[em-bee]

2 million? how do you even come up with that number? you are proving my point.

food, clothes, school materials, a bike. maybe a computer. also a bed and a few square meters of space in your home. everything else is optional. that doesn't cost 100,000 per year. not even 10,000.

sure, with less money you have less to offer or your kids. no or only cheap vacations, no expensive toys. no fancy brand name clothes. no expensive extra curricular activities. and certainly no money for college. but none of these things are necessary to have and raise kids. and it is not irresponsible to have kids and raise them that way either.

[dheera]

Life costs a LOT more than you estimate.

Start with housing. A few more square meters costs ~$1000 more on top of what I pay now, per month.

That's $200K in today's dollars or $500-700K over their childhood (0-18 years) if you include inflation, rent increases over the next 20 years.

If you want to sleep 8 hours a day AND work demands 12-15 hours a day, you absolutely need nannies, add $500K for that.

Because today's work environments demand that many hours a day, you evidently don't have time to cook anymore so you need to buy all your food, add $20K/year for that, or $350K.

Costs add up pretty quick.

[em-bee]

you seem to be living in a very expensive area. (where, if i may ask?). those with lower income are not going to be living there, so your constraints are not going to apply to them.

and your math only works for middle to high income earners.

2k/month for a nanny to compensate for 5 hours lost per day means that you have to earn 20$ per hour extra. in a minimum wage job that only pays $15 per hour you would be financially better off to work less, so you don't need that nanny.

so you simply aren't going to work 15 hours per day. same for the food. 20K per year is more than $50 per day. again, you are going to work less in order to make the time to cook because the extra money earned does not make up for the higher expense of eating out.

are you suggesting that there are no jobs that demand less than 12 hours per day? so your choice is either work 12-15 hours or be unemployed? i do not believe that.