Financial planning for having a big family

You won't find many people here with a large family for the obvious reason that it is quite expensive.

Most people make too much of the scale economies of large families. If one of you gives up an income that is the same for four children as one, so that is your biggest savings. Most of the big expenses of children go up proportionally. There aren't a lot of scale economies in food, activities, school expenses, college, and a lot of other items. Somewhere between three and four you start to run into some diseconomies of scale. For example, you can't legally put four small children in a sedan anymore, and after six you have to switch to a full-sized van.

As far as paying off the mortgage and other financial tips I don't see how having children really impacts it that much. One exception would be financial aid for college, which can make a huge difference and perhaps your financial situation can be engineered to get the most aid possible. Ignoring that I'd leave the low-interest and deductible mortgage debt alone. One benefit of having the money in your own hands is the flexibility to tap it if you need it.
 
I have 3 kids and in my opinion, it's really only the first one that's hard. The addition of each kid gets easier until the third just slides right into the family.

Unless s/he is a breech...

Ha
 
Go get "The complete Tightwad Gazette" from the library.
The details might be a bit outdated but the ideas are still valid.
The author raised 6 kids on one income and ER'ed.
 
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