[CPA-Kim]

I'm interested in hearing how family planning fits into your idea of frugality? The only thing I have to compare it with is having pets, because I have no children. I know that pets can be expensive if you care for them properly, including medical.

How about the number of children you have? Has family planning been factored into your frugal lifestyle choices?

 

[CookieLee]

In our case, we adopted DD and considered adopting again to give her siblings her age. We opted not to. She has special needs and we really needed our time and resources to focus on her. In many ways, I am sad that she is an only child but there are other times - like when school starts and all those fundraisers and activities need to be paid - I'm glad I have only one.

 

[happysmileylady]

For us, frugality was not a factor in planning our family. But, our family planning dynamics went a little differently than "planned." When I met Dh I already had DD1, and she was 6 when DH and I got married. We started trying right away for another, but ended up dealing with unexplained secondary IF. We didn't get pg with DD2 for 6 years, and that was after an IVF (which insurance paid for thank goodness.) There are 13 years difference between DD1 and DD2. After DD2 was born, we started saving for another IVF, but then I ended up pregnant again, all on our own, when DD2 was just 13 months old. Once DD3 was born, we weren't sure what we were going to do, and I ended up pregnant again, DD3 was only like 15 months old. We decided we were DONE, but finances was at the bottom of the list of why. DH's age, my age, how close the kids were, the fact that I was tired of having babies, being pg, etc, all that was more important.

Having said that...having 4 kids is EXPENSIVE...even if 1 of my 4 is only here part time now that she is in college. If I want to swing through McDonalds for a coke, it ends up costing between $4 and $5 after taxes, because I have to get a drink for everyone. Christmas can get crazy with getting even a small quantity of gifts for each. I could easily spend $500+ on JUST my kids, that doesn't even count getting a gift for DH, or any of the rest of my large family. Because of that, if age and closeness of the kids hadn't been a factor, costs would have been a major one.

 

[frugalwarrior2]

Happy-my Bf had 4 and she would keep cups w/ lids in a bag in the car. She would buy an XL coke
and divide it. If we went in she would buy 2 and the kids would refill multi times. She was from a family of 8. Dont know if that would work for ya.

Dh had a V after we had 2 kids as he was concerned about my health. So that was frugal??

 

[LifeFrames]

I am more frugal because I want another one. We have three and I'm working on dh for at least one more. Honestly the first is the most expensive. Then you pass down toys and clothes. Christmas becomes bigger gifts for the family with just a few gifts for each kid. The kids have someone to play with, my boys are each others best friends. Food is purchased and made in larger quantity. Sure they cost plenty of money but the point is to be frugal in order to afford what you want.

 

[Thunderlilies]

We live more frugally with a big family than we used to when it was just us. So, in a way we save more. I enjoy the challenge of being thrifty, my husband loves fixing and building everything from scratch and we keep finding new ways to save and spend less. We make choices based on what's important to us. For us, our family is important. So we make it work

 

[ilovechocolate]

We have 2 children, both of whom are now in their 20s. DH and I briefly considered having a third child, but I was in my late 30s at the time and we decided that we were happy with our two. We were also very involved in careers, church, caring for aging parents, etc., and two little ones really did turn out to be enough for us. Plus we did consider the cost----possible private school, definitely college, and we wanted to be able to fairly comfortably afford all the other things that we would want to do with/for our children.

So yes, finances did play a part, but it wasn't a huge part.

 

[The Muse]

I'm childfree by choice, mostly because motherhood has never been my calling, but I'd be lying if I said I don't enjoy the spoils of it.

 

[Raiquee]

I agree with we live more frugal due to having a family. Sure it costs more. Only. More money for insurance, food, school, etc. I'm not letting money decide when we should stop. You can't buy love and happiness children (or in other cases pets!) bring you. We always seem to make it work now, am I gonna be able to send all of them to Yale? No, if they are brilliant it will be easy for them to get a scholarship

 

[Raiquee]

I want to add I would never have more kids than say I could feed or provide health care and good care to. I just meant prioritizing a vacation vs having another baby. I know we could comfortably support 5 kids on our income without batting an eye. Do we want that many? Not sure!

 

[LifeFrames]

Exactly! We eat well, have plenty of 'things' so why are we going to limit our family size over a few fancy vacations or a larger retirement? My boys are SO excited about another baby, I don't think it even crosses their mind to think that there will be less to go around.

 

[seattleLMP]

I had only one child because I could not afford more. I had my tubes tied when I was 27.