The cost of raising a child now tops $528,000, counting in four years at a private college. This is according to a report from the Brookings Institution and EducationData.org.

Raising a child born in 2015 through the age of 17 will set a family back $310,605. Add in another $218,004 for four years at a private college, or $102,828 at a state university.

The cost of having and raising a child is up 9% from two years ago, primarily due to inflation, Brookings Institution says. For a family earning only $20,000 or $30,000 a year, becoming a parent is prohibitively expensive.

“A lot of people are going to think twice before they have either a first child or a subsequent child because everything is costing more,” Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at Brookings, tells the Wall Street Journal. “You may also feel like you have to work more.”

High prices for food, school supplies, child care, medical care and other essentials have put parents’ backs against the wall, especially those who are already doing everything they can to shop smarter, cut back, replace favorite foods with lower-quality items and, when possible, do completely without.

Jennifer Smith, a mother of five, tells WSJ her family has gotten creative about saving money. They now practice meatless Mondays and clean-out-the-fridge Thursdays, the latter recently producing a bleak menu of a turkey sandwich, leftover pasta and sauteed peppers and onions.

Muffy Mendoza told her three sons that there would be no “boys week” for them with their cousins this year at their Pittsburgh home. “It costs a lot of feed 10 boys,” she grumbles.

“We’re cutting off the cable today because we can’t afford it,” Mendoza says. “There’s nothing left to cut out.”