How do Large Families Afford their Children

How do those of us with large families “afford” their children?

Is having a lot of children really as expensive as people portray it to be?

It seems as if we are always having to explain to others that we really CAN afford our children – Nonetheless, that question seems to come up all the time – from the nosy Costco cashier, to the co-worker who just found out that your wife’s pregnancy was #5, and not “#1” as they thought it was…

And having 5, quite honestly, doesn’t even seem like that many – as many people I know have 8 or 9, making 5 seem like we are just getting started. And I don’t know, maybe we will keep going.  We don’t know yet – all we know is that we love having them all. 

Never ever did the topic of money come up in our conversation of whether or not to have kids – despite the questions.  Others might ask “where will you get the money? How will you cram everyone in your house? How are you going to pay for their cars, insurance, college when they get older? 

After all, to the majority, children are SO expensive – but are they?

It’s the media and society who drive the public to believe that children are VERY expensive to have in today’s day in age, they really aren’t expensive at all. It’s the lifestyle and material expectations that cost so much.

In today’s society, many people have the mindset that to be happy we need “things” and for us, most of these are not necessities but just extras that aren’t required to live a healthy and fulfilling life, or raise kids.

We CAN afford to raise our kids. But there are things – many things, we can’t afford. .. and that’s quite honestly ok with us.

Clothing. I do all of the clothes shopping – and hand-me-downs are key… my boys wear clothes given to them from older family members with boys, and my girls wear hand me downs from our oldest daughter. The only child I buy for is my oldest daughter, and we avoid retail shops entirely.  I hate going out shopping, it’s my least favorite thing to do!  Everything she wears is from a second hand store (Schoola for the last few years). I shop online to avoid going out, and thankfully she is grateful for what she is given and not into the brand name, must have this mentality that others might have that are her age.

Eating out. This was an option with 1, but with 5, it’s just not possible.  Every little bit is money we could be using to make meals at home – eating at home is relatively cheap if you have the right pantry staples and enjoy making things from scratch. If you aren’t fussy, they won’t be fussy, and our kids basically eat whatever is made (from Lentils to Sweet Potatoes, to Broccoli, homemade pizza, etc.)  They are used to eating at home so they don’t expect to go places, and that is OK with us. One trip out to eat for us is $60 – $70, which is a week’s worth of milk for us – needless to say, we stay in. (Plus, I love to cook so that helps!)

Entertainment. Going to the movies is expensive – especially for ALL of us. So our entertainment is a FREE Redbox, or… a movie we find on Netflix. Popcorn made at home and milkshakes.. we love spending time with each other ;)  If a movie in the theater is what the kids want, then Dad or Mom takes a few at a time to the Dollar Theater on Tuesdays.

Vacations. I don’t think we’ll be going on an extravagant vacation anytime in the near future, but we do quite a few road trips with the kids – we drove to Minnesota in 2015, and stayed with family to save on costs. We will occasionally drive to California (but it’s rare now that we can’t stay with family there and the hotel is somewhat pricey)…   it’s rather difficult to find a hotel that will allow all 7 of us to stay in one room so we usually make it a long day trip.

Date night.  Ha!  Not even a possibility. I have friends with 1 or 2 that mention date nights several times a month.. that’s great they can do that. Once you get to 5, nobody wants to watch your kids to allow you the chance to do that.. not even family in most cases ;)  Which is fine – we do our date nights at home with the kids, and thankfully it works well for us.

Debt.  We can’t afford to pay institutions to borrow money – if we don’t have the cash for it, then we avoid buying it altogether. So far it has worked well, with just a house payment, we feel rather secure knowing we don’t have anyone to pay back. That’s the best feeling! 

A huge, oversized home.  Our house is a modest size, for 7, it’s probably on the small side. We thought the price was great, and it had what we were looking for, so we bought it. We saved for it for a few years, and we are completely happy in it. It might not have an upstairs/downstairs or fancy furniture, but it does have lots of good screaming!, laughter, and crying – happiness and sadness. We could have probably gotten a bigger, larger, more extravagant house in a community that had more… but we didn’t want to depend on “both” incomes for making a payment. So we kept our choices limited, and we selected a house that would allow us to be able to make a payment on one income.

New cars, with a car payment. Never once since having kids have we felt the need to buy a car with a payment. Sure, we drive around 5 kids, daily, in hot Arizona heat of the summers, but we have always bought used vehicles.  At 12 and 16 years old, both our used vehicles have always been great – dependable, and comfortable.   We are limited in choice, with 2 adults, 5 kids, 4 of which require decent size car seats – our vehicle requires space for a double stroller, a cooler, and emergency gear should anything go wrong. Thankfully we were able to save up for our Yukon and Excursion and therefore eliminate the need for payments. As for David, he drives a very old beater to work and it hasn’t ever given him a problem that he can’t fix himself. 

I always remind myself (and him too) that the $300/car payment could be their college fund contributions each month – so that gives us the fortitude to continue driving what we do despite the glamour that might come with a newer car.

Cable TV.  We don’t pay for that, but we can afford to pay for Netflix, and that works just fine – it’s plenty for what we need.

The latest toys for the kids. Our kids don’t get Christmas gifts from us, and their birthday consists of one gift. They don’t need to be loaded up with toys to celebrate Christmas, usually kids forget what they are given shortly after the holidays pass anyways. They do, however, love to go on a family road trip, and we can always find ways to make that cost effective – plus they remember memories better than things.

A room for each of the kids.  Our kids share rooms – 3 in one, and 2 in the other. We shared when we were kids, and most of the time, they ALL end up in our room at night anyways because not one can sleep without the other – they all crash and sleep together .. they wake up together usually too.

College Funds. Might not be something that every family with 5 kids worries about, but it’s something I pin myself to the hedge about. I have always and will always find a way to save each month. We started each child at birth with a set amount in their college fund, and we invest a specific, set amount each month that comes out by draft. I know that not “all” might want to go, but if they decide to, at least I know that the money is there for them and they don’t have to sign up for loans if they don’t’ need to.  It’s a small sacrifice, and when you can save as low as $25-$50 a month per child then it’s doable – remember though that compound time makes a huge difference.

I don’t incur too many comments … occasionally if I go out (and that’s pretty rare) but oddly enough my husband entertains most of his comments from coworkers that mention he could be going on vacations and cruises, and enjoying more things in life in general if he didn’t have so many kids.

And while it could be true that we would probably go on vacations, cruises, and even have some of the stuff we don’t have (above), it might also be that we could also be less cognizant of what we spend and be a little more liberal with our money in ways we don’t necessarily want.  We consider ourselves wealthy, but our definition of wealthy might not be the industry standard definition that society has for the term.

Make sense?

There is always a way to stretch the money to cover another child, no matter what our situation may be ~ when we went from 2 incomes to 1, it wasn’t always the easiest to make things work.  But we had faith that no matter how great or disparaging the times were, the man above will always provide us with what was is necessary to raise and take care of our family with the basic needs.

Obviously anyone reading this may just assume that we’re telling everyone to keep having kids, regardless of income – to rely on assistance and help from others. That’s not the goal of this post – and that is certainly not something we have done. But it IS possible to raise 5 kids on one income, in a time when most traditional families have dual-working parents, and 2 kids in efforts to keep costs low.