Wednesday, November 7, 2012

How Will We Ever Afford a Child?

Because Ben and I teach a financial class for our church, we get the opportunity to hear from a lot of young individuals and couples who don't have kids.  And often times, what we hear is the lament that they feel they'll never be able to actually afford having children.  Let me remind you that children don't actually cost that much.  Sure, the marketing departments of all of our favorite retail stores want you to believe that babies cost money.  But they don't.  There are many things you can do to cut down the typical cost of having kids.  Today we'll focus on the clothing side of things...  There are so many sources of cheap and free clothing out there.  And when your little one is little, she's going to out grow the clothes before she can wear them out!

Earlier this month I had the joy of returning to the Needham rummage sale that I have spoken so highly of in the last year.  You'll remember that a year ago, I posted about my first trip to Needham here.  The deal for this sale is that dozens of families all pool together to create a huge sale.  So in the morning, they sell items at typical rummage sale prices.  But at noon, they have a bag sale, where they give you anything you can take in your brown paper grocery bag for $10.  So after we wandered around a little bit during the regular priced morning sale, we anxiously stood in line and each bought a bag... and...


















I think she likes it!  :-)


Okay, seriously... below is a slightly better organized picture of what we brought home.  We spent $32 on 70 items.  Do the math, friend!  That's 46 cents PER ITEM!  To quote my mother, "she can wear it and then throw it away at that price!"  And she's right.  The clothes we bought are literally cheaper than some disposable diaper prices I've seen.  


This is an invaluable tool in parenting, in my mind.  Rummage sales, garage sales, craigslisting, clothing swaps... I'll say it again, children don't have to be expensive!  Now we just have to see if she's still as happy with her loot when she's 8 years old. :-)

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