Before you forge ahead with your family planning, you might want to take note that the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the lifetime cost of raising a child is well over $200,000 -- and that doesn't even include the cost of a college education.
http://www.parentdish.com/2010/02/24/how-much-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child/


Everyone knows that it’s expensive to raise a kid. Just how expensive is it to raise a child? The real price tag on raising a child from birth to 18 is pretty staggering- it may be far more than you ever expected it to be. Each child that you raise will cost more than buying three brand new, 2011 Jaguar XFs.

When you think of the big, expensive times in a child’s life, your mind might linger on two major intervals in their lives: when they’re a baby or when they’re a teenager. However, there is no inexpensive time in a child’s life. Every phase in a child’s life comes with extensive expenses that can make budgeting difficult for most families.

During the time from birth through age two, it costs about $11,700 to raise the younger child in a family that earns a middle class income and has two parents and two children.Click on the graphic to find out. While this sounds like a lot of money, this is actually the least expensive three-year period in a child’s life. What is the most expensive one? Even if you’ve had kids, you may be surprised how expensive each phase of a child’s life really is. Few parents really take the time to add up all of those expenses, both small and large, and the real cost of raising a kid might come as something of a sticker shock



Visual Economics: How Much Does It Really Cost to Raise a Kid? - VisualEconomics.com http://www.visualeconomics.com/how-much-does-it-really-cost-to-raise-a-kid/#ixzz1CLF8wm00
http://www.visualeconomics.com/

P.S. How can an average household be two adults and two and a half children?

Does Uncle Sam take half of the third one?

Chairman Ben Bernanke told the panel that the crisis put 12 of the 13 most important U.S. financial firms at risk of failure within a period of a week or two, and that it surpassed in severity even the Great Depression, a period in which he is a noted expert.

"As a scholar of the Great Depression, I honestly believe that September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression," said Bernanke in a November 2009 interview with the commission.

"If you look at the firms that came under pressure in that period ... only one ... was not at serious risk of failure."

I suppose it has something to do with math.