We are adding a child to our family unexpectedly…how to budget

[Anonymous]

Our current HHI is 280k. 200 DH and 80 Me. We have learned recently that we will have the honor of taking in my nephew. One of his parents passed away 5 years ago via addiction and one is now serving a long prison sentence. He happily has been staying with my in laws but now that we see his Dad will be away for a decade we have decided its best to make his permanent home with us. I am going to drop down to part time in September. I know this is the correct thing for my own kids and my newest son. Everyone will have a lot of adjustments and I want to be here as much as possible. Nephew left last school year in turmoil and we are starting a new school this year for him and I expect it will be a bumpy transition. I also want to keep my own kids lives "normal" and be able to do their ballet, piano and soccer schedules as well as help them adjust. This is going to be quite a strain on us financially. Our whole lives we have planned around 2 kids and now DH is worried about how we will catch up nephews college fund and emerge him into our lifestyle. He is is strongly focused on making sure he is treated exactly as our children and he is very worried that a.) he won't be able to offer him the kind of life our kids have or b.) all of us take a lifestyle adjustment and start living as a family of 5. I think b is the correct answer but it will take some tweaking. Right now we are going to make 36 k less and have about 20k more in expenses. (This figure comes from new insurance plan, some legal adoption paperwork, adding one more kid to aftercare, his out of pocket therapies, and putting the same amount of money aside for his extra curriculars as we do our other kids.)

Some ideas we have done immediately:

1.) Dropped cable, lawn service and have started grooming our own dog. Poor dog looks like shit right now but I will get better at it…I have watched a lot of youtube! Home hair cuts for DH and son (DD and I will stretch ours house and just go to a cheapo place), really really kept an eye on grocery budget.
2.) Shopped around for better deals on car and home insurance. Saved about 380 just making some calls.
3.) DH is gonna drop his phone our family plan and just use work phone.
4.) I dropped my gym membership. I can workout outside for another few months and can reevaluate this winter.

Some bigger cuts we MAY do:

1.) My dad left us a lake house on Kelleys Island (a small island in Ohio) and we currently rent it and also enjoy it. We break even after taxes. We could skip "our weeks" and replace those weeks with renters. That would give us about 4k a year.
2.) We have about 600k equity in our house. We could sell for about 950k. We could downsize within our school district if needed.
3.) We could go to court and ask for what little assets my brother in law has be turned over to us. I dont know if thats worth it.


Has anyone taken in a child unexpectedly or had a similar lifestyle adjustment? Welcome to all ideas.

[Anonymous]

You have a healthy income. Lots of people have three kids with a smaller HHI than your new lower income so this is obviously very doable. How old are you, DH and each of the kids? Have you been saving every month?

[Anonymous]

How old is the nephew, and how old are your kids? I think I'd take money from savings to jump-start the nephew's 529 to about the level it "should" be based on where your kids are and their ages, and then replenish the EF going forward. I don't think I'd skip the vacation -- having a cheap/free vacation rental is worth a lot to a family of 5, too. I think you're making good choices, but don't do anything too drastic. Probably not worth it to go after the assets of the guy in prison -- what is he likely to have that would be worth the strife (especially as it would put nephew potentially in the middle between new "parents" and dad). And don't forget you'll get an additional deduction to offset some of the expenses.

[Anonymous]

First off you and your husband are just awesome. I'm almost in tears reading your post because it is very clear that you are welcoming your nephew into your family with no strings. Thank you for being such amazing role models to all three of the children in your family.
Just a few questions that might help others give better suggestions:
How old are all three kids?
Does your nephew participate in any activities that you will need to also plan for?
Do you go on other vacations? If so maybe you could cut those for 2 years and just do the lake house weeks.


A few places where I know our family of 4 kids tend to leak money is kids activity equipment, birthday party gifts, unplanned school projects and clothes. Depending on your community you could cut some costs with equipment swaps and thrift stores for clothes.

I gave my teen daughter a budget for back to school clothes last year. First she did some online searches for clothes she wanted and saw what the price was then we went to a thrift store in a nice neighborhood and she realized she could get some itemes (mostly tops) way cheaper. For jeans she decided to go to regular stores but waited a bit and tracked the sales so she got more for her budget.

Birthday party gifts: If I see a decent gift on sale somewhere I will buy a few extra so we have something available when we get suprised with invites. Also we no longer buy cards. We spent $20 on some nice paper at Michaels and a set of 20 blank cards. Greeting cards cost a ton and add up really fast. I know it might seem silly but at $5 a card we save enough money to pay for a whole season of a sport.

Gas points: check out the gas reward point programs at the grocery stores and Feul Rewards with Shell. We are able to save at lease $.20 a gal on every fill up using these programs. Once again if you think about it in the sense of saving just enough to pay for an activity it makes the extra effort worth it.

Track your eating out budget. Going out to dinner should be a special treat, buying a $5 cup of coffee every day is not.

[Anonymous]

God bless you and your family.
The budget will be tough for a while, but you can save lots of money by planning more free home activities with your children. It's amazing how kids can just entertain each other.
Both your kids and your nephew will benefit from each other.

[Anonymous]

We did this about 13 years ago on about half your income a week before we closed on a new more expensive house. Retirement savings took a hit until we got all of the kids out of full time daycare and we didn't save much for higher education. Health insurance went up because we had to go to a family plan. But, until they hit teenage years, groceries didn't change much.

We took your plan b. Everyone's lifestyle took a hit. The activities budget was divided by three kids instead of two and the entertainment budget now had to cover the cost of five instead of four. (And, there are some significant changes in costs of things like vacations because you need larger rental cars and hotel rooms that can accommodate five).

You've probably hit the low hanging fruit. If you can't make ends meet after that, then you probably do have to consider downsizing your house. I doubt that you will get any relief from the courts in terms of your BIL's assets and the cost to you in legal fees could well outweigh what you will get.

Congratulations and good luck.

Only other thing I will say is this. If your nephew is going to need therapy, find a way to go in network with your insurance. Mental health care is really expensive and if you want it to be sustainable, you have to be able to afford it.

[Anonymous]

We unexpectedly adopted my niece. Keep in mind that you only need to be part time temporarily. Secondly, no after-care costs if you'll be home after school since working part time. If each kid only gets two activities, then that's what happens.

Your nephew may need to be treated differently from your kids. He may have never gone to get a professional haircut before and may get a huge self esteem boost from that. Also, he may not need therapy for a long time (and school may be able to provide some).

Make no mistakes, OP. You are rich. Do not complain about money.
And once the nephew moves in with you, do not move houses. That change will be awful for him. Keep in mind that if nephew will be sharing a bedroom with one of your children that child may resent the nephew. What is your plan to deal with your kids being resentful?

[Anonymous]

How much time do you spend at the Lake house? I wouldn’t cut it out but you may reduce it if you are spending several weeks a year there. Also you can probably up the rent. Especially in the most popular weeks that it goes quickly. Try to make as many cuts to stuff only you and your DH will care about so the kids don’t end up resenting their cousin.

[Anonymous]

do you really have to budget at HHI of 280?

[Anonymous]

Given your current HHI, I can't even really comprehend how you can't fit another child into the mix without feeling like you need to make massive life altering decisions.

Since 99.9% of the families with 3 kids in this country are raising them on far less than you are, I would suggest you step back and not make rash decisions like selling the lake house. Nothing like a guilt trip that he is the reason you had get rid of the lake house and massively change your life.

I don't know your lifestyle but it sounds like your costs per child must be more than 50K each per year.

[Anonymous]

If you have HHI of $280k and a mortgage of only around $350k, you are spending money like crazy on a lot of things that are a lot more expensive than dog grooming.

Bless you for your act of kindness towards your nephew, but from a financial standpoint, something is really out of whack if you can't swing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have HHI of $280k and a mortgage of only around $350k, you are spending money like crazy on a lot of things that are a lot more expensive than dog grooming.

Bless you for your act of kindness towards your nephew, but from a financial standpoint, something is really out of whack if you can't swing this.

That's really not how mortgages work, you know that right PP? OP has paid it down to $350k, that doesn't mean it was initially $350k or that the payments are the same as they would be on a $350k mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for asking this. We make $180 and are thinking about taking in a young cousin. I suddenly feel better about our calculations!

[Anonymous]

Remember before you had kids when you wondered how you would be able to afford daycare/mortgage/etc and then you had kids and somehow found the money?

I think that is going to be the case here.

You’re probably hemorrhaging money on eating out, coffee, Target runs, impulse buys, and stuff that you don’t need/want/use.

It’s good to budget, and be deliberate with your money, but I bet this won’t be the problem you are imagining it to be.

Good luck at all of you!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our current HHI is 280k. 200 DH and 80 Me. We have learned recently that we will have the honor of taking in my nephew. One of his parents passed away 5 years ago via addiction and one is now serving a long prison sentence. He happily has been staying with my in laws but now that we see his Dad will be away for a decade we have decided its best to make his permanent home with us. I am going to drop down to part time in September. I know this is the correct thing for my own kids and my newest son. Everyone will have a lot of adjustments and I want to be here as much as possible. Nephew left last school year in turmoil and we are starting a new school this year for him and I expect it will be a bumpy transition. I also want to keep my own kids lives "normal" and be able to do their ballet, piano and soccer schedules as well as help them adjust. This is going to be quite a strain on us financially. Our whole lives we have planned around 2 kids and now DH is worried about how we will catch up nephews college fund and emerge him into our lifestyle. He is is strongly focused on making sure he is treated exactly as our children and he is very worried that a.) he won't be able to offer him the kind of life our kids have or b.) all of us take a lifestyle adjustment and start living as a family of 5. I think b is the correct answer but it will take some tweaking. Right now we are going to make 36 k less and have about 20k more in expenses. (This figure comes from new insurance plan, some legal adoption paperwork, adding one more kid to aftercare, his out of pocket therapies, and putting the same amount of money aside for his extra curriculars as we do our other kids.)

Some ideas we have done immediately:

1.) Dropped cable, lawn service and have started grooming our own dog. Poor dog looks like shit right now but I will get better at it…I have watched a lot of youtube! Home hair cuts for DH and son (DD and I will stretch ours house and just go to a cheapo place), really really kept an eye on grocery budget.
2.) Shopped around for better deals on car and home insurance. Saved about 380 just making some calls.
3.) DH is gonna drop his phone our family plan and just use work phone.
4.) I dropped my gym membership. I can workout outside for another few months and can reevaluate this winter.

Some bigger cuts we MAY do:

1.) My dad left us a lake house on Kelleys Island (a small island in Ohio) and we currently rent it and also enjoy it. We break even after taxes. We could skip "our weeks" and replace those weeks with renters. That would give us about 4k a year.
2.) We have about 600k equity in our house. We could sell for about 950k. We could downsize within our school district if needed.
3.) We could go to court and ask for what little assets my brother in law has be turned over to us. I dont know if thats worth it.


Has anyone taken in a child unexpectedly or had a similar lifestyle adjustment? Welcome to all ideas.

First thing you should do is do not over-react.