A mother’s brutally honest revelation about the costs of children’s upkeep has taken over the internet.
33-year-old Dana Cirrone from South Carolina is a registered nurse and a proud mother-of-three who one day decided to calculate the total yearly expenses for the upbringing of her three children aged from three to nine years old.
In her viral TikTok video, the mom revealed she felt horrified and sickened after finding out how expensive it was to provide children with everything they need.
The yearly cost for the upkeep of the three children that the mother came up with? Nearly $50,000.
“I just totaled up how much my children cost me per year and the number is going to shock you because it shocked me,” the woman revealed.
“I am going to transparently tell you the amount of money we spend on our three kids. The reason I did this is because I realized that finances are a major [factor in] family planning.”
She continued: “It is a big factor in why people do or don’t have kids. It is a big factor in when they have kids and how many kids they have so I feel like transparency can help someone.
“Money is very taboo and a lot of people don’t talk about it but, with that being said, I definitely go overboard in some areas… I’m seeing that right now on paper.”
In the breakdown of the expenses, the mother included extracurriculars, which racked up to $18,000, and food, which comes at over $14,000 per year.
Other major expenses include clothes, uniforms, shoes, gifts, birthdays, and preschool for her youngest child.
While the mother admitted the amount she came up with is “not the minimum you need to have happy children,” she suggested it is a realistic view of what kids could cost parents nowadays.
The mom also suggested the real number could be even higher because she didn’t include potential costs such as medical expenses.
As it happens, the mom’s estimated expenditure of nearly $16,000 per child per year is below the average annual cost of over $20,000 for raising a young child in America.
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