Large Families and Finances

[NoseInABook]

We have 5 kids and live pretty frugally. We do have room for extras and I'm not quite sure WHERE that comes from because our income isn't very large. We have no debt other than our mortgage, live in a low COL area, and drive ancient clunkers which allows us to make it. Our house is probably "too small" for 7 people but it works for us even though I daily lament the lack of another toilet... or two. ;) 

[AimeeM]

What classifies as a large family? In my area, that would 7+ children (large catholic population, even though we are in the baptist bible belt); comparatively, I have been told WE are a larger family, with only 3 children, lol.

[AimeeM]

ERASED. My 2 year old got a hold of my laptop. Sorry.

[Soror]

4 kids. pretty low COL. Fairy frugal, comparatively (although we have been and could be much more so than we are now). No debt comfortable enough house and cars (albeit older than many). All our needs met and plenty of wants, although generally our wants aren't too big. Emergency fund and decent retirement savings relative to income. Some blessings, some hard work and a bit of luck. 

[Murphy101]

If you have a larger family, what does your financial situation look like?

 

Just scraping by?

 

Frugal, but all needs are met?

 

Comfortable?

 

More than comfortable?

 

I'm looking for some perspective on my own situation.

I already answered, but really none of us are going to give perspective on your own situation. Your situation is yours and has whatever perspective you give it.

 

The money is finite and how comfortable you are with how finite yours is is completely up to you. I know lots of people don't think my dh makes enough for them to feel comfortable even without any kids at all. I know others that think we are rich. We aren't by any stretch, but that's their perspective. Same goes for our house. I feel like it's a McMansion, but the majority of people in similiar sized house in my neighborhood would think it is a lower-middle class house for their family with only 2 kids. And many of them are also likely paycheck to paycheck I think.

[TracyP]

Family of 7. We are frugal but all needs are met. We were barely scraping by for a long time, so right now I feel comfortable at the "frugal but all needs are met" level. We have a nice home that we got for cheap when the housing bubble burst. We do have a lot of second hand clothes and furniture, but this is a philosophical decision as much as financial. To save on gas we just bought a new vehicle over the weekend. Before that our good vehicle had 200,000 miles. 300K on the other. We are able to afford to eat the way we want, but we almost never eat out - fast food maybe 6 times per year and restaurant 4-5 times per year. Right now we are able to afford piano lessons, sports, and swimming lessons - this is going to get difficult as our little kids get older. We are savers and we are sloooowly getting ahead. I'd like to think we could be in the "comfortable - more than comfortable" zone in another 5 years...

[FaithManor]

I checked and the birth rate for 2013 was 1.86 per thousand women...below replacement rate and lower then some Scandanavian countries, and Australia but above Russia who has fallen to 1.59 and is below China!

 

Based on that, my guess is that regardless of the norm for your micro culture or community, 4 children would constitute a large family since that is a little bit more than double the average.

 

So there you have it..two is above average, three is on the high end moderate, and four is "holy cow, how many kids did you say you have?" LOL

[Caroline]

I checked and the birth rate for 2013 was 1.86 per thousand women...below replacement rate and lower then some Scandanavian countries, and Australia but above Russia who has fallen to 1.59 and is below China!

 

Based on that, my guess is that regardless of the norm for your micro culture or community, 4 children would constitute a large family since that is a little bit more than double the average.

 

So there you have it..two is above average, three is on the high end moderate, and four is "holy cow, how many kids did you say you have?" LOL

We have four, and I certainly feel we get the "Holy Cow!" a lot.

[Storygirl]

I agree that there was a wide range of "normal" in the 40s and 50s, depending on the community that you lived in, but some people did in fact live in two bedroom homes then and were typical for their community. My dad was born in 1934 and grew up in a two-bedroom home with an outhouse in a small town in the Midwest. My grandfather worked in a blue-collar job, and my grandmother never worked outside the home. She butchered her own rabbits and chickens and grew vegetables in her own garden. My dad sometimes hunted for squirrels, which they would eat for dinner (not because they didn't have anything else, but because that was what was done in their area).They went camping and fishing for their vacations. I don't think they considered themselves poor, because everyone they knew had similar circumstances. My grandparents did travel to Florida in the winters after retirement, but my grandmother lived in that little home as a widow until she was in her eighties. I'm sure she thought my parent's middle-class lifestyle was very extravagant.

 

So for some families, there has been a drastic change in lifestyle over the last fifty years. For every generalization, you can find an exception.

 

ETA They did build on a bathroom at one point. Grandma wasn't using an outhouse into her eighties, thank goodness!

[diplomum]

It really is relative. I would say we are very comfortable, but not rich. We are provided housing through my husband's job, so we don't have a mortgage or rent payment, but we feel strongly that we should buy some property soon so we have that (hopefully) gaining in value. We've saved a nice down payment, and have finally really started to save for retirement. We've been rubbish at saving for kids' college, though, so we have that looming in the next 2-14 years! I may try and work to help with that and pad retirement. Due to my husband's job, we are expected to maintain our lives a certain way, as we play a sort of representational role at times. However, compared to basically everyone else in the same field, we live incredibly frugally. I cook almost everything from scratch and we almost never eat out as a family. We travel and vacation significantly less, and deliberately try and bid on posts that offer cheaper options like camping, if at all possible. We pay cash for older cars. We thrift when we're in the US and buy minimally at post.  Kids don't have smart phones; heck, I don't have smart phone! Doing these things allows us to live well beneath our means and finally be in a place where we can save and occasionally splurge, after many early years of beans and rice and ramen. We are a family of 8.

[scwendy]

This isn't my experience.

 

My grandfather (WW2 Vet, worked on the line at Ford Motor Company in Milpitas, CA), When he was first married, went off to war.  My grandmother lived in San Francisco in a 3 BR townhouse.  (1940's), when my grandfather returned from the war, they remained in that TH for about 5 more years, then moved to San Jose, where they purchased a 3BR Ranch, and lived in that house until they retired (early, my grandaddy was 55) to GA to a 3BR home on the lake (was Clarke Hill, now known as Strom Thurmond Lake).  My parents (on one income), my father worked for Ford Motor Company in Milpitas after Vietnam...they purchased their first 3BR house in San Jose 1970, 2 years l later, they bought a 2nd 3BR house while renting out the first, and then bought a 3rd house in 1974 San Jose, CA -- a 5 BR, 3 BA 3 Car garage also in San Jose...still renting the first two houses.  They had 3 mortgages, and we have a very comfortable living in a very middle-class, blue-collar job. 

 

My other grandfather (farmer, and mailman) started out in a 2BR tank house (house built in a water tank) in Escalon, CA, in 1932. They moved from there to a 3BR house in Escalon, CA in 1939 when their first son was born.  They lived in that house until they semi-retired to Scott's Valley (near Santa Cruz) to a 3BR 2/BA house on a nice lot, with a 2 car garage.

 

Their houses, while modest (about 1500-1800 sq. ft), were also much less expensive than similar houses today.  My parent's 3rd house in San Jose only cost $100,000 -- and it was nearly 3,000 square feet! It last sold for nearly $1 million dollars.

 

Today, real wages decreased in the mid-70's, rose slightly in the 80's and have fluctuated around the same level for the past 30 years (dipping a bit, rising a bit, but overall stagnant).  HOWEVER, worker productivity has continued to increase, and the cost of living has continued to increase.  When you compare the real wages to inflation, wages have not kept pace.  Household income has increased slightly, but that is more an advent of the 2-income family than any real increase in wages.

 

While it's a nice thought to believe people just lived more simply (and they did - no doubt), it's not enough to say our expectations are "too high."  Or, that people really lived in 2BR houses in the 1940's and 1950's.  They didn't.  Most middle class families (everywhere I look in our family tree) lived in 3BR 2BA houses in that time frame...between 1400-1800 sf.  They had 3 children.  Mom stayed home (mostly).  Cars and appliances were built to last, vs. planned obsolescence of today.  

 

I, for one, really do believe that it is much harder to make ends meet today than it was before the Carter-era recession, and the economics of inflation vs. real wages in the US support this.

 

Did you miss the part where I said that there have always been exceptions?  The AVERAGE (US) home size has more than doubled since the 1950's, and there are added costs with that kind of increase.  I do not disagree that wages have been largely flat for decades versus the cost of living, but that is NOT related to the huge increase in home sizes in the past decades.  Both impact one's lifestyle to be sure, and while wage levels are not so easily impacted by the individual, upsizing can be.

 

I do not live in a 2 BR house with one bath, but that is a choice that I make based on means.  I still maintain that the average family in 1950 expected less in terms of home size and amenities.

HUH????

 

Maybe you know of a lot of people that lived like that, but that wasn't every middle class home or lifestyle in the 50's and 60's by any stretch. Regional maybe. In Michigan during that era, the average middle class home was three bedroom...two bedrooms were for grandma and grandpa if they left the farmhouse or downsized. From scratch? HAH! That was the era that big agriculture came into being and heavily advertised and promoted convenience foods. From scratch was for the poor. Middle class women had their new fangled Wonder Bread, cookies in a package, boxed macaroni and cheese, these new and improved baking products like Crisco and Bisquick, boxed cake mixes, margarine, and tv dinners especially "pot pies" flew off the shelf. Homemade was at grandma's house! LOL, the history of the food revolution during those two decades is quite disturbing because it was the precursor to the issues we have now with frankenfoods are sold as "wholefoods" and nutritious and many do not actually know how to cook or bake.

 

Even my low income grandparents and all their friends had three bedroom houses and had my grandmother NOT had quite the discriminating palette, she admitted she would have cooked entirely "from a box or a can like my friends.But I thought it was terrible".

 

The parents of the baby boomer generation exitted WWII to a rapidly expanding economy and the jobs created from the war industry. Unabated manufacturing, etc. Most of them were able to afford more than we think they were able to afford. The family vacation road trip was normal for middle class families. KOA campgrounds and middle class motels such as Howard Johnson got their start during that era as the demand for middle class vacation options rose significantly.

 

 As for a single income, there were A LOT of women who had worked during the war effort and decided to continue to earn. There were many SAHMs who may not have had a salary, but who absolutely did earn money from sewing, tailoring and alterations, laundry service, house cleaning service, babysitting service, piano teaching, my grandmother who sold cakes and her famous rice pudding (she and her husband were not middle class however, living in poverty and she was just trying to keep her children in food and clothing), my middle class grandmother who cultivated and sold hybrid roses and irises which paid for piano lessons for one child, voice lessons for another, and an annual vacation for her and the children (grandpa never went...he was a work a holic when his kids were little), my husband's grandmother who scraped up the money to go to "county normal" and get her two year teaching degree so she could get a job and bring their family from poverty/low income on her husband's pastor's salary to middle class and provide some opportunities for her children such as more food, piano lessons for the youngest, art lessons for the oldest, etc. and junior college for all three, my mil's mother who went back to her nursing career when her youngest went to school (1943 and retired in 1968) to supplement her husband's income which allowed them to pay for their daughters' college educations, my mom who worked until my brother was born (1964) and always took in bookkeeping even after she became a mother so all through the 60's as well as taking in alterations for extra money for her very middle class family, to my aunt who worked weekends as an ambulance driver during the 60's while her husband was home with the kids - again, the 1960's - to every single school teacher I had in elementary school who were, all but one, married women who got their teaching degrees in the late 40's early 50's, with husbands whose incomes were solidly middle class, and who chose to continue teaching so they could bank money for retirement, pay for extras for their kids, and save for their children's college or trade school educations, or buy a bigger house, or whatever. Leave it to Beaver and the Brady Bunch was not the norm for everyone, not even close.

 

In rural areas, many farm families became "middle class" during that time and a large, four bedroom house or even larger started popping up all over the place in the Midwest at least. Of course, some of the fun with these homes is that they weren't stick built. Smaller houses ended up with all kinds of crazy additions stuck on them, and the expansions have not, in today's world, provided to be energy efficient and well planned making renovation no picnic!

 

Some communities probably did have the "middle class" you describe with the traditional frugal, SAHM mom, cook from scratch, small home, no frills. That was not the norm everywhere however.

 

I would not characterize those that make the choice to live differently from the ultra frugal as irresponsible, or lesser moral people. There is nothing inherently wrong with having a larger home or a nicer car or some savings. Nothing at all. There is certainly nothing wrong with giving kids piano lessons, or whatever. I know I am eternally grateful that my mother supplemented my dad's middle class income in order to make 12 years of piano lessons, my performance level flute, etc. possible for me, and without that, I never would have been a piano performance major, nor provided FOR FREE piano lessons and music therapy to low income families as an adult. The amount of time she sacrificed from housekeeping, cooking, or child rearing was well worth the outcome.

See my response above about there always being exceptions whether regional or not, I was speaking averages.  The same goes for two income families.

 

I am not ultra frugal, nor did I say that those who are not ultra frugal are irresponsible or less moral.  As far as extracurriculars, obviously I have no issue with a family providing those as we do as well (and only limit because of time). And I am on track for a comfortable retirement and have savings myself, so how you determined I have a problem with that, i don't know.  I never said there was anything wrong with wanting more room, more cars or more of anything, but most people that complain about not being able to live the way our grandparents' generation did today, especially on one income.  It is apples and oranges to compare the average in 1950 or 1960 (much smaller homes, fewer cars) to today's average.  That was the whole point (largely missed, I see).

 

My whole post was about MY family and I talked at length about what WE as a family experience and value.  Referencing past AVERAGES is not a personal attack on anyone else's history or current situation.  How such a benign topic/post can be misinterpreted is beyond me.  I replied in earnest to the OP.

[Amy in NH]

For many years, I'd say we lived quite frugally but all needs were met.  We were comfortable, too. 

-SNIP-

 

Same here.  Then the recession hit.  The price of everything went up including the mortgage and the taxes, but the income did not; DH got no raise in five years.  We are just barely scraping by.  This is a scary month financially, but if we can squeak by then everything will be a tiny bit easier in August.  I am scraping to buy tp today cuz we'll be out otherwise. 

 

We have four children.

 

[melmichigan]

Prices seems to be skyrocketing when it comes to feeding my crew and we pay more in health care.  It's to be expected but will mean big changes very soon.  

[FaithManor]

I agree costs are going up, up, up. However, I have to say that after spending a week in Iceland, I am so grateful for food costs here.

 

The foods that are reasonably priced? Salad greens, broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, peppers....they grow these in green houses powered bizarrely cheaply by geothermal power using plant lights in the low or practically zero light seasons. So, no importing that. Whitefish, North Atlantic cod, salmon, shrimp...decent price. 1 dz. eggs, about $3.50

 

Thats's it. Lamb is more expensive than here but probably a once a month type splurge. Pork is the next lowest price.

 

Ready for some prices?

 

In US dollars:

 

1 qt. Strawberries - $6.98

1 potato - $1.00 ea.

1 lb. carrots - $5.00

1 lb. Grapes - $5.00

Green apples - $2.50 ea.

Naval oranges - $2.19 each

Quart of milk - $1.99

1 lb. Butter - $4.59

5 thin slices of bacon $4.98

6 oz. Shaved ham - $4.98

1/2 lb. sliced cheddar slice - $6.98

 

2 lbs. Chicken breast - $21.98

2 lbs. Ground beef ( really lean, very yummy I might add) - $16.98

1 pkg. chicken drumsticks approx. 8 per pk. - $8.98 same for wings, 14.98 for thighs. Never saw a whole roasting chicken.

 

Cafe, diner type food - breakfast of 2 eggs, toast, coffee and yougurt roughly $15.00.

1 mug soup and small baguette - $19.00

Fillet of salmon, small salad, bread, and very small serving of vegetable - $39.00

 

Median income in US dollars per household - $35,000

 

Rent or mortgage acclunts for 50% of family income.

You don't want to know about the cost of clothing!

 

Top notch healthcare is provided through taxes as are excellent schools...students being trilingual upon graduation and the national literacy rate is one of the highest in the world...probably a lot easier to achieve with 320,000 people than with hundreds of millions! But, good for them for getting the job done.

 

Heat and electric are just about nil cost wise. Geothermal energy that requires far less infrastructure to deliver and maintain on a volcanic island than traditional heating systems.

 

But, it seems that there must be some help in the form of dependent's allowance or something because the numbers are pretty frightening! Somehow it works. We saw LOTS of pregnant women! Three teenage sons..the boys would be hungry or we would be bankrupt!

[J-rap]

Same here.  Then the recession hit.  The price of everything went up including the mortgage and the taxes, but the income did not; DH got no raise in five years.  We are just barely scraping by.  This is a scary month financially, but if we can squeak by then everything will be a tiny bit easier in August.  I am scraping to buy tp today cuz we'll be out otherwise. 

 

We have four children.

 

 

Sorry you're going through a rough period.  :grouphug:

 

[Seasider]

To be honest, we are between frugal and comfortable, if I understand what you mean by "comfortable" (I take it to mean no worries). But ime, the word comfortable, with regard to finances, is a euphemism for wealthy.

 

But I don't feel like we are where I just said we are, because everything just feels so much tighter than it used to say, 6-8 years ago. Prices of everything in general have increased dramatically the last few years, our kids are older and have the attached bigger expenses with college looming, and we currently live in the highest cost area we've ever lived in. So I really do worry about money to the point that I feel stress over it, and it saddens me to see others in our area doing fun things together and for their kids that we simply cannot afford. I don't want their fancy clothes, cars or houses but for us there are no music lessons right now for anyone, no summer vacations for about 4 years now, I have to work to stretch the grocery budget and clothes are wearing thin. The kids get the essentials they need and buy clothing "wants" from their own earnings, but dh and I are wearing decade(s!) old outfits much of the time.

 

BUT we have good insurance and secure employment. God has seen us through every other kind of challenging situation and I trust He will not let us starve.

[Seasider]

how much will 5 teenagers eat?

A lot. More if they bring their friends around. 😉

[Seasider]

We are getting by. We eat beans and rice a few times a week. We drive older vehicles. Our kids don't have smart phones, aren't in expensive activities, and wear new shoes with a mix of thrifted and hand-me-down clothing. Flat salaries coupled with exploding cost of living increases (property taxes, utilities, food, health care) have made what was once a comfortable state of living tight.

Flat salaries - yes, that's definitely affected us, too. And though I said we had job security and good insurance, which we do and I am thankful for, the employee contribution has gotten higher each if the last 4-5 years and the Rx copay has increased dramatically.

[Seasider]

We have four, and I certainly feel we get the "Holy Cow!" a lot.

Yeah, I say 4 puts you in the "Are they ALL yours?" category. Heck, I even got that with the first three.