Parents in New York City rolled their eyes at a recent survey that claimed it costs $15,447 a year to raise a child in the state — instead revealing that their annual child-rearing bills can reach a shocking $100,000 a year per kid.
Families across the five boroughs fessed up their spending to The Post, that saw their annual bills far eclipse the survey’s more modest estimate.
The LendingTree study, published April 6, found that parents pay more than $300,000 to raise a child in the US over the course of 18 years. New York State was ranked at No.15 in the country with a total cost of $278,051 per child.
That boils down to an average of $15,447 a year.
“Oh, hell no!” Cinzia Leon slammed the survey, telling The Post that the figure was close to the price tag for just her son’s confirmation last year.
“Alone, the hall cost $12,000,” said the Staten Island mom of the 100-guest shindig. “Then all the extras, the outfits, dressing my entire family. I had Uncle Magic there. That was $900. I had a cannoli guy. That was $300. The video guy was $600. The photographer was $500.
“You want me to keep going?” Cinzia asked.
Cinzia and her husband Carlos are raising three children — 13, 9 and 4 — on Staten Island, where she owns Moretti Bakery, which she opened with her late mother 25 years ago.
Her two boys go to public school, and her 4-year-old daughter is enrolled in the city-wide, pre-kindergarten program, part of the Pre-K for All initiative, open to all families regardless of income.
But the busiest time at the bakery is the weekend, so Cinzia needs to hire a babysitter every Saturday and Sunday.
“Just for two days, it’s $450,” Cinzia told The Post. “That’s $1,800 a month.” Over spring break, the nanny cost her another $1,500.
Then there’s clothing.
Her 13-year-old wears a men’s 2XL, “because he’s a big boy,” she quipped. “I’m spending $200 on jackets over here. They grow so fast. One minute they’re a size 5, then a 6, and I just bought three pairs of sneakers at $150 a piece.”
The 46-year-old mom pays $200 a week for tutors, too, and transportation is another cost.
“You’re driving all over the place,” Cinzia said. “Just to fill up my tank right now is $145.”
When Cinzia took her daughter to the dentist for “two pullouts” and “eight cavities,” the sedation fee was $1,900.
“Of course, insurance is not going to pay for that,” Cinzia lamented.
When asked about what their expenses might cost in total per child, Cinzia deferred to her husband, who estimated $100,000 a year. When his wife mentioned the lowball figure in the LendingTree survey, he flatly replied, “Tell them they’re wrong.”
Kew Gardens mom-of-one Rachel Bloor told The Post she and her husband, Spencer, are “kind of frugal” and keep their expenses “lower than a lot of other families in the city.” They thrift clothing and use the libraries.
Still, Bloor said, she “easily” spends $20,000 a year on her 5-year-old daughter, Sheena.
“And that doesn’t factor in the mortgage” on their two-bedroom apartment, Bloor added.
Her daughter’s pre-K is free, but classes end at 3 p.m. while Bloor, a human-resources professional, is still at work. To add 45 extra hours in the afternoon costs $1,600 a month, but because Bloor qualified for a subsidy, she thankfully only pays $660 — for now.
“During the summer, we have to pay full price,” the 40-year-old mom said before ticking off hard numbers. “So: $5,940, which is $660 for nine months, plus the three months of summer camp, comes out to $10,740 just for her school.”
Extracurricular activities, like swimming and dance lessons, add another $4,000 a year, and “groceries are expensive, especially if you want to go to the farmer’s market.”
Through her job, Bloor receives health insurance for her entire family, with an $800 monthly premium — a majority of the cost for her offspring. “Let’s say my daughter is $200 of that — plus dental, another $300 — comes to $500 a month for her insurance costs.”
Outside entertainment is a treat: To see a movie recently — “a relatively cheap afternoon,” Bloor said — she paid $80 for three tickets, popcorn, and “of course,” candy for her daughter.
Add it all up, and you can forget having a second kid.
“We wouldn’t be able to do anything fun,” Bloor said. “We could survive, but we couldn’t have any budget for a fun vacation.”
Jessenia and her husband, Jean-Carlos Tejada, are pondering a sibling for their 2-year-old daughter since Mayor Mamdani announced his plans to extend the current pre-K programs to that age.
“We’re considering our options,” the 36-year-old Bronx mom told The Post.
Another mother, who also lives in Riverdale and declined to give her name, also told The Post the city’s universal pre-K program and state paid family leave “completely influenced when we started a family.”
“We waited until the first was in the universal pre-K through the city,” the mother of two said, so we didn’t have to pay the double daycare.”
According to a TOOTRiS statistic, weekly child care in the city costs $940. Tejada was able to pay $375 a week because she found a day-care center in Westchester.
Last year, Tejada spent $18,000 on day care, a low price compared to what other parents in the city face.
“We were looking at home-based programs,” Tejada told The Post, but a place she liked in Riverdale, where she lives, was an unaffordable $525.
When a co-worker recommended that she try Westchester, Tejada, who works in Yonkers, found a place near her job that watches her little girl from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
But day care centers don’t provide supplies.
“You can easily add another $5,000 a year for diapers, wipes, bug spray, sunscreen and formula, which is expensive,” Tejada said. She bought a 20-ounce, double pack for $60 every two weeks.
“When you start doing the math,” she laughed, “it seems like you’re paying double.”
Kiley Surma paid almost double for her 4-year-old son’s day care in Brooklyn, which started at 5 months old, when both Surma and her husband, who are in tech, had to return to work.
“For the first two years we were paying $3,000 a month — that’s $36,000 a year for day care,” the 42-year-old mom said of the “crazy expensive” outlay.
Surma, who moved to NYC from Minneapolis nine years ago, and her French husband, who arrived one year later, don’t have family here.
“We’re completely self-reliant in terms of taking care of our child,” she said, estimating her annual costs rose to $60,000, with her son now attending a “really good” French dual-language pre-K 4 program in Fort Greene.
Stephen Barber, a 51-year-old broadcasting engineer, is raising his third child, Ryu, in Bay Ridge, where he is in the free pre-K program.
But Barber’s two older kids, an 18-year-old daughter and a 21-year-old son from a previous marriage, grew up in the Bronx.
“School’s pretty bad up there,” Barber told The Post, who had opted to put them in Catholic school at a “discount” of about $1,500 a month for both.
But the costs didn’t end there, with Barber tallying $100 for his girl’s uniform, buying three, and $40 for his son’s shirt and $50 for slacks. “You have to buy several because they get dirty. Boys are boys,” said Barber, adding that without a washer and dryer in the apartment, “you have to spend going to the laundromat.”
His highest costs now are $3,000 a year after-school programs for his younger son’s sports activities, said Barber, who is still hoping to keep his 5-year-old “away from his iPad.”
Electricity costs are high, too, hitting about $500 a month. “Everything is computers or Nintendo or some kind of thing. The city can get really hot, so you gotta worry about an AC.” A move to a smaller apartment brought electricity down, “close to $300.”
At one point, Barber recalled, he had to work two jobs, 16-hour shifts, six days a week, to keep up, but he has no regrets.
“That’s being a dad,” he said. “That’s what I signed up for.”
On the Upper West Side, 42-year-old Gabrielle DeBrentan was looking at “a very nice Catholic school” for her now 6½-year-old daughter, but “quickly dismissed” the $48,000 kindergarten tuition as out of reach.
“Even if you get financial aid, it’s also tricky,” said DeBrenati, whose husband works in advertising and has two older, college-age children with a former wife. “You never really know what you’re going to be paying two years from now.”
The 42-year-old mother said she heard “crazy stories” about kids who were in private schools with tuition support, “and then the following year, they didn’t get any more support, and the parents ended up having to pull their kids out.”
DeBrentani, a former marketing executive, was laid off when her daughter was 1 year old. “Suddenly, I had no income and a tiny, little baby,” she said. With day care costs so high, she and her husband decided it would be cheaper if she didn’t work and ”purposely stayed home for a bit” to take care of the baby herself.
“I tried to do some freelance work, and then I tried to start working again,” she sighed, admitting it’s been hard to find a job and return to work after the long break.
Her neighbors, she confided to The Post, pay over $48,000 for their nanny per year — more than the total earnings for some low-income families.
The Post also spoke to anonymous Lower East Side parents — the mom a dancer and the father a musician who make around $40,000 a year, raising their 4-year-old daughter in a small, one-bedroom, rent-stabilized apartment.
They qualified for subsidized day care vouchers from the city’s Child Care Assistance Program — so their day care was thankfully free.
The mother also received help from the Women Infant Children Program, which gave her groceries, like milk and yogurt, during her pregnancy and after birth.
All the parents, regardless of neighborhood and costs, agreed with Surma that having their children was “the best thing I ever did in my life.”
As proud dad Barber told The Post, “Coming home and having my children run through the door after having a crappy day, it’s the best feeling ever.”
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