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

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[quote=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. 
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