money money money

[kittykat]

hey ladies
I hope this is not a too personal question but im having a hard time with money how is everyone with a large family managing too feed there family well pay the bill and have a little left over ? Its driving me mad evey wed night i come home from shopping nervous as to what the DH is going to say HOW MUCH ? IS THAT ALL ? WHERE DOES IT ALL GO? feeding four kids fruit and veg is so expensive just now DD 2 how had a whole punnett of strawberries $3 they have all had a apple so thats 6 apples today including mine for breaki and DH for work lunch and a steam apple for bubs ( trying to stay away from jar food) thats a kg $5 thats not to mention the bananas a kg a day easy.
Hows is everyone managing ? how do you juggle ? i would really love bubs 5 but if the cost of living goes up having anymore kids will really be out of the question.
DD 1 starts high school next year she is going to co-ed cathlic private $$$ we have to start paying for that next month DD 2 starts prep uniforms ect there and
DD 3 will start pre-prep /kindy $ 4oo a term as quick as the money comes in it goes. Im starting to feel like a old hag no money to spend on me and DH still looks as hot today as he did 8 years a go why is this so ?
kath

[soul]

Its all about budgeting I guess, but we so here you!

I thnk its disgusitng the price of fruit and veg and meat and espeically since they are the three most important meals for us. We are not really meat eaters so that is ok with us, we rarely eat meat, I myself dont like it much and only eat it when I get the craving for it which isnt very often.

For us, our rent is $300 per week, yep expensive but our house is really nice and massive and has a attached granny flat and a big office out the back for hubbie. We spend about $250 a week on food if not a little more. Put away for bills every week so it dont get out of hand. We buy new clothes for going out and second hand for around the house, and off ebay mostly because you get bran new stuff os there in the fashion for teenagers and it cost half the money. If fruit is way out of hand that week I buy them tin fruit and make crumbles out of it or cobblers, so many things you can do with it. So they are still getting some form of fruit and we also do a shop around to the local fruit markets as its way cheaper than the woolies or coles and those rypes of shops for fruit and veg. Meat well when we do buy it we buy whats on special and in bulk or go to this meat warehouse type of place and the meat is in bulk but sooooooo cheap, its a mater of shopping around.


Schools , well ours go to a public so nothing major to worry about there and they are doing excetionally well.


Sapre money, well it is spread thin but we still find ways to have fun outings, just got to be creative, not eveything need cost alot of money.


Its hard, but if budgeting right its not so stressful.

[Katstribe]

I so hear what you are saying kittykat!

Well we have 5 out of 6 kids at school. Two are in highscool, one in year 11 and the other in year8, they go to a public school and are doing really well and lets face it the cost for fees and everything there is more than enough to handle. Plus we have one in year 5, one in year 2 and one in Prep. We actually have an account set up sort of like a xmas account i suppose, we just put money in there when ever we can most weeks and any bonuses like the bonus for each chile we try and put a few hundred away then and so on and we dont touch that until the following year and just use that to put the kids back into school. Most times we don't have to add much if any to it, which is a real life savor after christmas.

As for fresh fruit and veg, we get a lot of our stuff from weekend markets, they ahve it all a lot cheaper than the supermarkets, and even some of the roadside sales, you get good quality fresh fruit and veg for minimal prices! As for meat well you can do a lot of different meals with mince and sausages but you can get cheap fish and chicken too most of the time. My kids seem to love all the different concoctions i come up with. Most times with either teh mince or sausages.

As for clothes they are alwys having sales at the end of each season, so thats when i do most of my shopping, i jsut by in advance for the following year, you cant beat cargos and jeans and hoodies for $5 and $10 each!!! Like soul said too there is always ebay!!!! great bargains to be had there.

We have our kids in swimming 4 days per week , we 3 of our girls go 4 times one has lessons twice per week and little Mitchie has a mums and bubs each week, swimming costs us $70 per week but worth that as two of our girls are really bad asthmatics! The 4 girls also do little athletics once a week, this cost us $230 ( i think but def no more that that) but that is for the entire season! They get to do a whole variety of sportand very cost effective for a larger family, as it works out cheaper the more you have there, for example $90 first child $65 second $40 for third and consecutive!!!!!! Great i reckon AND if you are willing to stay and help for a total of 8 afternoons you get a #30 rebate at the end of it, and it runs for 26weeks!! That is awesome in my eyes.

I hope some of this helps in some way. In the end it jsut comes down to budgeting , we pay bills every week even power and phone religously every week or we will get behind, our mortgage comes out weekly and insurances and so forth too. There generally isnt a lot left at teh end of the week but hey you can't take it with you when you go so i say budget but enjoy too!!!

[soul]

I forgot to add the sports lol. My older four do Aikido it cost us a$5 per lesson that goes for an hour and a half and is run at our local youth center, my 16 year old live and breathes it lol. My two younger girls do Gymnatsics which is $7.00 per sesson. They all have guitare lessons as my hubbie is teaching them and are learning my mothers langauge of German!I My hubbie is also learning German through a german teacher and he is teaching the kids as well as the teacher, I wnat my children to be able to know a difffernet language.

[kittykat]

Sounds like we are all on the same wave link. I thinks that maybe its still so new for me i guess it will take time to get used to. Im not privi to local fruit markets so that can be hard the local fruit shop down the road is pretty cheap and dh is a meat worker so meat isnt a prob its not that much cheaper its just that we get it in bulk i think latley that is cheaper to buy chicken the local woolies has roast uncooked chooks for 4.98 kg if i get a 2.5kg chook that pretty cheap i think. Clothes is the hardest bit for me DD 12 does alright she get new DD 2 gets new and some hand me downs from friends no prob but poor DD 3 get mostly hand me downs shes not botherd yet and bubs well i dont think she has had a new out fit in her life ( 6 months) like shes really botherd . They swim except DD 1 olny becouse i get it cheap ( work there) and DD 1 does netball shes really good shes in 3 different teams that can get a bit much. I gues the message you guys are sending is money is money it comes and goes save and buget and forget the rest and enjoy the kids while we can. Now to get DH interested in bubs 5
kath

[halltribe]

I have set up a separate kids account where we automatically put money in every week ($150). This covers their swimming lessons, music lessons, Brigade fees, pocket money, uniforms, instruments,cirriculum (I homeschool), art supplies, field trips,etc. I use a ledger book to write it up and let the kids help me to balance it so they can see what we can afford to do or not.

The local council also does a free kids sport each week which my kids go to.

I also use the local markets for my fruit and veges. We really only buy hormone free chicken for meat.

I love op shopping and have picked up some good bargins for the family. I also am given alot of clothes for my kids. I was a bit cheeky and asked a lady I knew if I could have her hand me downs from her daughter (she was weathly) she didn't mind at all and my girls are well clothed from hand me downs from this one rich kid!!! Ebay is great for my clothes or good clothes and shoes and my kids love receiving things in the post!

Get your kids involved, one day they will have to run a household of their own. I hope this helps