We have a family of 6—dh, me, and our four children, ranging in ages from 12 down to 3 years old. We have no debt other than our house payment. After taxes and benefits, dh brings home a grand total of $3600 and some change a month. That pays the mortgage, utilities, gas and insurance for our 10 and 13 y.o. cars, life insurance on dh and me, food, clothing, private school tuition for 3 of the kids, plus their lunches and other fees. We also manage to put some into emergency savings and another slush fund we use for the house, pets, cars, and Christmas.
We were doing this before the economy went south, because living below your means is the right thing to do, and debt is dumb (ala Dave Ramsey). Our kids already know this lesson at their young ages...if we don’t have the money, we don’t get it. No one’s starving, going naked, or doing without toys.
So while my kids don’t suck up tax dollars for their schooling (no free or reduced lunches—dh makes ‘too much’), I get to listen to people sneer at my choice of more than 2 kids and living on only one income, even on FR (how many people have told me that you can’t live on one income and you MUST have a credit card to survive!) At the end of the day, my car is mine and not the bank’s, and I know how I’m paying for Christmas.
I forgot to mention the Target coupons for FREE Chef Michaels for dogs. I don’t have a dog but I “bought” a couple of hundred of these for my sister-in-laws dog and to give to friends. Hey, it was free so I could afford to be Mr. Generosity.
I hear you there! We are in the same income bracket and we just had our fifth child. Unlike you, we do have debt...but not a credit card :) We homeschool, a year of curriculum for the for 4 kids (Kindergarten-5th grade) is under $1,000. That's less than a month of tuition at the local Christian school.
I love this quote:
God calls children a blessing and debt a curse. Today we reject blessings and sign up for a curse.
Congratulations! Since you get no tax subsidies I guess you don’t claim any child credits and 6 personal deductions on your federal taxes so you won’t miss them when obama cuts them. We never qualified for them.
I gather you live in Indiana, a low cost of living area? Here in suburban DC $3600 “might” cover the private school tuition for 3 kids, that’s about all. We do parochial school for one at $7K a year (that would $21K for 3) and homeschool the other. Our property taxes on a middle class house are $400 a month and rising. Water trash and sewer another $100 and rising. Our cars are also 13 and 14 yrs old and starting to rattle ominously. But I figure our 2012 taxes are going to increase by the amount of a car payment - so no cash for my clunkers.
I bet obama and meshell never had this conversation about pinching $100 here and $400 there, did they?