Parents are spending half of annual their salary on education, holidays and music lessons for their children, according to Creditfix.co.uk.

The personal insolvency practice’s UK Spending Report found that parents are spending an average of £14,916 on their child each year. This is more than half of the average British salary, which comes in at £29,009 a year.

One in three parents say they underestimated the costs associated with raising a child and shockingly, when asked if having children was worth every penny, only 39 per cent of parents said “yes”.

The most expensive monthly cost attached to bringing up a child has been found to be education fees including university costs, school fees and extra-curricular activities, which set parents back £1,497 a year on average.

The second biggest expense is holidays, which averages £1,337 per year per child, and this is followed by food bills at £1,250.

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The average parent also pays £1,164 for childcare each year and music lessons costing an average of £1,102 a year.

However, despite the additional costs the average parent was found to have £5,240 in total savings – just £724 less than those without children (£5,964).

Taylor Flynn, head of marketing at Creditfix, said: “It is difficult to anticipate the true cost of raising a child, especially for first time parents who are learning on the job, and even more so when the cost of living in inflates year-on-year while salaries don’t necessarily increase in line with this.

“The experience of raising a child is a beautiful and priceless thing, even if parents may not always feel that way when they are experiencing extreme financial pressure. There are resources available to all parents that can help with planning to ease financial strain, so they can spend less time worrying about money and more time enjoying parenthood.

“The good news is that the UK Spending Report actually suggests that parents could be better at managing their finances than those without children, as despite significant additional monthly outgoings, their total savings are only a fraction behind that of their non-parent counterparts.”