Big Families- Saving Money and Time

Well a lot of people are always commenting on how expensive it is to raise children. Well yes it can be!! Of course if you are buying clothing at the Gap and dressing them for winter in a $200.00 snowsuit and then have a different color coded jacket for each week, yep that can can be pretty damaging to the budget! As for me well I have to admit I LOVE PLEASE MUM!!! The trick is when I do go there I am buying only from the clearance racks and a lot of time buying what I can in bigger sizes for the next year! I also do this in Walmart and Superstore. The last time we were in the bigger center I was in Walmart and looking for another pair of winter boots for my Danny, who wore the insides right out. And they were having the best sale on winter boots ever!!! Now where we are these things do not come cheap so at $5.00 a pair, yes 5 bucks, I couldn't resist. I was able to get 3 pairs for the 3 youngest, all a size bigger, for next winter. And let me tell you these boots were quality warm boots, Kodiak and Sorel brands. Yay. Now next time I go I will scour the racks for snow pants hats and mitts.
We have come home a few times to bags of boys clothes by our front door, greatly appreciated. I go through the bags, keep what we like and the rest goes on to another family or to a local thrift shop. Nothing wrong with secondhand clothes not at all.
And of course we have one box for each size for the younger boys, although there is a certain age they get too when pants are not very salvageable...lol those ones have become a part of my jeans pile to be cut up and recycled into lovely quilts for my boys!!
One could have many many kids and still stay on a pretty nice budget. I just watched this show a few weeks ago where a family with 12 kids lived quite comfortably on a yearly budget of $40,000. The key is to plan and stay on the Budget!! We have learned many hard financial lessons, but we have learned is the key and we are still learning. One has to appreciate the learning lessons that Lord allows us to go through, He has definitely been our saving Grace.
So now I am working on revamping our budget and sticking to it!! We are planning a move in the near future and we will have to stick to our budget and plans.
Another thing I frequently do is menu plan!!! Some people comment that it takes too much time and effort, well it actually doesn't take that much time and the kids LOVE it!! We hang the menu on the fridge and they can just look at it and know what exactly we are having and did I mention it actually encourages them to help with meal prep!!! Yes if they see something on the menu that they can make themselves or help prepare they are on top of it. It's great, I think menu planning definitely saves money and time! And another thing I have been touching on a bit, but plan to do a lot more of in the near future is BULK cooking and baking. I have been very inspired to do this by many blogs but specifically one family's blog Beauty and Bedlam. She includes recipes and let me tell you the best waffles EVER!!! Yep I made them one evening for supper and I made a triple batch, plain, blueberry and chocolate chip. It was great, I froze a bunch and it was just like toaster waffles only healthier. I also did bulk cookies the other day so now we have fresh baked ones and ones that are ready to be pulled out of the freezer, put on a pan and backed, Voila!! It takes just as much time as doing a single batch. So I do encourage it, Mothers you will appreciate it in the long run.
Well my friends I must go now and get my boys to work, they just finished chopping wood and packing it in so now they are ready to sit and concentrate on our studies for today. God Bless all you wonderful people.