Well, of course we are. We have children, don't we?

With it now apparently costing in the region of £180,000 to raise a child to the age of 21, it is no wonder the majority of the population is up to its eyeballs in credit card bills and the like as a great deal of family finance is about robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I am sure with the financial skills I have picked up juggling our, at times, precarious family budget, I could run the economy of a small country.

This eye-watering sum covers things like food, clothes, equipment, toys, family outings and holidays, but not private education – goodness knows what that would take the total to.

It has dawned on me that if the husband and I had remained childless, we could have saved ourselves a cool £540,000 and be living a life of selfish luxury.

I mistakenly thought that once our eldest was in sixth form and had picked up a Saturday job, our responsibilities would lessen and the strain on the housekeeping purse would ease a little. How wrong could I be?

There is barely a week goes by without me being required to write a cheque in the region of £30 to £40 for some school trip he has to take.

He's back and forwards to London for history lectures and geography conferences, over to Cambridge for plays, up to Norwich for workshops and next Easter off to Italy for Roman archaeology.

Driving lessons are also costing us a small fortune. We're trying to look on it as an investment as the sooner he is driving for himself, the sooner we can give up turning out at night to pick him up.

But at getting on for £40 a session, that driving test cannot come soon enough.
Do we begrudge the cost? Well, not really.

The school trips are for his education and the driving lessons for his own long term benefit.

They are not extravagances and what parent doesn't want the best for their child? It doesn't pay to weigh up the cost of having children.

You can't keep a running total – they are all priceless.