The cost of raising a child to the age of 11 has risen to more than £90,000, according to new figures.
The average annual cost of raising a child to secondary-school-age in Britain has gone up by £1085 in the last five years, a 15% rise from £7222 in 2007 to £8307 in 2011, the study by Halifax suggests.
Inflation as measured by the Retail Price Index rose by 18% over the period.
Schooling made up the largest rise in spending, including money spent on uniforms, class materials, school trips and lunches, which have increased by 24% from £684 a year in 2007 to £849 in 2012.
Nursery and child-minding costs accounted for the second-largest increase, up 22% to £3346 in 2011.
This was typically 40% of the annual expenditure incurred by parents when raising their offspring, while nursery and child-minding combined with schooling accounted for half of the total annual expenditure.
Spending on food and holidays fell in real terms, with parents spending £889 feeding a child in 2011, an increase of 14% from £780 in 2007, while spending on children's holidays rose by 16% to £740 during the same period.
Spending on children's clothing fell by 15%, from £602 in 2007 to £513 in 2011. However, heavy discounting among retailers to cope with the economic downturn could have had an impact on the figures, the report said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article