Breaking Down the Bill: A Category-by-Category Look at the Cost of Raising One Child
All figures are based on the 2025 national average annual cost of raising a child ($27,743) from SmartAsset's analysis of MIT Living Wage Calculator data. Costs reflect estimated household expenditure increases attributable to one child across three developmental stages: early childhood (ages 0 to 4), school age (ages 5 to 12), and adolescence (ages 13 to 18). Childcare and education costs are age-adjusted to reflect full daycare in early childhood, after-school programming during school-age years, and extracurricular and school-related fees during adolescence. Food and transportation costs reflect child-attributable increases only. Individual category figures are rounded to the nearest dollar. Figures do not include college or post-secondary education expenses.