The Cost of Raising Kids for $3000/year--Can We Do It? Yes We Can!

I've been getting away from my quilting articles to talk about other things. Don't worry if you like quilts. I am working on some projects right now.

There has been a lot of talk about the article put out by the Fraser Institute article regarding the costs of raising children in Canada. In the article, the author, Chris Sarlo, suggested that it cost $2100 for a four-year-old and $4100 for a 12-year-old. I don't have a 12-year-old yet, but I feel that the cost he quoted for a 4-year-old to be reasonable.

Guess how much this cost? It was free! (Minus the cost of sunscreen.)

Apparently, I am the only one who thinks this. There has been a deluge of parents and experts claiming that this amount is totally unreasonable. For example, this author sees the estimate as foolish particularly because it doesn't include childcare costs. (He also admits to spending $4000 for a week of dance camp for his daughter which screams EXCESSIVE!) According to Sarlo's report, less than 50% of Canadians use any kind of paid childcare. (This includes me--I don't even use babysitters! I would also say that a majority of my friends don't have paid childcare at all. But maybe we are the rich elite? My little bungalow might suggest otherwise.)

So I started to look around on the web to see if there was anyone who agreed with this report. I couldn't find anyone. I did click on a promising link by Frugal Edmonton Mama, but she didn't really seem to agree. Although she did omit things from her calculation like (my comments follow):

- preschool (not a necessity)
- swimming lessons (we've been personally experimenting with just taking the kids to the pool during free times and they are all learning to swim quite well)
- preschool gym (maybe try the playground? Even McDonalds has a nice playground in winter which you can put all your kids on for the price of a small coffee and muffin--$1.39)
- horse-back riding lessons (?!)

she did include RESP contributions and her larger house. (I'm amazed at how many people think RESPs is a necessity. Although I admit it would be nice, I do not think that it should be taken out of money that would otherwise go towards food. Now, if you discontinue horse-back riding lessons and use that money for RESPs, then that would be another story.)

Anyway, the frugal in Frugal Edmonton Mama is a misnomer. We are definitely raising our four kids on less than $2500/year each (what we actually spend) and we even plan crazy, epic vacations--like the one we are planning for Florida in February. (Regina is cold in winter.)

Here is his chart from the Fraser Institute report:

Spending         4 year old child (G)        12 year old child (B)

Food                          $1,638.60                           $2,517.12

Clothing                        $332.33                              $519.04

Personal care               $114.05                              $222.64

Household supplies      $127.68                              $127.68

Personal allowances,
recreation,

religion,
school supplies              $51.72                              $728.56

Total                          $2,264.38                            $4,115.04

FOOD:
According to his calculations, it costs $1.50/meal for a 4-year-old and $2.30/meal for a 12-year-old. My personal calculations say that we spend about $1.40/meal for each member of our family (or $700/month assuming exactly 3 meals a day). I think we eat quite well, but I also feel that I am quite careful about our food spending. We also eat at home 90% of the time.

CLOTHING:
I rarely buy clothing for the kids. I "put the word out" and now have a deluge of people giving us clothing. I wouldn't be surprised if we spent about $332.33 (the 4 y/o rate) on all four of our kids in a year. Not shopping is the ultimate in being frugal. There are so many perfectly good clothes that are used. And no kid needs more than two pairs of jeans. I'm sorry. Please read my post minimizing clothes here.

PERSONAL CARE:
I'm not sure what this would include other than soap and sunscreen? This seems like a lot to me as a result. (Or maybe it would include diapers, but I do cloth. And really, a 4-year-old should not still be needing diapers, so that doesn't make sense either.)

ETC. CATEGORY:
Maybe this is low as it would barely cover the cost of a bicycle (at the 4 y/o rate) and is only $14/week for the 12 y/o. But he did outline that this is the basics. It certainly wouldn't include ANY type of lessons taken over the year (eg: piano costs $15-20/week), but would pay for a few rounds of swimming lessons ($42/session).







Am I crazy here? Am I the only one who agrees with the Fraser Institute's assessment? Let me know your thoughts...

Recycling my ripped change table

It bothers me that I have only had this particular change table for one baby (despite having four kids--I think I've had 2 other change pads before this one) and it was already ripped up. I put this ugly TuckTape on it to make it easier to wipe down after a particular type of mess...

I was ready to break down and buy a new change pad. But first, I was going to my favourite store: Fabricland. There, I found this really cute piece of vinyl for $3/meter. I only needed 0.7m, so it was cheap for me to buy.

With double-sided carpet tape left over from a previous project, I recovered the table and am very happy with the results. And much cheaper than the $25 I was going to plunk down to buy new.

Voila! A new apple change table with Fabricland vinyl.

The Joy of Less--Supplement for Kids (Part 2: Kids' Clothes)

Kids' clothing must multiply inside their drawers. I don't know how else to explain it. Last year, when I took out all my daughter's clothes from her drawer, I found 18 t-shirts. I don't even have 18 t-shirts and I don't change sizes every year. Could she be using 18 t-shirts a year? This sounds excessive.

With kids' clothing, it is best to take every item of clothing out of the drawer and closet and hook near the door and count. Just start by counting it all. You will probably be amazed by how many outfits each child has.

Then make a plan for how many outfits a child will reasonably need between laundry days. With four kids and a healthy dislike for laundry, I like to have a week supply of clothes fit into one load of my high-capacity washing machine. This means that we can't have a ton of clothes in our drawers or the load will get too big. (I quit sorting the laundry years ago with no noticeable difference. If you're feeling extra brave, you could try this too.)

I have decided that my children (aged 6 and under) each need about four or five complete outfits for a week. (Maybe you will judge that you need seven. This just means more laundry.) For my daughter, this would include dresses. Because the kids are small, I help them to make less laundry by judging their clothing from the day before: if it's not too dirty, they can wear it the next day.

(My own philosophy is that kids are quite dirty all the time. If they have a small(ish) stain on their shirt, no one can tell if this stain came from a week ago, yesterday or thirty seconds ago. Maybe some people think that my kids are little street urchins, but I generally believe most adults (a) don't look at kids clothing very critically and (b) generally assume that the stain was recent instead of from yesterday. Maybe my policy on wearable clothing is too liberal for some, but it works for me and my laundry habits.)

Each child gets one (1) drawer in the dresser where all their clothing goes. If it stops fitting, then I have to look at why. There might be toys jammed in there, or it might be that there are a bunch of clothes that are now too small. (They also get one (1) very small underware and sock drawer.)

Pajamas
Each child gets two (2) pair of pjs. I am almost at the point where I think one pair would be enough. If they have more than that, little kids are not thoughtful or careful about where the pjs go from the night before and they will end up on the floor and likely in the laundry. At nighttime, I say, "Where are your pjs from last night." If they only have one (or two) pairs, then it is easy to remember what they look like. I exchange summer and winter pajamas as necessary.

Specialty Outdoor Clothing
We live in Saskatchewan. It is cold here. In winter, we need a lot of gear just to take the van to the library. Snow pants, mitts, toques, winter jackets, fleece lined jeans, sweaters, etc. are necessary for the six months of the year we have snow and bitter cold. This takes up a lot of space. What we do not have is rain gear; it rains rather infrequently here. It is never "drizzling" like it does on the coast. It rains and then it stops. We rarely go outside when it's raining. As a result, I got rid of all our rain gear including rain jackets. If it's cold, we wear our winter jacket. If it's summer, we run. A little rain didn't hurt anyone. I don't even have umbrellas because there were more inconvenient to store than the value they provided. If you live in a warmer climate where it rains a lot, adjust your clothing stores to reflect this.

Shoes
I limit my kids (and myself) to four pairs of shoes: sandals (worn almost exclusively in summer--this also reduces the number of socks that I have to wash); runners; rain boots (we do still have a "set" of these that the kids rotate through as necessary); and winter boots. For the kids that are interested, I can bring out slippers, but for some of my kids, they don't care and I don't need extra shoes to find during the day. (We also got electric heated floors in part of our house which really reduces the need for slippers.) There is no reason to have shoes for every occasion! I don't have "fancy" shoes for the kids--instead they wear their sandals. My oldest son's runners are black and quite discrete when it comes to formal occasions.

My pseudo-rule (for other things as well) is that I want the drawer to be mostly empty by the time I get to the laundry. If there is one outfit left there, then I know I have judged the amount of clothes that my kids need correctly. If there are still tons of clothes left, then more paring down can be done.

New stuff is always better than old stuff

My stuff ready to be shipped out.

A friend of mine from Toronto said this to me a million years ago and it has always stuck with me.

We were just sitting around one day and he told me he was going to take a bunch of CDs down to the used CD store to get credit for new things. I had this odd feeling of loss--why would he want to get rid of CDs that he probably once enjoyed and some would probably only get him 25 cents (the minimum they would pay for CDs at this particular place at Bloor and Bathurst).

"New stuff is always better than old stuff," he said like it was so obvious. And it is so obvious. But it is something that I have thought of extensively over the past number of years.

Embracing this has been a long process. I have tons of stuff. We all have tons to stuff. Stuff is cheap and abundant. In the same way that we crave sugar snacks, we also crave stuff. More than we could ever need.

I have been battling myself in this way. There are so many things that I never use, so many projects that I genuinely don't want to finish. And yet I hold onto them... is it my responsibility to hold on to them forever?

How does this relate to quilting? It mostly relates to slow quilting. I don't need to make a quilt every single week. There are many quilters who do and many of their things are beautiful. But I don't need one quilt a week. If I can make one per year, I will still have 50 quilts when I die (we'll see if that happens!). And 50 quilts is way more than any one person could ever need--even in cold, cold Regina.

But new stuff is always better than old stuff, even in handmade quilts. I should think about limiting the number of quilts I have, replacing old ones with news ones. In this small way, I might be reducing the amount of things that pass through me on their eventual trip to the landfill. My job as steward of the earth is to keep less stuff going to the landfill.

So here is my start: a pile of things going out the door. Thank you church garage sale. Now I can get some new and exciting things when I go to preview everyone else's junk!

Sashiko Quilting; Decluttering My Life

Lone Star quilt with Sashiko pattern ideas

Sashiko Quilting

 I made this quilt last winter and it's been sitting mostly finished on my wall downstairs since then. I never felt quite done on it. After about a year of thinking about it, I decided that the quilt needed Sashiko quilting--a type of Japanese quilting that uses geometric shapes.

So I drew this up with three different patterns. I asked my kids which one they liked the best (steps, stars or strips) and they all said stars. My mom also voted for stars, so stars it is.

I stared working on it and I am intending to be finished it this weekend. I think I have bad sewing posture because it is really hurting my thumb... But I must continue. I have entered it into the Regina Quilt show here at the Conexus Arts Centre, so I really do need to have it finished.

Lone Star quilt, Winter 2011 before Sashiko quilting
The colours in this photo do not do justice to the quilt.

Decluttering My Life

 On a non-quilting note, but in an effort to reduce my clutter and increase my sanity, I have started to think a lot about the things that come into my home. My current peeve is the detritus that comes home from every single appointment you go to. And with four kids, I go to a lot of appointments.

I consider myself to be a new category of hippie Catholic (not an oxymoron), and the amount of paper and garbage that comes into our home is astounding. (I can't begin to imagine how much waste I would be getting if I sent my kids to school.)

Yesterday, we took the kids to the dental hygienist to get fluoride painted on their teeth. (Yes, I am a hippie, but science says fluoride keeps teeth looking good.) In addition to being one of the most plodding appointments, she practically gave us a shopping bag full of stuff. Colouring books, stickers, little sheets to put the stickers on every time the kids brush their teeth, a storybook about dental health, large stickers, information sheets about fluoride. I spoke very firmly to her to convince her that we had enough toothbrushes at home (anyone need kid toothbrushes?) so she eventually stopped pushing those. But come on! Enough already!

Every specialist has their own little do-dads that clutter up our lives. And many of these things are "responsibility-making." Stickers to monitor their teeth brushing? What a pain for me! I feel confident that the kids will survive P. and I brushing 80% of the teeth, 80% of the time.

But let's think of the steps required. My children are not at an age where they are really able to take care of sticker sheets like this one yet. So for me, I have to
1. Segregate the stickers from my general revenue of stickers
2. Hang up this piece of paper somewhere not too tacky
3. Brush teeth (okay, I am doing this anyway)
4. Remind child to put on sticker
5. Find new place for stickers and paper so that younger siblings don't go to town on the stickers and use them on something else (heaven forbid!)
6. Deal with fall-out when younger sibs do find the stickers and put them somewhere inappropriate ("He ruined it, Mom!")
7. Spend 7 minutes trying to pick off stickers and re-affix them to the paper (this I have done so many time)
8. Start process again.

I will be the first to admit that one sticker sheet is not the end of the world. But every specialist that you meet must imagine that you are only seeing them. If I only saw the dental hygienist once a year, then this would be okay. But I see dozens of people, all of whom are giving paper and junky toys and clutter to my children.

At the moment she handed these sheets to me, I literally thought about throwing them into the garbage. But that would be much too rude. So instead, I take them home and throw them out there. Is it necessary for us to go through this whole pantomime?

I wish I could just be honest with people like this. No, we don't want your little junky car.* Nor the diamond ring.** Nor the colouring book.*** Nor the fact sheet about why it's good that our kids won't get polio.**** The stickers I will take, but we really have thousands at home. Cancer society does a good job at mailing them to my grandma and her friends who save them all for us.

Can we end all this clutter nonsense--if not just for my sanity then for the environment as well?

*At the optometrist, we got a really cheap-o dinky car that one of the kids was driving on P.'s face and it cut him. A big cut down the side of his temple. Safe, hun?
**Also an optomistrist toy that G sucked on so much that the diamond popped of. Thankfully, she didn't swallow it.
***What type of kid enjoy a colouring book about dental health more than one with Disney Princesses? Any?
****Of course I don't want my kids to get polio. That's why I let you stick them with a needle. I don't need the sheet anymore; you've already explained to me the side effects. Email me if you must so at least I won't have to make more frequent trips to the garbage.

The Need for Slow Quilting

The Citrus Quilt Fall 2011

There is the slow food movement. It inspires us to think about our food, prepare our dinner, enjoy our meal. It makes food into something that requires care and attention, where part of the value is created in the process.

I believe there should be a movement for slow quilting, where care and attention is paid to each piece. Let's do hand sewing. Let's design our own patterns. Let's make something that really pleases us. And after this is all done, let's start something new from what we have learned.

It seems to me that many quilting magazines advertize Quick Quilts. These are projects that can be finished in a day of work. Unless you are selling them, or you are very, very cold, you do not need to finish a quilt in a weekend.

Instead, let's make really tricky quilts that will take a year to complete. If I've got another 50 years in me (maybe I do, maybe I don't), I will still have an insane closet full of completed quilts. But they will be very complicated quilts. And I hope very beautiful.

So let's slow down. Work slowly with passion. Make something beautiful. Challenge ourselves. Reduce clutter. Conserve our resources. Exercise our creativity.

Let's try Slow Quilting.