Today’s edition of When Celebrities Mismanage Their Finances – or, excuse me, When “Celebrities” Mismanage Their Finances – centers on Nadya “Octomom” Suleman.

Suleman – mother of 14 children, including the world’s only set of octuplets – recently signed a contract for her kids to appear on a reality TV show. Each child will receive $250 per day of shooting and “15 percent of the kids’ earnings will be placed in a trust account,” according to E! News.

Now while $250 per child per day may seem like quite a bit, it’s actually not very much. Collectively they’ll earn nearly $250,000. The show will only shoot for 71 days over three years, meaning that each child will earn $17,750 total. And 15% of that is just $2,662.50, the amount to be placed in each child’s trust, accessible once they turn 18 (in accordance with CA law).

In other words, the kids aren’t making very much money from this deal at all. They’ll be paraded about on a reality TV show and, assuming interest on the trust account is less than 8%, likely end up with less than ten grand.

One hopes that the $211,225 Suleman controls will be spent wisely. Feeding, clothing, and housing 14 growing kids can’t be cheap.

What happens when the good-hearted givers go away? Since this cost is easily calculated by the individual age of each child, let’s put a pencil to the equation and provide Octo-Mom with an idea of just how much money will be needed.

It’s pretty much common knowledge that everyone, including Octo-Mom Nadya, should have a budget especially when raising a family. Budgeting makes it easier to spend prudently, save wisely, invest strategically, shop shrewdly for life insurance and prepare deliberately for college education, retirement and emergencies.  Sounds good, but also sounds like a lot of work.  True, but there are budgeting resources available to help calculate these costs.

So what goes into calculating the cost of raising a child?  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, child care and education, and miscellaneous items are all common expenses for families raising children from birth to age 18.  The agency factors in many variables, like regional housing and transportation costs, number of parents and children in the household along with anticipated spending by income level. Unsurprisingly, higher-income families have a tendency to spend more than their lower-income counterparts.  Likewise, two parents living in the same home typically spend more on each child than single parents.  Urban and rural families face similar costs but rural families pay more, on average, for transportation and health care.

So let’s return to Miss Nadya and, given the public information available, see if we can calculate the annual cost to raise 14 children.  There are two popular websites with tools for calculating the cost of raising children: the USDA and BabyCenter.com  We’ll get started by entering the following details: 10 is the number of children between 0 and 2 years of age; 2 between the ages of 3 and 5; and 2 between the ages of 6 and 8.  Next, the household is identified as a one parent unit.  Given what has been revealed during various media interviews, she falls in the low income category because she has no job and no visible means of support.  Suleman lives in California and it seems she’ll most likely end up in the urban Los Angeles area.  Now, let’s click and compute the annual cost of raising of 14 children.  Wait a minute! It turns out that a standard calculator cannot be utilized because neither of the above sites accommodates a computation for 14 children.    So, let’s tap into the University of Minnesota Extension resources.

This one works.  Are you ready for the monthly total?  $6,528! This translates into $78,336 annually.  That figure doesn’t include saving for the kids’ education, or the extra costs associated with having more than a baker’s dozen of little ones like nannies, a bigger vehicle (try a bus!) or therapy.

What advice can we give Nadya and other new parents?  Budget, plan, prepare.   Take a look at the above resources yourself and know how much your progeny is going to cost!  This will lead you to more informed and sound financial decisions.  Budgeting is the key to good money management, and preparation now will be a huge help during financially uncertain times.