With six kids, I spend about 100/month on clothes, 800 on food and other grocerie items.  Our PreK is free and school and medical are free.  Birthdays are expensive.  Like $200 per child (if not a bit more some years).  I have them in music lessons through the school which is free, but you have to pay for instrument rental (30/mo.)   They do swim team in the summer which is 80/child for the summer, but otherwise, I don't have them doing anything during the school year aside from studying and playing with friends.  Doesn't seem like kids get enough time to just PLAY, you know?  Hope this helps!

It costs us with 3 kids well over $1000 a week which includes rent, food, schooling, travel, it costs my hubby nearly $100 a week to get to work, most bills, sometimes we have a bit left over but that is rare...  I would say we are careful with our money but not as good as we should be. x

I know I've already had my say, but i was thinking afterwards, we pay for preschool which is voluntary, and there are lots of other things you could pay for and friends of mine do - things you don't need but they are great for kids - music lessons, dance, sport, gym, swimming lessons, language lessons - all great things but expensive.  I guess the more income you have the more you can spend and it depends what you think are priorities.  I would love to book my son into gymnastics, but that takes second priority to preschool at the moment.  Come summer we might, and we will also take them to swimming lessons.  Again, I would love to do it all year, but at the moment it is not viable.  Hope that helps!

We currently spend 1300 a month on our house, we dont get alot from centrelink being of hubbys pay. We need to budget better, we are really bad with money. At the moment our bills are the usual electricity which is high as we run our heater through our reverse ducted aircon. Phones are cheap as we dial through our internet. We pay 69.99 for internet per month. Nappy's are expensive so our money goes on that. Food our kids eat alot hehe. However we put away 50 a month in savings on a very high interest rate if not more. We do have a car loan of 470 a month, also have a personal loan we had when we first met thats around a 100 a month. Then there is Hecs we dont get a refund from tax it goes to hecs alot of money. Hecs is for going to university. However we get by one the one wage and my earnings from doing avon.

It's hard to work out exactly.  For us our son is at the most expensive stage - preschool!  Once he starts school next year (government school), life will get a bit easier.  We currently pay $80 p/w on preschool, as opposed to the $8 I pay for his sister for family day care.  We are on a lowish income with a mortgage so we are stretched and have no money left over - every bill has to be planned for and paid off over time.  But we survive.

Aside from preschool/day-care, the main expenses in a child are food, clothing (&nappies for littlies) and entertainment.  A lot of our clothes & toys are second hand and we borrow books & dvds, so the main expense is food.  For a family of 4 our food budget is between $80-150 depending on the week and if I have to buy nappies.  Nappies are expensive but we buy a cheap brand and at age 2 are coming off them anyway.

Petrol to run to preschool is expensive, but otherwise I can't really think of other expenses - medical is all free, and prescriptions are cheap for us (on a health care card), though we do have accident cover and ambulance cover for emergencies.  Playgroup is only $2 p/w and we have the odd outing.  I guess that is all. Does that help?

I think the amount they say it costs to raise a child is over exaggerated.  We have 5 children now and will be getting (once the paper work is done) roughly $1600 per fortnight.  Our rent is taken out of our payments, but still part of the mentioned amount.  We manage to pay all our household bills as well as our monthly storage bills too.  Groceries come out of this money, so does petrol and other incidentals.  By the end of the fortnight, I am usually able to put about $100 into my special savings account, which already has $50 per fortnight going into it.

We don't try to live above our means.  We don't have the best brands of everything and our furniture is mostly second hand, but with kids, that's all you want.  We manage to have a few take away dinners each fortnight too.

For us, the cost of raising our children isn't hurting us financially.  Neither my partner or I work (he's a student and I'm MUMMY! lol) so our income is below the average family's, but I consider us to be more financially secure than those people who own their own homes and work 60+hours per week.

There are 4 of us and we live on $1600 a fortnight. This easily covers our bills and food and school and all my, my hubby and sons medical costs as well as my hubbys hobby. we do have to budget as we do have short weeks were our phones, internet comes out as well as insurance. (money is tight atm from a stupid mistake of gett a car loan, that that is almos paid off) but we always have food on our table and if things are needed we can 9 times out of 10 get it.

We refuse to buy designer clothes or food. we buy homebrand for most things and it is nice. we buy in bulk at the buture each week.