Hi, I'm Seppie. I've spent the last couple of months reading the blog and the forum (found MMM through YNAB.)
When my children were smaller, I absolutely agreed with MMM that kids don't have to be expensive. I used cloth diapers, breastfed, my kids got hand-me-down clothes and toys, most activities we did were free or cheap. I supported a family of 4 on less than $15,000/year, with no sense of deprivation (we certainly didn't save much, but that was more because of my ex's spending patterns than because it wasn't possible on that income with two small children.) I continued to live very well as a single mom on a relatively small income. Eventually I married a guy who also has two kids.
So we are now raising four kids, ages 11-almost 16, and we spend what seems like an insane amount of money. In part, this is due to lifestyle creep - there are definitely areas where we can cut spending! But in general, we are very aware of aligning spending with our values and don't live extravagantly. My car has over 236,000 miles on it and my husband's car is approaching 190,000 miles. We buy clothes at thrift stores whenever we can (enough so that when I took my 15-year-old son to JC Penney a couple of weeks ago, he said, "I hate shopping at stores like this. It makes me feel like an arrogant prick...ooh, I'm a rich kid, please wait on me...")
But as I was buying 2 1/2 pounds of turkey - enough to make sandwiches for my kids for 3 days - I found myself reminiscing about the years when I could buy 1/4 pound and it would last a week. I am vegetarian, so our dinners rarely if ever have meat, but the teenage boys seem to crave protein the way I did when I was pregnant. Yes, they can (and do) eat beans and other cheaper sources, but the sheer quantity of food the kids consume makes it feel impossible to even approach the dollar amounts that I see other people talking about for grocery bills. My oldest son grew 8 inches in 6 months. During that time, he literally ate from the minute he got home from school until the minute he went to bed at night. He is now 5'11 and weighs 125 pounds, so he is certainly not overeating! The next oldest seems to be hitting that puberty growth spurt. Yesterday he ate three huge helpings of casserole for dinner, then went to check the fridge to see what else he could have. I used to be able to make one pan of enchiladas and have leftover enchiladas for lunch all week. I made a pan of enchiladas tonight, and it is gone - the boys are still hungry.
Then there are activities. We aren't one of those crazy families whose kids are shuttled from expensive activity to expensive activity. One of our kids takes one dance class a week, another participates in debate through school, and the other two take piano lessons once a week. So if we just had one, the costs would be pretty reasonable. However, with 4 kids, that adds up to around $200/month.
We tend to spend more on experiences than on things, and while we do many things (camping, bike riding, board games, cops and robbers at the park) together that cost little or no money, we also prioritize family travel. We could definitely save a ton of money by not taking family vacations, or choosing not do do things like go to Water World (we do this once every summer, and it costs us around $200). But I choose to do them now, knowing that our kids won't be with us that much longer - these are the years that they will look back on when they think about what it was like to grow up as part of our family, and I want them to have lots of good memories. Some of these memories save money (they can complain when they are older about how I FORCED them to walk home from school if it was over 40 degrees, but I think they will be glad I did!) but most cost money.
As I read the mini-mustache forum, I get the sense that many people here have young kids, if they have kids at all. I'm curious if this is true. My experience, as briefly outlined above, is that young kids are cheap, teenagers are expensive. I wonder if others have found this as well.