Frugal Living with Five Kids
Feb 28 '00
We have five kids and I am a Stay At Home Mom, so we need to stretch our money to be able to afford the things we need and want. I want to share some of the things with you which have really made a difference in our family budget.
Where does the money go????
The best tip for a family budget I can give, is first figuring out what you are spending your money on right now. Write down every single purchase for 2 or 3 months and look at the trends. Do you spend way more on groceries than you think you should? Work on ways to decrease that category. Kids school lunches too expensive? Pack their lunches instead of letting them buy lunch at school. Then, after writing things down for a few months, make a budget and stick to it. Try to put away some money for unexpected expenses, like a washer breaking down. We use Quicken for our family finances, it is great, at any given moment I now know how much there is in my bank account and I don't get the unexpected bounced checks which sometimes happened before we kept track of our finances this way.
Kids toys and clothing
I have found that we spend only a minimal amount on kids clothing by shopping 2nd hand. Garage sales usually have the best buys, closely followed by thrift stores and kids consignment stores. Those places are also great to pick up toys. Another place to pick up cheap toys is on line. With more and more on line toy merchants opening, there are often great sales and very cheap 'Pick of the day' on different web sites and I have done a lot of my Christmas shopping that way, paying way less than if I had bought these toys locally. And don't forget ebay. When my kids started to get interested in Pokemon cards, I picked up large lots of cheap ones on ebay.
Grocery shopping
We have been able to very much reduce our grocery expenses by starting to use a few simple strategies. First, we have cut way back on convenience food, I cook most things from scratch now, which is both healthier and cheaper. Second, I use a price book, writing down what the normal price of things are, so that I can see which stores usually has the cheapest prices on things I use and whether a sale is really a sale and worth to stock up with or not. Third, I go over the sales at home, make a list and stick to it. Instead of making a weekly menu and buying things for it, I buy the things which are on sale that week and cook things that incorporate those. If articles are much cheaper than usual, I stock up on those. So basically I stock up on my pantry and have a list of recipes with things I can make with whatever is available right now. For example, I have a general fried rice recipe, in which I can use almost any vegetable or meat or tofu.
Family outings
There are lots of free or low cost outings available, like the local library with story hours, the local pool with a season's pass, hiking trails, play grounds, and beaches. If you want to take a vacation, camping is much cheaper than staying in hotels and actually a lot more fun for the kids too. It is easy to pick up camping stuff 2nd hand, especially if you pick it up at the end of the summer for the next summer.
Reading tip
I have read several frugal living books, but the one that gave me the most ideas was the Tightwad Gazette. If you want tons of tips and ideas on living frugally, that would be the book to get from the library or to buy.
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nursing3
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Member: Karen Plomp
Location: New Hampshire
Reviews written: 62
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