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Baby Makes Eight: Raising Six Kids - Part 1

Last March, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Noelle Cayce. She became our sixth kid, and within the space of a few years, our house had suddenly become very full.

A little background is in order: my wife and I came together six years ago with two children each from previous relationships, and after we got married in 2003, we had a son (Seth Isaiah) in 2004, and now Noelle in 2006. We each went from having two kids to having six within three years.

Raising so many kids at once has, of course, been a financial challenge, as well as a scheduling and organizational challenge. It’s also been an amazing blessing, and I’m planning to do a series of posts on what it’s like to raise so many kids, and some of my best parenting tips. This is the first of the series, and it will deal with finances.

The Finances of Raising Six Kids
When my son was born in 2004, my wife and I made the decision that she should stay home to take care of him. When my daughter was born in 2006, we decided she should continue to stay home. It was an important decision, and we are both very glad we made it. She’s the best caretaker by far for our two babies, and she’s been able to breastfeed and do all kinds of other stuff that only a mom could do.

Of course, it’s also harder for us financially, but it’s worth the sacrifices, in my opinion. We’ve cut out a number of expenses to be able to live on my salary (see How I Save) and the decision has forced us to learn to live frugally. We actually struggled for awhile, but I believe we’re hitting our stride now.

I’ve also been working as a free-lance writer on the side, to give us some extra income on top of my regular salary.

Here are the keys to being able to survive with six kids, with only one spouse working:

  • Live frugally. Living on one salary (plus free-lance pay) requires sacrifices. It means you can’t eat out as much, or go to the movies as much. We have only one car. We cut out cable. It becomes a sort of lifestyle after awhile, but it’s certainly difficult at first.
  • Increase your income. While you may only have one salary, there are many other ways to make money on the side, from working part-time to free-lancing to consulting to selling Avon to babysitting. Any extra income helps a lot.
  • Pay off debts, and avoid further debts. We had a little problem with debts accumulating, especially when we weren’t making enough money to pay our bills. But we’ve reformed our ways, canceled our credit card, and are now slowly paying off our bills, one by one. Once we’re done, we’ll have a lot of extra money to save.
  • Build an emergency fund. It’s tough, but it is CRUCIAL that you save money each payday, no matter how small the amount. If you can’t figure out how to do this, cut out some smaller expenses, trim others, cancel cable or Netflix or your gym membership or something. Find a way to save. It’s the most important part of your finances, especially the part where you build an emergency fund. You should build it up to at least $1,000, because at any moment, your car might break down or your kid might need to go to the hospital or any other kind of emergency could happen and leave you not only without the necessary funds, but figuring out which bills you can pay later so you can pay for the emergency. If you have savings, you can pay for these emergencies, without
  • Budget. I know it’s a dreaded thing for many people, but it doesn’t have to be hard. Simply list out your regular monthly expenses (utilities, rent, car, internet, cell phone, etc.) along with variable expenses (groceries, gas, eating out, etc) and other irregular expenses that might not come up every month but that you know you’ll need sometime (car repairs, home maintenance, gifts, medical, etc., broken down as a monthly expense). List your income. Your income should be more than your expenses. If not, trim some expenses.
  • Automate your finances. For all my bills, I have them either automatically deducted (like my car payment and phone) or have a regular online check going out to them each month. The only things not paid online are the things I need cash for, like gas and groceries.
  • The Envelope System. For everything that you can’t automate online, withdraw the cash each payday (instead of using ATMs and incurring fees) for those expenses and put them in separate envelopes. I have three: groceries, gas, and spending (everything from eating out to kids school stuff). When the money runs out in that envelope, you can’t spend anymore until next payday. It’s a simple way to keep track of how much you have left, instead of guesstimating and withdrawing too much or charging too much.
  • Find free ways to have fun with your kids. While we are making sacrifices, and our kids have to make sacrifices too, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a great time with them. We plan a Family Day every Sunday, when we all do stuff together that we love doing, like reading, watching movies (we usually rent DVDs to save money), playing sports, going to a park, playing board games, going to the beach, visiting family, or doing a lot of other free or cheap stuff. Fun doesn’t have to cost a lot.
  • Plan ahead. If you know someone’s birthday is coming up, plan for it, so you’re not scrambling to find money to buy a gift. Same thing with school expenses, like field trip money or school photos. Our kids are also involved in sports, so we have to plan for uniforms and cleats and more. Think ahead to what you’ll need, so you’re not broke when that expense comes up.
  • Treat your family once in awhile. While lots of fun things are free, sometimes you gotta splurge. Take the kids out to a movie, or a restaurant. Our favorite splurge is going to a water park. Recently we ran into a few hundred extra dollars, and instead of being responsible and paying off more debt or saving it, we rented a room at a hotel with a great water park, and spent two days there having a blast with the kids. Other times we’ll just treat them to ice cream cones or something.

Other parts of this series:

See also:

Brilliant comments (14)

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Anonymous Says:

January 30th, 2007, 21:50 pm

Holy moly … six kids. Your house must be utter chaos. More power to you.

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Carmen Says:

January 30th, 2007, 23:18 pm

good tips … but it takes some discipline to stick to some of these things. i think that’s the problem for most people … having that discipline.

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Erika Says:

July 6th, 2007, 9:14 am

Thank you for the tips we will use them and pass them on. It is nice to see step by step “how to”.

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Chris Says:

July 12th, 2007, 12:22 pm

Sheesh, and some folks looked at us like we were crazy thinking we could have 4 kids (and my wife staying at home).
Granted, all the kids weren’t born at one time (although the first 2 were … twin girls).

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Daniel Says:

July 24th, 2007, 0:54 am

I completely agree with the last one. Growing up, we were never rich and most of the time didn’t even meet “comfortable” status, but my parents always taught us that sometimes you just have to splurge. Whether that’s a new movie, cd or something like going out for dinner.

Without the occasional surprises, it’s easy to get into the rutt and mindset of “we’re always poor” and “we never get to do anything fun”.

I don’t know how you do it, man! My wife and I have two kids, and she already wants a third and just the mere thought leaves me in a cold sweat about finances.

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Mom of 6 Says:

October 19th, 2007, 16:47 pm

I thnk it’s wonderful that you guys have 6 children. My husband and i just had OUR 6th, about 8 months ago!
We have 5 girls, and one boy.
These are some good ideas!
Congrats and God Bless!

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Domingo Says:

January 3rd, 2008, 4:43 am

Take advantage of libraries. Libraries have DVDs, CDs, and of course books!

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ppatin Says:

January 4th, 2008, 10:53 am

Six kids? Jesus christ, haven’t you people ever heard of birth control?

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sara Says:

March 15th, 2008, 17:27 pm

This is fantastic! I have been reading a lot of frugal blogs lately and love yours the most. We have some credit cards and student loans we really want to pay off, plus I’m a stay at home mom with two young kids, so I competely appericiate your advice. Keep up the fantastic work! THANK YOU SO MUCH! Long live Zen Fugality!

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bummer Says:

May 13th, 2008, 11:38 am

Hi, i am a high school student ready for graduation. It’s always been my dream to have a lot of kids, and i think six is the perfect number! This might be an akaward question, but how long does it take to produce six kids, this is sort of crucial for my life planning. I love kids and babies, yet i really want to be done with waking up 2 hours early before I’m, say, 38.

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Myself Says:

July 2nd, 2008, 9:26 am

Wow, I guess that the last poster (”Bummer”), didn’t receive a quality education?

How long does it take to produce 6 kids is dependent upon several factors. Prevalence of multiple births on either/both sides, adoption, etc.
Gestation is about 9 months.
But if there are multiples, they typically come early. Our twin girls were born 30 days early … coincidentally, that is how early I was born even though I was the only one being born to my mother that day. :)

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JWoolman Says:

August 29th, 2008, 22:56 pm

Reconsider credit cards - get a rebate card and don’t carry a balance. I get 2% back on groceries and utilities, sometimes up to 5%, and 4% on gas, 1% on everything else. You could make a mint with all those groceries! Might need several cards with a big family, since some have limits on how much rebates they will pay. By using rebate cards for practically everything but always paying off the balance every month, I make money from the bankers.

Every time I put a charge on the card, I immediately enter the amount both in my credit card ledger and in my checking account ledger as an addition to the “to be paid” entry for that card at the scheduled payment date if it has gone beyond my monthly estimate for that card. I use an old version of Quicken and estimate all my expected expenses (including total credit card charges), having Quicken enter them 30 days ahead and adjusting as time goes on. I’m a freelancer and generally have to think 30-60 days ahead anyway, since most of my clients are 30 days net payers at best. I keep as much of my monthly expense money as possible in a high-interest online savings account, and transfer it over to the checking account before making the monthly payment — making more money from the savings account.

Even if you are in debt, instead of not charging more on the cards carrying a balance, you can often save lots on interest by paying ahead on your card for expenses in addition to your monthly paydown payment. Even if the pay-ahead amount is cancelled out by charges two weeks later - that’s two weeks less interest. Stretch the time between pay-ahead and charge as much as possible. I used to do this on my designated paydown card (the one I was putting most of my debt repayments into, to clear it first, generally the one with highest interest). I didn’t put my money into a savings account while in debt, but rather saved much more money by simply paying ahead for card charges like this in addition to my monthly payment on the prior balance. Extra payments can also be made each month for this purpose if you don’t have enough money to do it just once a month.

This works only if there are no lower-interest promotional balances (e.g., for balance transfers) on the card, since the bank applies payments to the lower-interest balance first. If I do special balance transfers for emergency reasons and carry a balance at such reduced interest rates, I do them on a clear card and stash the card away in an envelope, not charging any purchases on it until the balance transfers are paid off.

I also discovered that clearing off one card at a time helped because the bankers would miss my interest payments so much - they would make me offers for life-of-the-loan balance transfers that I couldn’t refuse. I got out of a large debt much faster with much less interest payments as a result. The last year while I was clearing a large debt, I wasn’t paying anything in interest (0%/no fee balance transfer deals). They hope you will mess up and end up paying big bucks to them, but if you’re careful - you can win rather than lose. I keep close track of all income and expenses and tax setaside in a spreadsheet (I set aside expected taxes from every payment I receive from clients in a savings acct) and especially interest on credit card loans, so it was great seeing that interest payment going down so fast.

0% on purchases deals are also great - just pay the minimum but stash the rest of the money for charges each month in a high-interest savings account, then pay off the card just before the deal ends. Again, the bankers are hoping you mess up, so be careful.

As long as your spending habits don’t change, i.e., you stay frugal, credit cards can be a wonderful money-saver and money-maker. Most credit card debt in the USA is not due to shopaholic behavior, by the way, but rather good reasons such as keeping afloat during an illness, paying medical expenses not paid by insurance, etc. Only a tiny amount (maybe 10%) is due to people buying junk they don’t need.

Also look into shopping portals that give you rebates for things that you need to buy online - if you’re careful and also take advantage of every free shipping offer available, it can help a lot.

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jomanette Says:

June 6th, 2009, 23:27 pm

The financial aspect is really a challenge in raising a family. In most times, it becomes a big issue between husband and wife.

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free divorce papers Says:

June 7th, 2009, 7:27 am

I wonder how your wife handles the chaos of six kids in the house.

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