The notebooks and pencils are easy enough to plan for. It's everything that comes afterward that gets tricky. Field trips, activity fees, extra supplies, something one kid needs that the others don't.
With multiple kids, even the small stuff adds up pretty quickly.
Do you set aside money for school expenses all year, or just deal with them as they come?
Three kids under 8, part-time dental assistant, Boston metro. Childcare takes 40% of our take-home pay. I finally opened a Roth IRA last month with $500 and felt like I'd won the lottery, then I looked up the contribution limits and wanted to cry.
My question is for the 4+ kid crowd specifically. Are you actually contributing to retirement accounts regularly? Or are you just in survival mode and planning to catch up later? I keep hearing finance podcasts say to max out your 401k and Roth by 35 and I want to throw my phone. That's not happening here.
We meal prep, thrift everything, no car payments, and I still feel behind. My husband works full-time but his company stopped the match last year. I've looked into side hustles after bedtime and I'm too exhausted to trust myself with anything that needs focus. Tried transcription, fell asleep at my laptop twice.
What I'm asking is whether any of you found actual programs or strategies that work with this many kids. Not generic advice. Real stuff. Daycare cost relief programs that aren't scams. Employer tricks. Anything that actually helped.
I'm not looking for sympathy. I want to copy what worked.