The real cost of Kids

[Dedlered]

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/...6.asp?GT1=7924

[canadian gardener]

Oh how I wish my sister would write a book and tell all!

She raised all 6 of hers on considerably less!!!!!

I've shared in the past her technique of buying garage sale bags of kids clothing for 5$ and dragging them ALL home with gratitude to the seller. No picky picky.

She creams off what fits, and what she wants to keep and the good stuff that she doesnt' want goes to the resale place where she earns cash or credits.

She also buys baby furnishings out of the buy and sell and resells later. If it isn't trashed up badly she can usually make as much or more than she paid for it.

She watches carefully for the phone number prefixes, because the yuppy mummies tend to have one or maybe 2 kids, very spaced apart and the clothes and furnishings are near new or new and grown out of untouched. Yuppie mums whose kids go to daycare wear out daycare furniture, rather than their own high chairs and they have all kinds of cute weekend clothes that they hardly wear.

Those are the homes where the mums bless em stuff all the clothes in a bag, and when my sister comes to buy the high chair or car seat etc, she asks about clothes and often that is where she gets the bag fulls of good stuff that she uses what she can and does resale for the rest.

She watches for the Salvation Army fill a bag for a buck sales, and goes in armed and dangerous with grocery bags.

She doesn't waste time trying on the kids, she grabs whatever looks good and looks like it could fit, and drags it home and does the same thing.

Creams off what she can use, and puts the rest in the giveaway to go back to the Salvation Army.

She buys things retail that she wasn't able to score this way in bagsales or scooping baby clothing bags of bargains.

But even retail, she shops sales, and cheaper big stores like Walmart or such.

And as for toys, well she has the van on a Saturday and will swing by garage sales on her way into town, as will her dh.

Toys, furniture all kinds of things.

Books she buys second hand like me, scoring big at annual library sales, or second hand stores.

Food, well she doesn't encourage picky eaters, and my Bil hunts game, and fishes and they raise chickens for meat and eggs, turkeys and hogs so they eat well but cheaply.

When the kids are old enough they all want jobs to afford their own rusting set of wheels, and the "right' clothes and she lets them!!!!!

Catch her standing in their way of becoming self supporting adults? NO WAY!

She encourages entrepreneurial spirit and the good old work hard spirit in the kids.

Don't try horse trading with any of them, they drive hard bargains, all!

And in the process of raising them cheaply she has taught them thrift, savings, hard work and how to get along on much much less so they can afford their dreams.

[LadybugDreams]

Awesome....thanks...and thank you Margery for your tips!

[canadian gardener]

Well I'll pass your thanks to my sister, she's the one who turned that into a fine art.

I shouldn't say she's RAISED all six, since the baby is about 8 or nine this year, and they go up step fashion, every couple of years till the oldest who is 23 I think.

She is still raising the younger 4 but the oldest 2 are launched.