budgeting question

Becky,
For us,it was several years between the two kids(6 to be exact) and that meant no double diaper or formula or early check up bills. So the cost of the second kind of got absorbed into the regular family expenses,if you will. We don't really follow a strict budget but we do drive older vehicles,shop in bulk with coupons and at discount grocers. I buy stuff like kids clothing at yard sales or thrift shops on occasion,we get movies and books and magazines at the library instead of buying them. It all helps.

If you have two of the same sex kids,clothing,shoes,toys,room decor can all be saved and handed down,that helps with the budget of another child.

Can't think of too much else at the moment,brain is fuzzy with ear pain meds....

Take care,
Heidi

For us, additional children really don't cost anymore, yet. My grocery bill has gone up very little, I've saved all the clothes (and with a shopaholic mother, grandmother and aunt, and friends that give me hand-me-downs, I've barely bought a thing for them in 8 years). I've bought few toys (grandparents do alot in that dept. as well, like birthdays and Christmas, and they get passed on from kid to kid, too). I breastfed for the first year, so there was no formula to buy. I used cloth diapers on and off, so no biggie there.

Really the only big cost is having the child, but we really haven't budgeted for that, we will just pay it out of our farm loans as an operating expense.

Of course, things will get expensive in the years to come. I will be buying more of the kids' clothes as they wear them out faster, they will start eating more (especially the boys when they hit their teens!!), they will start driving (gas, insurance, and of course their car or truck, but they have to help pay for those, too). Sports and FFA/4-H will start costing us more, and saving for college (which we have a plan for. My SIL paid for hers by raising her own beef cows and scholarships).

The thing I have learned in my situation is, you can never "afford" to have kids, so you might as well go ahead with it. I figure as long as we aren't on welfare or getting Medicaid, we can afford it. But as a side note, I know that we are done after this one. Four is my limit.

Oh, and your last question, what changes did we make to have children. Well, none. Except that I started staying home as soon as we had DD8. We changed from being an employed family to a self-employed one. But we didn't really have to change our spending any to do that. But my situation is pretty unique to almost everyone here at TNH.

Ok, I went on and on, and I know I wasn't much help. Sorry, Becky! LOL! My lifestyle is just too different from a "normal" family. I know you will get other good info from the other gals!

These are all interesting, but I'm nosier than that. One of the things I'd like to know is when and how people move to bigger houses, or add onto their current houses, to accommodate more kids. This is interesting stuff though. I don't really need "help" with anything, I just am curious about the ways different people do things. Sort of a slice of life, you know? I've seen a lot of examples online and things of "real life budgets," "can you afford xyz" and all that; this just happens to be one area where I haven't seen/ heard a lot of anecdotes, so I was wondering.

DH and I got married after 5.5 years of dating because we wanted to have kids. We were only 21 when we married, 22 when DS15 was born. Eighteen months later DS13 was born. We planned to have two more right away, but went through three miscarriages in 8 years, until DD was born, and she's it.

We lived in a trailer until DS13 was one and a half (5 years). We built our current home ourselves and in stages, adding rooms as needed (OK, usually well after they were really needed) so we could pay as we go more. We were both working low-paying jobs until lasy spring, when I retired from teaching to stay home. Because our housing costs were so low, we had managed to save some money, and we had also paid off our house, but recently plowed everything we had into this business.

When the kids were born, I asked for cloth diapers for shower gifts, and I nursed. That plus hand-me-down furniture and clothes meant we didn't have many expenses. We did have health insurance, thank God. When I had to go back to work, my Mom helped to provide childcare so that wasn't such an expense.

I have found that as they get older it does get more expensive. Food right now is outrageous, the boys eat more than I thought possible. They also are about the same size and growing very quickly, so I spent $400 on clothes and shoes recently. Other expenses like soccer, basketball, and baseball gear, school pictures, gas running them around, really expensive calculators, and so on are pretty bad.

Living expenses in this area are really pretty low, and we have simple lives by choice, so that sure helps.

I have also found that no matter how well you plan, it never happens that way, well not for us anyway, so I plan some, hope for the best, and wing it.
-Jo

As regards housing:

Right before we got married, we lived in a 2-bedroom, 1200 sqft apartment. We married and moved into a 900 sqft 1-bedroom. We had a baby and 4 months later moved into a 750 sqft 1-bedroom. The difference was that the 750 sqft'er had a much bigger bedroom -- really as big as two bedrooms, so it was easy to share. We lived there until DD was 3. We knew we wanted another kid, and we knew that houses weren't getting any cheaper, so we decided to buy a house.

We got a 3-bedroom house, planning to have only 2 children and knowing that I would need an office space to work from. Our DDs share a (small, like 12x12?) bedroom, and we anticipate that they will continue to do so at least until we can move or add on (if that day ever comes!)

If we had another child, we would not move to a larger house any time soon, since there is a relationship between how much money you have to spend on a house and how many kids you have! (Especially since another child would really limit my ability to work for quite a while.) Squish 'em in!

Our girls are 6 and 2, and I am finding that they are getting expensive! I am just starting to notice a difference in our grocery expenses, and our clothing expenses. (My mom buys a fair amount of clothes for them, or we'd be sunk!)

But back to housing, I know a lot of people around here have kids and move to the suburbs because you can get so much more house for the money. Living within the city limits proper costs a *lot* more per sq ft. But Minnesota is different from the East or West Coast, where you really have a giant megalopolis stretching for miles and miles. Here I can't imagine going to the suburbs -- we have poor mass transit, which means agonizing commutes, and most of the communities have not yet adopted the retro-small-town style that is getting big among residental developers. So, no sidewalks, nowhere to walk, no neighborhood businesses -- thus, no Shaun! Also, I must have trees -- big tall trees -- so that precludes any but the first-ring suburbs. New clear-cut developments would never work for me.

I guess I figure that people raised families a lot bigger than ours in 1200-1500 sqft houses, so we can too. I always wonder about people who have 3000+ sqft houses -- did they remember that there is always extra breathing room in a little place I like to call "Outside"?! But maybe that is a midwest thing . . . We love our outdoors, winter spring summer and fall.

I think you can see the pattern here -- there's no such thing as planning!

Our home is a three bedroom. Luckily, the kids have cooperated on their genders. LOL! Both the girls came first and now share a room, and Chance has his own room, for now. Our house has an "office" that has no closet and has an open doorway with no door to the livingroom/foyer. That is the baby's room for now. When he gets older, he will move in with his big brother. We have plans to finish in the garage and turn it into a music room/wetbar. But plan on the kids sharing rooms for quite some time.

We didn't plan on buying this place. Over the years we had thought about moving, we had worked on a few deals that didn't go thru on other farms out of the area (one in Arizona, one in Colorado, one in Ft. Sumner, which is about an hour away), but none panned out. Our banker approached my FIL with this place, but he didn't want it and told us. It was in a bankruptcy/foreclosure deal. We got it for a song, we didn't even have to put anything down because it appraised for much more than we paid for it. Not only that, but it pays for itself. The cattle we raise on it covers the yearly payment, insurance, AND feed.

I guess my point is, keep your eyes open. You never know when good deal will come along.

I'm just bumping this up on the page so it will be visible, in case anyone else feels like satisfying my curiosity.

I'm also with the No Plan Group, and I've found that people who plan too much find out rather too late that sometimes children don't come when YOU plan. More of that in a moment...

When DD was born we were living in one room of my BIL's 3bed condo in Singapore. My SIL was in another room and the master bedroom was kept empty for when my eldest BIL came home from China. Then we moved with DD to China for 10mths where she also slept in a cot in our room. We moved back to the same condo in Singapore just before she was 2yrs and I was expecting DS but immediately started looking for our own place (to share with my SIL). DD then got her own room at the age of 2 1/2, after sleeping in a cot all that time, and DS was immediately installed in the cot (all happened pretty much the same time!) where he refused to sleep.

Fast forward a few years and my children, now 9 and nearly 7, older girl, younger boy, have finally got their own rooms. They are the best of friends and love playing with each other more than with anyone else (though they enjoy te novelty).

What I've noticed is that people who expect everything to work to their plans are frequently disappointed and don't know what to do when things don't work out. I've learned to go with the flow, and have definitely found that it all works out. The money you have will fit because you'll make it fit. The housing situation will fit as long as it needs to. I've been constantly amazed at how things have just fallen neatly into place when I've most needed them to, and this particular move has been an incredible example of that - this was the first house we saw, the day after we arrived! I'm not especially religious type, but I've come to the only logical conclusion that I have somebody watching over me, and perhaps because of my willingness to let go on the planning I've been given everything I most needed when I really needed it. On the other hand, I've seen people launch their careers and then 'plan' to have a baby in the their mid to late thirties and had a terrible time of it. Neither of my kids was exactly planned, but I'm very grateful to have had them sooner rather than later. If it had been left to my planning I would have been maybe thinking about having kids in the next few years. Fortunately it wasn't left to me, and now I have a 9yr old and nearly 7yr old who can take care of themselves quite a bit if I'm not feeling well.

I'd say just let it happen, but obviously your physical health needs to be at the right level, and your reluctance to try again is understandable. But don't let the money issues get in the way - money and love both stretch somehow. Go with the flow and just see where it takes you.

Kerri.

Really, it's not! Our "plan," as I more or less posted above, is "when we were able to stop sponging off my parents, we could afford kids," which coincided with the time that I became healthy enough to manage it anyhow. It's about my wanting to know the details of other people's lives. I'm sometimes nosy that way. I was thinking about what kind of details I didn't already know about TNH-ers' pasts, and came up with this one-- sort of like Anhata's "Wayback Machine" thread. It's worked well; I've learned a lot of things I didn't know about y'all, from both threads.

Our first child came 1 year after we moved into a three bedroom dbl wide. Worked pretty good. A few years later we had a second and now had filled up all the rooms. After living there for 9 years we were finally able to afford a bigger home. I had just gotten my tubes tied before we moved into a four bedroom house because I was done and knew with the expenses of a bigger house we could not afford another child. I now had a "sewing room" but did mention to DH that it really needed a child to fill it. Three years later I somehow conceived a third child, one we most definiatly did not plan but somehow have managed to make it work.

We really just wing it. We talk about it and make limited plans knowing they can always change!

Jana

I think the government has some sort of "cost of rearing a child" index somewhere that is exorbitantly higher than it ought to be.

We do it on the cheap. We have a 3 bedroom home and are expecting our 6th child. If we wind up staying here (that's a big "if") we'll eventually have 3 children per room (3 boys in one room and 3 girls in the other). There's a possibility of building an addition, if we find a job that allows for us to do it in a financially sound manner.

Our minivan presents a minor difficulty. I can squeeze in four child seats and one additional big kid in the back right now. Although I can wing it until we can afford a new vehicle. It will mean putting the tallest child upfront for a season. DH rarely rides with us anywhere, and he has his own truck.

I never count the cost when it comes to having children. I guess I just can't view them as potential liabilities. Personally, I feel that's one of the problems with our society, the pervasive and wrongheaded idea that children cost too much. I guess they do cost a lot in terms of blood, sweat, tears and prayers, but they are worth all of that several hundred times over.

I've always been frugally minded, always yard saled and lived in hand-me-downs, always lived in a lower income family, so this is nothing new to me. We are generally quite healthy, so apart from the occasional accident, the children and I don't see a doctor very often. In nine years, not one of them has broken a bone (thank God!). I think DH goes more often than all of us put together. In fact, the only time I see a doctor is when I'm pregnant, and even then it's very, very routine, in & out the door.

People at church give me clothes every so often, or I can get them for $1 apiece at the clothing closet or yard sales. The kids don't eat much, either. I can feed them off one pack of hotdogs and half a bag of frozen veggies, or one batch of pancakes. So I guess overall it's just not all that expensive. (Well, our milk budget is kinda high. But they will drink the nonfat stuff in a pinch.) My babes, all but the first, are exclusively breastfed, so no formula costs. The only time it gets expensive is if we go to the fair or something. $2 hotdogs x 5.

As for college education, DH has always been of the opinion that a child should work his way through. And there are lots of less expensive ways to do it these days, according to homeschool guidebooks. Personally, I earned a decent scholarship at a private college and my parents helped with the remainder. It wasn't too bad a deal for a $13-$15,000 per year institution (80's numbers).

Somehow, the Lord always provides.