How would you like to be a millionaire? One way to help you get there is to save money. If you are a couple who is thinking of having 2 kids and 2 cars here are two big ways to reduce your costs.
The USDA recently calculated that the average child in the US would cost $233,610 to raise from 0 to age 17. This does not include college costs. College costs can vary widely (community colleges are a great deal) but if you send your kid to a private college this can easily cost $50,000 to $70.000 a year or $200,000 to $280,000 for 4 years.
So if a young couple chooses NOT to have two children, they could save roughly $1 million!
Now on the car front, AAA recently calculated that the average cost of car ownership in the US is $9282 per year. That comes to $557,000 per car over a lifetime of car ownership (say about 60 years). So if a young couple decides to forgo owning two cars and use bicycles to get around instead they will save about $1.1 million!
Combine the savings from deciding not to have kids and not to have cars and you can save about $2.1 million US dollars.
The savings don't stop there either. Bringing a kid into this world has by far the biggest impact on climate change and resource use of any choice you can make. Choosing to bicycle instead of drive comes in as the second biggest impact even though it is a fraction of not having a child.
So if you are so inclined, you can both help save the world as well as save yourself a lot of money that you can use for other things by not having kids and not having cars. Hope this makes you think a bit. Thanks!
So if you are so inclined, you can both help save the world as well as save yourself a lot of money that you can use for other things by not having kids and not having cars. Hope this makes you think a bit. Thanks!
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