Cost of Raising a Child Calculator

About this calculator

Raising a child involves a stream of annual costs — food, clothing, childcare, education, healthcare — that tend to rise over time rather than stay flat, largely because of ordinary price inflation. This calculator starts from an estimated annual cost and compounds it year over year using an optional inflation rate, adding each year's inflated cost to a running total rather than simply multiplying a flat figure by the number of years.

The approach mirrors how organizations like the USDA historically estimated the cost of raising a child to age 18 in its "Expenditures on Children by Families" reports, which broke costs into categories and tracked how they grew with inflation over time. It's a planning tool for prospective and current parents budgeting for the long haul, and for financial planners helping clients set savings targets for child-related expenses.