand), mini trampoline ($0, secondhand)
3rd Birthday items: $53
- - Plasma car ($20, second hand), dollhouse ($8, second hand), board games – Pengolo, Quirkle, and Go Fish ($8, second hand – haven’t given any to her yet, will wait until Christmas or next bday), build-a-bear ($12, new via Count Your Candles program + the most expensive little balloon ever), goodie bag giveaways for a few of her little friends at the park ($25, new)
Clothes: $81
- Purchased clothes for a total cost of $120
  - Native shoes ($6, second hand, she LIVED in these in the summer), Columbia 3T jacket ($5, secondhand), jumper ($2, new), Bogs boots ($10, secondhand), Keen boots ($15, secondhand for this upcoming winter), Native shoes ($8, second hand for next summer), toque & mitts ($4, new – clearance), 5T jacket ($20, new – clearance), 4T fleece jacket ($12, new – clearance), balaclava ($8, new – clearance), wool socks x6 pairs ($28, new), 3T PJ ($2, new – clearance)
- Received a 3-4T lot, two 4T lots, and two 5T lots for free. A lovely mom also gave us her favorite shirt that she would wear every day if it was up to her in size 4T for free.
- Sold more clothing items for $39
Activities: $155
- Thanks to COVID, our spending on activities was abysmally low this year. I WISH we could have spent more here! No sports center (her/our fav!) so no pool, no indoor ice rink, no watching hockey games, no gymnastics, no indoor turf. No zoo, no library story time (free), no Parent Link Center (free), no science center passes (free). Ugh 2020 sucked in that regard.
- We spent A LOT of time outside, most of which was free. In the warmer months we were out for walks, hikes, bike rides, scavenger hunts, throwing rocks in the river, making mud soup, playing at playgrounds, swimming (pool at the cabin was open for a few months), hanging out at the cabin, and exploring mountains. In the colder months we were making bonfires, sledding, checking out Christmas lights, making luge tracks in our back yard, skating on outdoor rinks, and skiing.
- Of all those activities – everything was free except swimming and skiing. We spent $25 on pool entrance fees over the summer at the cabin and $130 on passes to the bunny hill at our nearby ski hill over the winter for the 3 of us.
Things we received for free as gifts or for free from random other moms in our community on Varage Sale: $0
- Gifts from friends & family:
  - Christmas: Melissa and Doug wooden construction set, Melissa and Doug wooden sandwich set, Lite Brite, painting sets, costume dresses, hoodie, PJs
  - 3rd bday: baby Elsa doll, Peppa cake, Peppa play set, Peppa clothes – can you tell she’s into Peppa?!, art easel, bath robe, Skye/helicopter, unicorn figurines, puzzle, taller balance bike (which we had to wrap in pink duct tape in places for her to show any hint of interest…), gift certificate to local ice cream shop
- Free items (mainly from random other moms via the Varage Sale app):
  - kids portable potty, kids potty seat for on top of the toilet, step stool, kids kitchen and play food, board games (Pop Up Pirate, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Monopoly Jr, Snakes & Ladders), kids lawnmower, kids push car, lunch kit (aka lunch box for anyone outside Canada), sandbox, teeter totter, scooter, toy bin/storage container, tinker toys, Lego, puzzles, books, ski boots, City Select double stroller, 12 inch bike, 16 inch bike, cash register machine.
Items we sold: -$165
- Diaper genie and insert refills: $40
  - We had received this as a gift years ago and never used it
- Chariot double bike cruiser: $125
  - We saw two double bike cruisers at super low prices and picked both up. We knew purchasing it for $40 was a steal and a few months later after we decided which one we wanted to keep we flipped this one for $125.

How Much Did We Spend?

Drum roll pleaseeeeeee…..

We spent a grand total of $767 during our little lady’s third year. That comes out to $64 per month.

What!? This is NOTHING! We recognize this number likely would have been a bit higher if COVID-19 was not in place. As mentioned above, I wish we could have spent more money on some of the activity type things. If COVID wasn’t a thing, I’m guessing we would have spent another ~$700 on activity related things throughout the year.

We also contributed $2,500 towards her RESP education fund to get the full 20% match ($500) from the government so a total of $3,000 was invested into her future education this year for a grand total of $9,000 invested so far.

She’s also an eating machine and we are likely spending $75/month on food-related costs. Here’s her typical day:

breakfast with a show – cinnamon bread, waffle, French toast, Kodiak cakes pancakes, or yogurt parfait
gummy vitamin “treat”
morning walk snack (garlic peas, smoothie bites, fruit to go bar)
lunch (whatever we’re eating, typically soup and sandwich and raw veggies)
after nap snack (fruit, cheese, olives, with sun chips or pretzels & cream cheese)
afternoon walk snack (dried seaweed, chocolate chips, cashews)
supper (whatever we’re eating + her beloved ‘snow cheese’ to dip anything and everything into)
desert 1-2 x per week (ice cream, smoothie, frozen yogurt tube)
after bath snack (apples and cheese, oatmeal with fruit, or cheerios)
occasionally she’s STILL hungry and has a peanut butter and oat bar

So if we also include the $2,500 RESP contribution and ~$75/month of food ((75*12)=$900) we’re looking at a total of $4,167 out of our pockets in her third year. Of course, the RESP is elective and we recognize our privilege of being able to contribute this $2,500 towards her education each year.

There you have it! Short and sweet as we really didn’t spend that much

Next annual update we will have 2 kiddos in tow so we will break down how much we spend on each kid going forward.

Those with parents, are you as crazy as us and keep track of all of your kid-related expenses? Would you say you spent more or less than $767 on toddler-related expenses (not including education and food) during their third year? What was your largest toddler-related purchase? How have your child-related costs changed compared to their first few years? Our update next year will include figures just like above on spending on her in addition to our annual spending on nugget #2.

Those without kids yet, if you’re reading this blog you likely are not part of the herd mentality and hopefully you too can stay well under the average of $8,000-$13,000/year. There is no right or wrong way to parent. We are simply showing that the “norm” $8,000-$13,000 annually in the first few years can be challenged. Any questions for us? Hope this helps!

And again, if you’d like to check out the related posts on this topic, you can check them out here:

Support This Blog

Investing Newbies: Check out our free Investing 101 Series.
How much are you paying for your phone plan? Canadians, learn more about Public Mobile, and see how we are paying $3/mo for our cell phone plan.
How much are you paying for internet? Canadians, learn more about the various Independent Service Providers out there to see who services your area so you can lower your monthly bills.
How much are you paying for home insurance? We were able to reduce our rates by 25% by switching over to Square One Insurance. If you live in BC, AB, SK, MB, and ON, check out Square One for your home insurance, landlord insurance, and/or tenant insurance. Use this link to receive an extra $15 off your quote. (Note that you must use this link to start the process to get the $15 off even if you prefer to pay over the phone.)
How much are you paying for your monthly utility bills? See how you can likely save on this monthly expense.

The post Here’s How Much Our Child’s Third Year Cost appeared first on Modern FImily.

Here’s How Much Baby’s Second Year Cost (Plus a GIVEAWAY!)

Court and Nic — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 06:43:18 +0000

Happy New Year’s everyone! Cheers to 2021 and I hope it is filled with resilience, gratitude, intentionality, simplicity, grit, and presence.

Before jumping in, we wanted to announce that we will be organizing a Team Declutter Challenge during the month of February as well as hosting our second annual Team Social Media Digital Detox Challenge during the month of April!

The Declutter Challenge

The February challenge is based off the #LessIsNow challenge from the new Less Is Now documentary from The Minimalists which just came out on January 1. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you can find it on Netflix. Here’s how it works:

Each day you (and your partner/family) will find items to either remove, donate, or sell from your home.
On the first day of the month, select one item.
On the second day, two items.
Third day, three items.
All the way to the last day of the month, February 28th, where you will select 28 items.

That’s a total a 406 items – but who’s counting. Yes, I am very intimidated by this challenge myself and to be honest I don’t know if I’ll be able to rid our home of 406 items. But here’s hoping!

The beauty is there is no winning or losing in this. Even if you “only” find say 50 or 100 items to declutter, that’s WAY better than nothing! The purpose is to become more mindful of what’s in your home and how much more inviting and calming your home will feel with less shit in there.

At the end of the challenge, send us a picture of ALL the items you piled up to remove from your home and we will post the pictures in a future post. For those who want to partake in this challenge let us know and we will send you some questions once the month is over to see how it went to include in that post as well!

The Social Media Detox

We are big proponents of stepping away from our social media accounts to recharge and reassess what it is that truly brings us happiness – deep connections with people in real life. (This does not mean stepping away from phones, computers, emails completely – just your time sucking mostly-mindless accounts like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc.) I won’t belabor this on this post in particular, but if you’re interested in learning more, check out these previous posts we’ve written on this topic:

If this is something you’d be interested in, please contact us if you’d like to join in the 2021 party! We’d love to get over 50 people on board this year.

It may sound daunting, but trust me, your life will be just fine without social media for a month – in fact, it likely will be much better! It’s hard to imagine it for most folks, but trust us and the other members who joined in last year, we know from actual experience.

We even had folks who “needed” social media for their businesses take part last year. They simply removed their personal social media accounts for the month to ensure they were only focusing on their business needs and not getting sucked into the mindless trap on their personal accounts.

Emails to the team will begin in early March to help prep for April’s detox so please get in touch with us asap so you can get the full experience of the group challenge. If you’re still on the fence, go watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix (or at least watch the preview) and check out anything from Tristan Harris and maybe then you’ll see the light

For both of these challenges, we ask for nothing in return. No subscriptions required. No spam emails coming your way. We just want to see you improve your life.

Ok, let’s dig in to some baby costs! And we also have a giveaway in this post too! Lots going on this week ha.

For anyone following along, this is our third post outlining details of baby-related items and costs we’ve encountered. If you missed the first two posts, you can check them out here:

We’re now going to dig into the costs during our baby’s second year.

Some caveats:

We live in Canada where healthcare costs for doctor and ER visits are free. Vision is also free for kids under 18.
We live in Canada which offers 12-18 months of parental leave. Nic took the full 18 months to never return so we do not have childcare costs to account for. During this 18 month leave, she received ~$21,000 from the government.
Our daughter took to breastfeeding and we never had to purchase or use any formula. She started weaning off breast milk around 14 months old and was completely weaned off at 18 months (while Nic was in the hospital beating off meningitis).

The Breakdown:

Diapers & Wipes: $360
- 1,550 Size 3
- That’s an average of 4.2 diapers per day during the second year (this grosses me out thinking about this). We found Pampers Swaddlers worked the best for our little one as her skin is sensitive. The total cost for all of these diapers was $257. On average, we spent $0.17 per diaper during this second year.
- In addition to the size 3 diapers, we also purchased swim diapers and some size 3-4 T pull-ups to hold on to for potting training time for a total cost of $63.
- As for wipes, we prefer Costco Kirkland baby wipes. We purchased two $20 boxes of 900 wipes from Costco during her second year.
Medicines/hygiene: $119 (all new)
- Camilia (teething relief – those damn teeth!), kids ibuprofen, bubble bath, baby Vic’s, nasal saline, Nose Frieda (third one sheeh – forgot to pack with us to FL), and lotion. If your kid seems to breeze past teething, you likely will spend much less in this category.
Random things: $355
- bubbles ($3, new), stuffed puppy for sleeping x2 ($8, new, bought a second just in case something happened to the main one!), play-doh ($5, new), random items in Florida ($30, new), stickers ($2, new), chalk ($2, new), glow sticks ($2, new), slumber pod ($150, new – bought on sale, hefty price tag but since our daughter is a terrible sleeper this has been worth it to us whenever we’re sleeping outside our home at a hotel or with friends & family), monitor ($100, new – bought on sale, the one we received when she was born did not last), grow clock ($10, second hand – used for a few days as it didn’t work for her)
- Birthday ($10, new) – wooden train set for her 2nd birthday. We also baked homemade cupcakes and brought them down to the river to enjoy. We also have some RCMP friends who arranged to have a few vehicles come to our house with lights and sirens. She brings up this memory A LOT!
- Christmas gifts ($30, new) – books, no mess coloring kit with stamps, activity kit with popsicle sticks, pom-poms, feathers, googly eyes, etc. to make crafts with.
- Easter gifts ($3, new) – play-doh and stickers that we turned into a scavenger hunt
- Halloween costume ($0, second hand) – The most adorable duck costume. She still asks to wear “duck duck” and now it’s a tight fit.
Clothes: $52
- Purchased clothes for a total cost of $92
  - Most of these items were larger sizes (4-5 T) on clearance as we are pretty much set with freebies through size 3 T. Other 2 T items include some sleepers ($12), MEC muddy buddy ($5, second hand), and Kombi mitts ($5, second hand).
- Sold more clothing items for $40
Activities: $555
- Indoor turf ($5), gymnastics ($0, 1x/week, free for kids under 2), annual zoo pass ($150, for 2 adults, kids under 3 free, parking included), sports center family monthly pass ($99/month December – March, total of $400, this includes swimming, skating, curling, indoor turf, climbing wall, etc. plus other activities for us adults such as yoga, spin, gym, etc.), science center ($0, thanks to free passes from our local Parent Link Center), library ($0, books and story time class 2x/week), toddler in tow class ($0, weekly at the Parent Link Center), indoor playground ($0, Parent Link Center), pictures with Santa ($0, donated non-perishable food we had at home).
Things we received for free as gifts or for free from random other moms in our community on Varage Sale: $0
- Gifts from friends & family for Christmas and her birthday
  - step-up kitchen helper (handmade holiday present from Nic and grandpa! This is such a lifesaver for our backs and Finn loves being able to help and assist in the kitchen), build and take apart dinosaur (thank you auntie, Finn loves this), magna tiles magnetic blocks (thank you uncle Finn loves to make “pepper shakers” and “cups” out of them to put pepper in our “soup”), foam puzzles, knee hockey sticks and balls, Elmo stuffie & blankie (thank you grandma, she sleeps with this blanket every night), sandcastle pails (thank you auntie), double doodle board (great for the car), play-doh kits, rubber ducks (thank you uncle).
- Free items (mainly from random other moms via the Varage Sale app),
  - hockey skates, hockey helmet, bike helmet, walking tricycle, scooter, tricycle, kids bike with training wheels, doodle board, coloring books, crayons, markers, puzzles, clothes, shoes, rain boots, winter boots, toque, mitts, gloves.
Items we sold: -$25
- sleep sack ($10), Jolly Jumper ($5), books ($10)

How Much Did We Spend?

Drum roll pleaseeeeeee

We spent a grand total of $1,416 during our little lady’s second year. That comes out to $118 per month. Not too shabby considering a large chunk of this was the sports center pass which we used daily in the winter months for 4 months straight. Without that splurge, we’re looking at $85/month.

She’s also an eating machine and by the end of her second year, we were likely spending $75/month on food-related costs. Here’s her typical day:

breakfast #1 right after brushing her teeth (cinnamon bread)
breakfast #2 with Mom and Momma (typically eggs and potatoes, milk and granola, toast with peanut butter, or kodiak cakes pancakes)
morning walk snack (freeze-dried strawberries & bananas, yogurt pretzel, raisins, baked cracker snacks, fruit)
lunch (whatever we’re eating, typically soup and sandwich)
after nap snack (fruit, cheese, deli meat)
afternoon walk snack (dried seaweed, Lara bar)
supper (whatever we’re eating)
after supper yogurt or smoothie
bathtub prunes

I’m pretty sure she eats more than me.

So if we also include the $2,500 RESP contribution and ~$50/month on food from 1-1.5 and then ~$75/month from 1.5-2 ((50*6)+(75*6)=$750) we’re looking at a total of $4,666 out of our pockets in her second year. Of course, the RESP is elective and we recognize our privilege of being able to contribute this $2,500 towards her education each year.

There you have it! Short and sweet as we really didn’t spend that much

Those with parents, are you as crazy as us and keep track of all of your baby-related expenses? Would you say you spent more or less than $1,416 on baby-related expenses (not including education and food) during their second year? What was your largest baby-related purchase? How have your child-related costs changed compared to their first few years?

Those without kids yet, if you’re reading this blog you likely are not part of the herd mentality and hopefully, you too can stay well under the average of $8,000-$13,000. There is no right or wrong way to parent. We are simply showing that the “norm” $8,000-$13,000 annually in the first few years can be challenged. Any questions for us? Hope this helps!

And again, if you’d like to check out the related posts on this topic, you can check them out here:

Giveaway

Last but definitely not least, we have a giveaway to announce! Last weekend we were one of the ~20 speakers in The Abundant Family Summit. I fired through all the other sessions over the weekend while they were available for free. And I just have to say wow so much great info there and most of the speakers had an FI approach to life so it really was a one-of-a-kind summit. They also provided links for very helpful material to use with your kids.

I know life gets hectic and many of you likely were not able to attend. Totally get it.

That being said – I’d like to offer one of our awesome readers a FREE All Access Pass to The Abundant Family Summit!

What does this mean?

You’ll get unlimited, on-demand access to ALL of the incredible sessions (including the two live panel discussions), a one page cheat sheet of each session, audio downloads AND multiple bonus workbooks, video trainings and PDFs.

You can learn more about the All Access Pass here.

Here are the sessions you’ll be able to access:

Doug Nordman and Carol Pittner: “Your Child Is Ready To Learn To Manage Their Money…When They Stop Eating It.”
Andy Hill: “How Our Family Increased Their Net Worth by $1,000,000 in 10 Years”
Rob Phelan: “How To EASILY Help Your Kids Start a Business With Little to No Money!”
Craig Espey – “Planning, Evaluating and Preparing for College.”
Jacob and Michelle Wade – “Minimalism with Kids: How Tiny Living Has Changed Our Lives & Money.”
Court – “FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE 101: How To Personalize Your FI Journey With Kids.”
Shanté Nicole – “Helping Kids Make Cents of Money”
Harrine Freeman – “How To Easily Manage Your Finances SO You Can Teach Your Kids!”
Sarah Phillips – “Why an Allowance is about so much more than just Money!”
Nicole Rule – “The 3 Accounts All Kids NEED!”
Rocky Lalvani – “How to Hack High School and Have Your Teen Graduate with College Credits!”
Vincent Pugliese – “How To Teach Your Child to Think Like an Entrepreneur.”
Liz Frazier Peck – ‘Teaching your Kids the Basics of Finance.’
Katie May – “Putting Your Health First and Avoiding Mom Burnout on a Budget.”
Holly Reid Toodle – “Raising Money Smart Kids – 5 Money Habits Every Child Should Master”
Amanda L. Grossman – “How to Anchor Your Child’s Entire Money Education with a Savings Goal”
Elle Martinez – “How to Get Your Partner on Board with Becoming Debt Free”
Nicole Rule – “How To Create BIG Money Goals as a Family.”

I truly think this summit will benefit any parent or soon to be parent out there, regardless the age of your kid(s). If you don’t have kids, you can gift it to a loved one who does.

All you have to do is let us know that you’re interested and we will add your name to the drawing. Simple as that. No required sign ups, no extra emails coming your way, or that type of BS.

The cut off to enter is January 21st and we will announce the winner in our January 28th post!

Good luck!

And for those who want to get in on the action without trying to win a contest, you can use the code “FIMILY” for $20 off the current $69 price tag of the All Access Pass. So instead of $69 you can get the pass for $49. This coupon is valid until January 31.

Support This Blog

Investing Newbies: Check out our free Investing 101 Series.
How much are you paying for your phone plan? Canadians, learn more about Public Mobile, and see how we are paying $3/mo for our cell phone plan.
How much are you paying for internet? Canadians, learn more about the various Independent Service Providers out there to see who services your area so you can lower your monthly bills.
How much are you paying for home insurance? We were able to reduce our rates by 25% by switching over to Square One Insurance. If you live in BC, AB, SK, MB, and ON, check out Square One for your home insurance, landlord insurance, and/or tenant insurance. Use this link to receive an extra $15 off your quote. (Note that you must use this link to start the process to get the $15 off even if you prefer to pay over the phone.)
How much are you paying for your monthly utility bills? See how you can likely save on this monthly expense.

The post Here’s How Much Baby’s Second Year Cost (Plus a GIVEAWAY!) appeared first on Modern FImily.

The Abundant Family Summit

Court and Nic — Thu, 24 Dec 2020 06:43:14 +0000

Who is ready to teach their kids to be financially savvy?

May I introduce to you – The Abundant Family Virtual Summit!

Check out the FREE Abundant Family Summit taking place January 2-3, 2021. That’s only 10 days away.

Yes. Freeeeee. It’s a win-win really. You get free access to great insights an tips at no cost to you. Parents, soon to be parents, aunties, uncles, grandparents – check this out!

The purpose of the summit is to gain the confidence to teach your kids and teens about money management in 2 days without needing to be a money savvy expert yourself.

You know we only promote products and services we truly find value in and this is one of them. The Abundant Family Summit is the only summit of its kind, bringing together expert speakers in the finance world who specialize in kids AND are parents themselves.

Not only will you be able to teach your kids money basics, but you’ll be able to learn to communicate about money without fighting and cultivate kids who stop asking for more, more, more!

I’m going to be speaking on Financial Independence 101: How To Personalize Your FI Journey With Kids!

I’m honestly still shocked to have been asked to be a part of this awesome event.

Registration is open now so join me over at The Abundant Family Summit next weekend by grabbing your free pass here.

The free pass will allow access to all of the videos for 24 hours after they air. The sessions for each day will be released at 9:00 am ET and will be available to watch for 24 hours. (Our video is part of the January 2 showings.)

Sessions will be broadcast over the web, so just register, grab your jammies, a notebook, and you’re all set to attend.

You can also opt for the All Access Pass for $29 where you can get unlimited on-demand access to all the video lessons and summary notes of all the trainings. Note this is the early bird rate and is subject to go up closer to the event date.

There is also a VIP Pass option which is everything in the All Access Pass above plus $100 of Nicole’s new e-course of the same name – The Abundant Family Academy which launches in January (the creator of the summit).

Doug Nordman + Carol Pittner, Andy Hill, Rob Phelan, Danielle Mendonsa, and Vincent Pugliese are just some of the other presenters to give you a taste of how amazing this line up is. Here’s a peak of who is part of the summit.

Interested in any of the following topics?

Helping your kids start a business with little to no money
Planning, evaluating, and preparing your teen for university
Working minimalism into your life (it’s not only possible but meaningful with kids)
Reaching financial independence as a family
Increasing your net worth by $1,000,000 in 10 years
Creating a simple money management plan for yourself to ease teaching your kids about money
How allowances are more than just money
Setting up and budgeting for the 3 money accounts all kids need
Hacking high school to have your teen graduate with college credits
Avoiding mom burnout

So many people cannot understand how a couple in their 30s are able to walk away from their jobs while raising kids. It takes education. It takes escaping from the norm. It takes thinking differently. Take these next two days to hear what these awesome panels members have to share based off what they’ve learned over the years.

Are you making some financially related New Year’s goals? Let’s start off the year on the right foot.

I’m looking forward to tuning in to the other videos as many of these names are pretty big in the FI space. Sorry if this post is coming off as spammy but I truly think this is an awesome event with nothing to lose.

Major kudos to Nicole for organizing this event and putting it together! Thanks Nicole for all the hours you spent on this and hope you all enjoy Feel free to pass this info along to anyone you know who may be interested.

We also were featured on another podcast!

Check out our latest airing with The Financial Classroom on Student Loans | How To Get Through School Debt Free. Will and Tim are millennials from Canada and I love what they are doing with their podcast! This was a fun episode to record because we got to really narrow in on a topic which we haven’t dug into in the past. While neither one of us came out of school debt free, we’re hoping to share some of our realizations to those about to enter school and avoid the student loan debt burden we took on! Hope you enjoy it! And as always, this episode, along with everything else, can we found on our Guest Appearances page.

Cheers and happy holidays y’all!

The post The Abundant Family Summit appeared first on Modern FImily.

Here’s How Much Baby’s First Year Cost

Court and Nic — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 05:22:44 +0000

Do a Google search for “cost of baby’s first year” and you’ll see estimates anywhere from $8,000-$13,000. Well, we’re here to dispel this myth that babies HAVE to blow your bank. Can little babes cost this much during their first year? Absolutely. Do they have to? Absolutely not. We’ve already highlighted the practical items to have during a baby’s first few months and now we’re here to outline exactly how much we spent during our baby’s first year of existence.

Some caveats:

We live in Canada where healthcare costs for childbirth for residents are $0 thanks to our healthcare system. This includes all prenatal costs with our primary doctor and maternity clinic, hospital visit to deliver the baby, post-delivery hospital care (including extended time in the NICU, if needed), follow up doctor visits, shots/vaccines, etc.
We live in Canada which offers 12-18 months of parental leave. Nic took the full 18 months to never to return to work again so we do not have childcare / day-home costs to account for. During this 18 month leave, she received ~$21,000 from the government.
Our daughter took to breastfeeding and we never had to purchase or use any formula. She is also is a weirdo and never took to bottles. Or cows milk. Or soy milk. Or oat milk. Like ever…
This does not include the costs incurred for us to start our little family (vitamins/medicine, donor samples, shipping/storage of donor samples, fertility clinic visits, IUI attempt) which cost us ~$3,200 as most people reading this will not encounter these additional costs (although fertility treatment is becoming more and more common). This was the cost we spent to conceive our daughter, and not related to what we spent during her first year.

The Breakdown:

Diapers & Wipes: $412
- 128 New Born
- 300 Size 1
- 882 Size 2
- 826 Size 3
- We found Pampers Swaddlers worked the best for our little one and her skin sensitivities. On average, we spent $0.18 per diaper during this first year.
- We prefer Costco Kirkland baby wipes. We were somewhere on box two of 900 wipes by the time she turned 1. We also made our own water wipes using half of a paper towel dipped into water while she was very little as she had sensitive skin and the standard wipes irritated her.
- So we spent a bit more on diapers going with the Swaddlers but spent a bit less on wipes by making our own for a good part of her first year.
- Major kudos to the parents out there who go the reusable diapers route! We had full intentions to go reuseable and then never ended up using the ones we bought. We were exhausted newbie parents and I think the thought of adding on daily / every other day laundry got the best of our weakened sleep-deprived state. Diapers were definitely our most expensive line item during her first year so if you’re able to go reusable, you’re looking at shaving a couple hundred dollars off right there. And if you’re looking to have multiple kiddos, it’s the gift the keeps on giving and will reward you with even more savings down the road.
Nursery: $215
- Crib and mattress ($50, second hand), dresser ($25, second hand), new knobs for the dresser ($25, new), pictures/frames/decor ($80, new), crib sheets ($15, new), lamp/laundry hamper/bins ($20, new), rocking chair (free, second hand), end table (free, built ourselves), shoe rack (free, second hand)
- Looking back, we could have gotten crib sheets for free or a fraction of the price second hand, we could have decorated at half the price, and we haven’t used her laundry hamper and instead put her dirty items in our laundry hamper so we didn’t need that (although I assume we will at some point in the future).
Medicines/hygiene: $203 (all new)
- Vitamin D, Bio Gaia (probiotics for colic), nasal saline, Nose Frieda (lifesaver snot sucker), Camilia (homeopathic teething relief), non-alcoholic gripe water (hardly used), oval drops, reflux prescription (omeprazole, huge help!), lotion, baby Tylenol & ibuprofen, baby shampoo, forehead thermometer (found on sale for $26), humidifier. We also had $100 in Amazon gift cards we used for this category so without this the total above would be $303
- Not much you can do about these costs and the various medicines and hygiene products will obviously vary on the kid. Ibuprofen has been a lifesaver as she was definitely one of those kids who were impacted by teething.
Random things: $202
- oball ($2, second hand), blocks ($2, second hand), car seat cover ($5, second hand, likely did not need), hiking carrier pack ($20, second hand, use on hikes), nipple shield, ($8, new), lacti-cups ($30, new, looking back we did not need this), munch mitt ($5, second hand, likely did not need), passport photo ($30, new… that would be weird if it was second hand!), car seat (received one as a gift, returned for $200 and purchased a Graco 4ever 4-in-1 for $260 on Black Friday (goes for $400 in Canada) – for a net of $60, new), reusable baby food pouches ($15, new, still using these today but likely only needed 1 or 2, not the entire pack), ezpz silicon plate ($5, second hand, helpful invention!), portable high chair ($20, second hand)Most of these items have been very handy but as you can see not all of them were needed.
Clothes: $180
- Purchased from Target, Ali Express, Walmart, and various second-hand lots & items from Varage Sale = $270
  - Looking back, we did not need to buy any clothes brand new as we found so many great lots for free or for a very low cost. When we say “lots” we mean bins of 20-100 various items from other parents out there for $0-20 (Carters, Gap, Pekkle, Gerber, Joe Fresh, etc). Most of the brand new clothing purchases were when we first found out Nic was pregnant and we were super excited and didn’t yet know about the idea of buying clothing lots from other parents. These store-bought purchases were mainly from the clearance rack for off-season items. So many of the second-hand clothes (either free or at low cost) still had the tags on them. It’s crazy how many parents are FLOODED with baby clothes and are unable to dress their baby in all of them before outgrowing to the next size.
- Sold items we did not use/didn’t want to keep for hopeful babes 2 = $90
- We also gave over 200 items to friends who were having babies after us. So much excess baby clothes out there!
- Morale of the story, you can go overboard on baby clothes but there’s really no need to do so!
Books: $29
- We ended up with a lot of great Dr Seuss books through this sweet deal with Early Moments. Nic and I tag-teamed every few months and ended up with 20 Dr. Seuss books for $32, win! We sold one of the books for $8 after reading it once and not particularly enjoying it. They also have offers for Disney (which we got 4 books for $5), Elmo’s Learning Adventure, as well as Baby Einstein Playful Discoveries. Check it out if you’re interested but remember to cancel your membership once you receive your order or else you’ll get dinged with a much higher bill in the future! These are offered to both Americans and Canadians so you may need to Google “Early Moments Canada/America Disney offer” to see what’s available in your country. While most of these are not geared for a baby under 1, we made these purchases upfront and Finn is loving these books now. If you’re looking to purchase books, Early Moments offers some great deals.
- All other books have been either gifts, or from the free little libraries around town, or borrowed from our library. We have over 100 books in our home and rotate about 30 downstairs at a time. We keep about 20 in the guest room for her to pick out 2-3 to read before her nap. She also has about 20 bedtime books in her room which she gets 3 read to her each night.
- Morale of the story – utilize your library! Books can be expensive and can take up a lot of space. Rotate from your library to keep things fresh and age-appropriate. And donate to your free little library if you have some around town
Things we received for free as gifts or for free from random other moms in our community on Varage Sale: $0
- Gifts from family & friends:
  - Baby sleeping nest (handmade by Nic’s sister – definitely useful), shelves (handmade by Nic & grandpa), fancy Dyson tower fan since we don’t have A/C in our house (thank you grandma and grandpa for this very generous gift!), breast pump (unused by my cousin – handy if you are going to be away from your baby i.e. day care but we personally did not really need this), exercise ball (to bounce on when she was very colicky – came in handy), burp cloths (handmade by Nic’s cousin – definitely handy unless you want to be washing your clothes constantly), wash cloths (handmade by Nic’s cousin), diaper genie (hardly used as we use a small waste pail and bring our garbage outside to the larger bin as necessary so garbage smells never really linger in our house), play mat (definitely well used during her first year), monitor (again another useful item), flash cards (still a current hit), squeeze and stack blocks, sorting cubes, collapsible tent, ball pit, and tent (received for her 1st birthday and this is still one of her favorite toys). These last few items were nice to have but not necessities.
- Free items from others in our community:
  - Baby box (aka her free bassinet we used for the first few months in our room, thank you Alberta for providing these), rocking chair (oh YES), lanolin cream (yepp), breast milk storage bags (hardly used), nursing pillow (useful but only for a short time), baby swing (hardly used, after Finn not enjoying this one we borrowed a few types from friends and Finn didn’t enjoy any of them, even a mamaroo – she was not a chill baby…), breast feeding cover (honestly, if you have an apron in your kitchen this would do just fine but most new moms would think this is weird), baby bib bandannas (never used as Finn didn’t drool), baby towel (not needed), clothes, books, stroller arch toy (never used), baby gates (definitely useful, we preferred this style with a swinging gate), jogger stroller x2 (we tried out a few free strollers and the 3 wheeled jogger style has definitely been our favorite), high chair / booster seat, many other toys, teething rings/tooth brush/floss (from our dentist, the rings were useful but not as helpful as we thought they would be for teething), random kitchen items (cups, plates, bibs, cutlery, sippy cups, snack containers – all useful), baby walker (useful and super cute watching her learn to walk… aw I want to go back to that stage!), exersaucer (useful but not necessary), booster seat/high chair (definitely useful).
- Note that the majority of these no-cost items came from moms in our community that we did not know. Cannot rave about Varage Sale enough for the community we live in (similar to FB marketplace elsewhere)! Please ask around from other moms in your area what platform is commonly used by you. There are TONS of free baby-related items out there once you know where to look.
Things we purchased and sold for a net $0 cost: $0
- Ergo baby carrier ($40, second hand, thanks to a lovely random grocery store shopping mom we passed by in an aisle who gave us her Ergo360 for free which we absolutely loved using! – we resold the regular Ergo for $40 and kept the Ergo360 for hopeful babes 2), tub/bouncer/change pad ($10, purchased second hand, resold as to not take up space and will re-buy for hopeful babes 2), diaper bag ($25, purchased new and we never used – any old backpack will do), jolly jumper ($20, purchased second hand and used for a few months), pack and play ($20, purchased second hand then received another as a gift), bottles ($10, never used…. our daughter never ever ever took to a bottle).

How Much Did We Spend?

Drum roll pleaseeeeeee

We spent a total of $1,241 during our little lady’s first year. That comes out to $103 per month. You can easily spend that much on a stroller alone.

Not as bad as what a Google search will show you eh? Of course, this is just our personal experience but again we’re here to dispel that babies HAVE to be expensive.

We also contributed $2,500 towards her RESP education fund to get the full 20% match ($500) from the government so a total of $3,000 was invested into her future education. If that $3,000 grows at an average annual rate of 7% for 18 years, she will have $10,537 to put towards her education just from this one annual contribution alone. We plan to keep this up for 18 years and assuming an average annual growth of 7% she will have just over $100,000 in her RESP to account for her post-secondary education. In Canada, this should be more than enough. If she decides to go another route, this money is earmarked for her to use – be it to travel around the world, take some online courses/certificates, go into the trades, go into the military, start her own business, etc.

We also started to introduce foods around 5.5 months old. We haven’t separated how much we spent on her food compared to our overall food spending but during these first few feeding months it was likely around $25/month. Her favorite food during her first few months was definitely blueberries and was a bulk of this monthly expense. She also loved rotisserie chicken (no other kind of chicken would do), broccoli, carrots, corn, green beans, and avocado. And she’s always been into tangy and tart foods like sauerkraut, pickles, olives (legit her favorite food as of today), artichokes, fancy aged cheese, mustard, salsa, etc. Yep, she’s our little weirdo.

So if we also include the $2,500 RESP contribution and ~$25/month on food for 6 months (25*6=$150) we’re looking at a total of $3,891 out of our pocket cots in her first year. Of course, the RESP is elective and we recognize our privilege of being able to contribute this $2,500 towards her education each year.

There you have it!

Those with parents, are you as crazy as us and keep track of your baby-related expenses? Would you say you spent more or less than $1,236 on baby-related expenses (excluding education and food) during their first year? What was your largest baby-related purchase? How have your child-related costs changed compared to their first few years?

Those without kids yet but considering it in the future, if you’re reading this blog you likely are not part of the herd mentality and hopefully you too can stay well under the average of $8,000-$13,000. Any questions for us? Happy to help!

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The post Here’s How Much Baby’s First Year Cost appeared first on Modern FImily.

The Most Useful Baby Items for New Parents

Court and Nic — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 05:42:36 +0000

I’m going to preface this post by stating these are simply our opinions and in no way are we intending to tell you how you should parent. We wrote down these notes when we were a few months in to our role as new parents in case we had any friends or family who were expecting in the near future to pass along some lessons learned.

There is SO much marketing and advertising when it comes to two life events: babies and weddings. It’s as if you’re a bad parent if you even think about buying things second hand or if you don’t get the very top rated stroller. Did you know there is a $1,300 bassinet out there these days?! $1,300!! Do you know how long a baby is in a bassinet for? Weeks? Maybeeee a month or two? How oh how did parents ever survive without this magical contraption in the past?

Please do not go broke over your new baby! Many of these items are used for a very short time frame. You are looking for good quality at a reasonable cost. Many of the items listed below we received for free second hand from other parents in our community and guess what, our little girl is still alive!

We figured it wouldn’t hurt to share these notes with the world as there are always soon-to-be-new-parents out there looking for as much information as they can find about babies. (Insider scoop, no matter how much reading and prep you do pre-babes you still have NO idea what’s coming for you.) We took a solid look to see what we decided we actually needed for new babes vs what all the marketing tells you you’ll need. We’ve made a few updates since our initial notes and we hope any new parents out there find this useful.

We will follow up this post with a post detailing exactly how much we spent on our daughter during her first year and then another post similarly outlining how much we spent on her second year now that we’re past the two year mark. And yes, of course I keep track of these expenses to the penny!

We are trying to dispel the myth that kids have to be expensive!

Full disclosure: The links for several of the products listed below are affiliate links. This means Modern FImily would receive some cash money if you sign up for them using our links (at no extra cost to you). And for that, we thank you. For other items, we won’t receive any money at all – I’m just telling you about them because I happen to think they’re handy. Please try to buy second hand as there are SO many parents out there trying to get rid of these items from their garages. Your wallets and mother earth will thank you.

Items We Actually Recommend Getting for You/Your Baby:

First off, good news, you need way less than you think you need.
A place to sleep
- Baby Box/Bassinet: We used a baby box, which was provided by the government of Alberta for free, which is essentially a bassinet on the ground aka a cardboard box with a small mattress. It came with a few sample products, some newborn diapers, soothers, baby socks, etc. Some people started their baby off in the crib from day 1 so even this isn’t necessary. We just wanted babes in our room for the convenience of nighttime feeds and diaper changes. We transitioned Finn into her crib around 3.5 months which is when we started some sleep training (which was a nightmare, and still is to be totally honest). The downside to the baby box is that it is on the floor vs being elevated. No biggie for us.
- Sleeping Nest: Nic’s sister made us a baby sleeping nest to help the transition from baby box to crib. We absolutely loved this super neat contraption as it kept babes from rolling as we transitioned her into a larger crib. It helped her to feel “snug” and she was in this for a good few months once out of the baby box and in the crib. We also liked that this helped to keep her from rolling and to instead remain on her back at night. This is also great if you plan to do any co-sleeping as there is a clear separation between you and baby so you don’t need to worry about rolling on to them when you’re asleep.
- Crib: Whether you start off in a crib right off the bat or not, unless you plan to do co-sleeping, your little one will need a crib. Our crib is very practical and is able to convert to a toddler bed if we choose. Two sets of sheets are more than enough. We also bought two waterproof liners to put between the mattress & sheet and haven’t had to use either of them at all yet so those don’t make the list for us.
Rocking Chair: Most new parents are going to find themselves awake at random hours in the night. Enter the world of sleeping in a rocking chair. We also use our rocking chair to read stories in before naps and bedtime each night. We found the most important aspect is to rock/glide back and forth without making a sound. We hardly use the foot rest part now but it was nice when we were dead tired and would have a snooze on it ourselves.
Feeding
- Bottles: Luckily Nic was off work for the year thanks to Canada’s generous parental leave so we never had to deal with bottles while Finn was drinking breastmilk. We tried to expose Finn to a bottle multiple times but she showed 0 interest. Absolutely none. We had Dr. Browns bottles in our house as they were recommended to us by several other parents as they’re designed to prevent gas in babies and you want size 1 nipples (which is what I believe comes standard on them).
- Breast pump: My cousin gave us her unused Medela electric breast pump. If you are going to pump, we’d recommend electric vs manual for the ease of it. Check with your insurance company as my cousin got this one for free in the States.
- Storage Bags: You can purchase breast milk storage bags but really any plastic freezer bag would work just fine. We ended up hardly using any of ours. Breast milk can be used for nipple cream, diaper rash, treating ear infections, teething, healing cuts, eczema, blocked baby eye tear ducts/eye discharge, etc. so storing breast milk has come in handy but you don’t necessarily need a special bag for it.
- Lanolin cream: If you’re new to breast feeding, heads up, your nipples WILL hurt to begin with and it takes about a month for your body to get used to it. Enter lanolin cream to help with the pain. We also would suggest you see a lactation doctor (before and after birth) to increase your comfort level with feeding and what to expect, if one is available to you. It can be a challenge to get your baby to latch correctly and concerning to not know if your supply is enough for baby – enter lactation specialist angels!
- Nursing bras: You may think you can just use sports bras, but they really aren’t the same at all. Nic suggests to have (at least) 3 nursing bras.
- Nipple shield: Nic had some issues getting Finn to latch so she used a plastic nipple shield to feed Finn (from the lactation specialist). If you’re having issues, ask your lactation specialist about this as it really helped us. Finn used this for a few months (5 maybe?) until she suddenly spit it out on her own one day and decided she no longer needed it.
- Nursing pillow: Nic really only used a nursing pillow for the first 1.5 months then it got in the way. But she found it helpful when she was trying to figure things out and needed to use 2 hands. We then used it to prop Finn up when she was learning how to sit on her own.
- High Chair & Bibs: When it comes time to introducing food to babes, you’ll want bibs and plastic/bamboo utensils, cups, etc. We found that plastic bibs with the crumb catcher on the bottom were much more user friendly compared to cloth bibs as we could easily wipe and reuse them for the next meal. We used the silicone ones too but found them to be a bit more bulky and took up more space – still good though. We opted to not get a big clunky high chair and instead we use a high chair/booster that clips onto our kitchen chair (which our 2 year old is still in today) and a second one that is portable and attaches on to our kitchen countertop. The portable one is handy but definitely not necessary. We also found reusable baby food pouches to be useful if you plan to make your own baby food. Finn moved on to solids quickly so we didn’t use these for a long time but we still use them for applesauce to this day.
Clothing
- Sleepers: We started off with 3 newborn sleepers with zippers. That’s it. We needed more ha. Through our experience, if you have about 7 newborn sleepers with zippers that is all you need for that age – we really didn’t put Finn in anything but sleepers until she was past 0-3 month clothing. They grow out of newborn sizing so fast (depending on their weight at birth of course) and you won’t want a sleeper with snaps, they can be very frustrating especially for the middle of the night diaper changes! They are so fragile and itty as newborns that we found we didn’t use any other outfits besides sleepers which were the simplest to put on. Our favorite sleepers were the Cloud Island brand ones from Target (or something similar) as the zippers start at the feet vs neck so you only have to unzip half of it for diaper changes. Doesn’t sound like anything too fancy but it’s genius as it keeps babes warm for those middle of the night diaper changes! Try to avoid snaps at all costs. Of course, baby clothes are adorable and hard to resist, but if we’re talking practicality… all you really need is sleepers/onesies through 6 months. After that age, they start being more alert and mobile and you’ll want more variety. Depending on the season, you’ll want some outwear too of course. Forget shoes for now, they aren’t walking so just warm socks/booties will do.
Diapers, Wipes, Diaper Cream
- Diapers: We went through about 150 new born size diapers (Finn was 8 lbs 3 oz at birth). We went through ~300 size 1 diapers and ~900 size 2 diapers before shifting over to size 3 which is what she was in until just a few weeks before turning 2. We’ve shifted to size 4 now but fingers crossed that won’t last too long as we’ve been working on potty training recently. They can be in size 3 for a while, so if you see diapers on sale, stock up on size 3. Most stores will let you swap out sizes too if you end up with too many. She ended up going through 2,252 size 3 diapers. Wow. That was the first time I’ve calculated that. That’s A LOT of diaper changes! We use the Pampers Swaddlers diapers which aren’t the cheapest but when your child has sensitive skin you don’t scrimp on diapers.
- Reuseable Diapers: We commend the parents out there who use reuasble diapers. Diapers have definitely been our most expensive line item so if you use reuseables instead you’ll definitely save some costs. We were all setup to use reuseables ourselves (we bought 12 adjustable reuseable diapers prior to Finn arriving) but for whatever reason we ended up being intimidated by them. Maybe it was the stress of being a new parent, not having a clue what we were doing, and/or feeling oh so exhausted? Perhaps the thought of needing to go through the extra step of washing the diapers turned us off? I’m not really sure to be honest but we ended up selling those diapers for a wash and used disposables from the get go. Hats off to parents out there who have the extra energy to use reuseables.
- Wipes: We found Costco Kirkland baby wipes to be the best (we don’t have a membership but Nic’s sister or our neighbors pick these up for us). So far we’re on box 3 of Costco wipes which contain 900 wipes in each box. This is quite low as we actually didn’t use baby wipes to start. Well, we did, but we realized Finn’s bum was super sensitive so we used water wipes instead for the first 6-12 months as per recommended by our lactation consultant (I can’t recall when we switched to regular wipes). After a week of buying water wipes, we decided to make our own simply by cutting paper towel in half and dipping it in water ourselves. Super simple and a cost saver.
- Change pad: Note I am just suggesting the changing pad only and not the entire changing table here. We left our change pad right on the floor and felt way more comfortable changing her bum on the floor vs higher up as she was a wiggler. I don’t see the purpose of buying a piece of furniture to change your baby on when putting the change pad on a dresser will do if you want to be elevated. Two sets of sheets is more than enough.
- Diaper cream: We’ve been using Destin Extra Strength on Finn since she was born. At first we were using it for every diaper change, then it shifted to just after she had a poop, and now we just put it on before going to bed. She’s sensitive….
Nose Frieda
- This snot sucker is my go-to gift for new parents as it’s such a practical item to have. It is a life saver as babes can’t blow their nose on their own. We somehow have accumulated 3 of these bad boys. We thought we lost the base of our first one so we bought a second only to then find said supposed lost piece a few weeks later under our guest room bed. Oh the joys of having a toddler hide things on you! The third one was purchased while down in Florida for a trip earlier in the year where we forgot to pack our beloved snot sucker.
Burp Cloths, Swaddle Blankets, & Sleep Sacks
- 6 burp cloths and 4 swaddle blankets should be more than enough. We liked the muslin swaddles as they had a bit of stretch to help keep babes wrapped up inside.
- We tried quite a few sleep sacks to start with. We found the blankets with Velcro were useless. Finn got her hands out of them so easily and would startle herself with her hands and wake herself up. Our go to sleep sack was the Ergo Cocoon which is a zipper, stretchy material which she loved, and it has snaps at the arms so you can keep babes hands inside when they are little and then transition their hands out as they get older. After her arms were out, we then switched over to Halo sleep sacks with a zipper (no velcro!) which is what she’s still in today (we first switched over to size medium (16-24 pounds) and now she’s in large (22-28 pounds, 18-36 months)).
In Transit
- Car Seat: Bucket vs Convertible car seats, that is the question… We went with a bucket seat but if we could go back we would have started off with a convertible car seat. After the fact we purchased the Graco 4-in-1 4ever car seat that has 4 different seating options and good from birth to 10 years. The bucket is great if your child can transition easy and/or stay asleep when you take the bucket out of the car to say a stroller or indoors. Of course, you’re likely buying the car seat before babes is born and you don’t know if they will transition sleep well yet which is why most people (us included) go with a bucket. Finn never transitioned well, let alone slept in the car as a baby, so that didn’t work too well for us as it meant first getting the bucket and then the convertible for extra costs. Hopefully your babes is not as terrible of a sleeper as our little monster! The one pro to the bucket seat was the portability, which came in handy when she was little and we could pop her car seat out of the car and into the grocery cart to go into the grocery store. The other option would have been to wear her in the store with a carrier/wrap, which is totally doable also.
- Car Seat Cover: We got a stretchy car seat cover and found it useful for the first few weeks when Finn was sleeping non-stop but found we did’t use it much after those initial weeks, again mostly because she wouldn’t sleep in her car seat. This can also be used as a nursing cover for mom. I wouldn’t really recommend it since we personally didn’t use it a lot and felt that any blanket/sheet can be used for the few times you’ll want it. If you have a car seat sleeper you may have more respect for this item.
- Carrier/Wrap: We know a lot of people who used wraps to hold babes but we decided on a carrier. We purchased the Ergo carrier second hand and loved it, great back support for the parent. This was the only way we would get Finn to nap during the day for a longggg time so it was a life saver for us (and we definitely got our steps in as we were going for multiple walks a day). If we could go back in time though, we would have gotten the Ergo 360 which babes can face both inwards and outwards. We were given the Baby Bjorn by my cousin for Finn to face out in (she LOVED to face out and look around when she was awake) but the Baby Bjorn was awful in terms of ergonomics and hurt our backs so much more compared to the Ergo (note that we’ve heard the more expensive Bjorn One is better for ergonomics). We ended up getting the Ergo 360 (for free by a fellow mom we befriended in the grocery store one day!) as Finn could face forward in it and it’s the only way we could go for family walks – she wasn’t a fan of any stroller we tried out for the first 6-12 months. She has finally transitioned to be agreeable to walks in a jogging stroller… as long as there are snacks! Note that we don’t even have a stroller on this list as we hardly used ours for the first 6 months so not something you need right away. Now that we are well past the 6 month mark, we have definitely made good use of our (free) Baby Trend jogging stroller.
Activity Play Mat
- Finn loved her play mat from the start and we used it for months (6?) and would definitely recommend getting one. Ours had a hanging arch with some toys hanging from above and an adjustable piano at the end that she could kick with her feet to make noise. Once she was sitting upright, the piano could change positions so Finn could tap it with her hands.
Exersaucer
- Not a necessity but Finn loved hanging out in her circle of neglect aka exercauscer when we could use some hands free time. It takes up a lot of space though so we donated ours once we were done. We started using this around the 4/4.5 month mark and only used it for about 2-3 months.
Jolly Jumper
- Again, not a necessity but Finn loved bouncing around in her jolly jumper even more than the exersaucer. She would bounce in here for about 20 minutes a day. That may not sound like a lot but that was 20 glorious minutes where you could do whatever you needed to with your hands besides holding a baby. You can either get it to hang from a doorway or get a stand, the stand does fold up for storage. The stand takes up way more space but it’s safer than the doorway. We had the stand and started using this around the 4.5/5 month mark and used it for about 2-3 months.
Bathing
- We used a baby bathtub that had an additional mesh included for when babes was very young which was removable as they got older. We were giving her a bath with baby wash every 2-3 days for the first month or two and then transitioned to a daily bath. She loves bath time.
Coffee
- Every new parent always needs more coffee and that’s coming from a non-coffee drinker pre kiddo. I now have a latte every morning

That’s really it! Again, SO many of these items can be found for free or a steep discount if you shop second hand.

Of course, there are MANY more baby items out there not mentioned on this post. These were the ones we personally felt were practical for us.

How much did we pay for our baby items? Stay tuned for the follow up parenting posts detailing the costs we’ve spent on babes so far (hint, it’s NOT a lot!).

Any parents tuning in have anything to add, subtract, or edit? What did we miss during those first months?

Anyone reading who’s planning becoming a parent, we hope this eases some of your worries of actual practical items you’ll want to look into getting for your kiddo. Let us know in the comments below if you found this helpful or if you have any questions for us

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