Does Your Kid Need a Budget

by MP Dunleavey, Editor-in-Chief If you’re feeling bombarded with back-to-school expenses, activities, and the wallet-popping cost of child care—I hear you. With my son entering first grade this fall, it just hit me that I need a whole new budget—for my kid.

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Child care is a major expense for families, as you know, but a study released last week by Child Care Aware wasshocking. If you have, say, two kids at a daycare center full time, you’re probably paying more for child carethan you are for rent. If you have an infant in full-time care, in 35 states you’d pay more than you would for a year of in-statecollege tuition! And even if your child is now in school, you’re still hit withafter-school care, the cost of activities, supplies, and so on. And let’s not even discuss birthdays. OK? Please. Instead, let’s all get a grip with the newly mintedDailyWorth Back-to-School Budget (and sanity saver). Just enter your estimated expenses, and (as you go along) what you’ve paid. Life is less crazy, if you plan for it.