Blue Ivy Carter: A Lesson in Parental Splurging
Posted by Ornella Grosz on January 24, 2012 in Personal Finance
.................................................................................................................
Blue Ivy Carter, the newborn daughter of hip-hop icons Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) and Beyoncé Knowles, has had a very lavish and luxurious beginning. Her parents, who enjoy unbelievable wealth, have bestowed on Baby Blue a $15,000 Swarovski-studded highchair, a $20,000 Coach carriage/crib, and the kicker, a $600,000 rocking-horse made of pure gold.
Believe it or not, the splurge carries an important lesson about budgeting for your baby and your future with a child. Keep reading…
Blue Ivy: A Baby A Step Above?
To most of us, it seems unreasonable to spend millions of dollars on a baby whose lungs have barely taken the first few breaths of life. But then again, Jay-Z and Beyoncé are not “most of us.” Forbes places both of them on its list of The World’s Most Powerful Celebrities, and their combined income in 2010 reached the unthinkable $72 million dollars. Depending on whom you believe, the couple’s net worth may even be over a billion dollars.
So, is spending a million dollars on their newborn really that bad? A million dollars was less than 1.5% of their combined earnings in 2011. According to information gathered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2010, the cost of raising a baby to the age of 17, for middle-income families, is $226,920. That boils down to a little more than $13,348 a year. As the median household income in 2010 was $49,445, that means shelling out more than 25% of the annual income toward a child — far more than Jay-Z and Beyoncé spent on Blue Ivy.
Blue Ivy’s Blue Ribbon Lesson
While it’s an interesting comparison, it doesn’t make their splurge any less jaw-dropping. But their spending is a good reminder not to take financial pointers from those who are extravagantly wealthy. The average person will never be able to afford such luxuries for their baby, but luckily the average baby will never need them. Each family needs to make their own set of trade-offs.
Jay-Z and Beyoncé can easily afford the lavish lifestyle they’ve designed for Blue Ivy. Most people cannot. If you can provide your baby with the essentials and give it lots of love, you’re doing just fine.
What do readers think? Are Jay-Z and Beyoncé being unreasonable, or simply providing for their child reasonably within their income? How have you managed budgeting around a newborn? Share your thoughts in our comments below.
Ornella Grosz is an author, speaker, financial expert, writer and PerkStreet customer. She blogs at Moneylicious with actionable tips and benefits of saving, eliminating debt, entrepreneurship, splurging, and everything to do with personal finance. When she is not writing about money, you can catch her joking with her family and friends, working out, watching NBA games, and reading.
-
http://www.thedebtprincess.com/ Jessica
-
Anonymous
-
Acer34_1
-
Anonymous
