After thread of "Cost of baby" how much

does your kids cost you per month?

That is for the average cost per month? Including healthcare and kindy ect?

not too much actually - $10 a week+ for milk for bopth boys
clothes - I tend to get a lot given to me by my nana - although need to get out and get a new jacket for Jake
food- he eats what I eat
Drs - very rarely goes - $7 a pop though

toys and everything they have

Maybe $10 a month for the $2 shop visit _stickers

Well we have three kids so I'll try...

Krystiana is only costing in nappies (MCNs for us though), wipes, and clothes washing costs so that would be probably $4 a week all up excluding nappies.

For the other two girls:

Daycare/kindy - at the moment none but when we were going before it was part-time and therefore fully subsidised

Clothes - I am in a couple of hand-me-down chains (mums who have finished their families pass stuff on) so most of the clothes the girls have are second-hand. I only need to buy pj's and underwear so far, so again, fairly minimal cost

Books and toys - all hand-me-downs and presents so far, except that I have bought a couple of activity books and am hoping to get some sticker activity ones for Hannah soon.

Food - This is the biggie. At a guess, 2 slices of bread, a pottle of yoghurt (but I buy 1L packs and spoon it out), small bowl of cereal, couple of biscuits, iceblock, half a small adult's serving of dinner between them...each per day so x7 = ummm probably $10/week each.

Add to that the beds, separate bedrooms (H & K share and B has her own), and the once offs: stroller, highchair, mats under their chairs at the table to protect the carpet, gate at top of stairs, etc

I find I do a lot of washing. We do 3 loads every two days, but before we had children it was 2 loads a week! Some of this is because of the extra people but there's also extra bed-washing because all our kids are still in night-nappies so more regular sheet washing is a must.

Medical stuff - I'm still using a talc from a bounty pack, tummy cream was prescribed (free) for Briona's excema, and all our doc visits are free so far (until 6yrs)

Paid activities - we go to a music group which is $2 per family per week. I'm delaying gym/dancing/music/sport/brigade/etc until school age at this point.

That's all I can think of at the moment. As for free things, we like to make good use of the library (books and puzzles and indoor slide here too), parks/playgrounds, and in winter I have hung out at the Plunket rooms a couple of times to get rid of cabin fever and let the girls play with some different toys for the morning.

At the moment Joshua is costing $8 a month for Infacol. I had stocked up quite a bit with nappies, wipes and toiletries before I had him and should be stocked up enough so that by the time he is 6 months and i'm at work thats when we will need to buy nappies for him again.

Andrew: 

• $21 a week for 36 hours (9 hours 4 days a week) of preschool. That is after the massive subsidy we get. 
• $5 a week for swimming lessons (I used to work at the pool and as i'm maternity leave I still get the discount)
• No difference in the food as he eats all the food we eat
• Our dr is free during the day and after hours is $5, but I can't remember the last time Andrew went to the dr
• He goes to Tiny Y's and that is also free as dad works at the YMCA
• He has enough clothes as I buy them in the sales for the next season and his grandparents always get him clothes.

So all up for him its under $30 a week. I spose we are quite lucky at the moment.