Thinking about having kids or looking to add another bundle of joy to the family? This calculator could help you figure out how much it will cost — and it takes less than a minute.
Created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the calculator requires users to answer a handful of questions about their household, including the number of children, their ages, and the parents' annual income.
The algorithm looks at housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, child care expenses as well as the region in the United States where the couple resides to determine the annual cost of child rearing through age 17.
Example: For a household with two parents living in the Midwest making more than $106,000 annually with two children aged 12 and 7, it would cost around $44,000 per year to raise both children, according to the calculator.
That same household, if annual income dropped under $61,300, would pay around $19,000 to raise those two children.
The cost of raising a child could be greater than the USDA's predictions, as it does not factor in every possible expenditure.
The calculator does not include the cost of giving birth, maternity leave or money that parent's put away for college savings.