The girls turned 5 months old this weekend. As part of that milestone, I wanted to answer a question that some of my friends ask me: are the babies on budget?
Of course they are – 53% below budget in fact. Well… kind of. The only explicit forecasted budget we had was for diapers. We came across this site: http://tinyurl.com/5bbxrg, which seemed to have reasonable numbers. Edna has whittled down purchases by buying in bulk (we are talking months at a time), and the girls have taken to frugality in diapers like ducks to water. So both price and volume are doing better than expected.
But diapers are only 20% of our total cost since inception. Equipment was 40%, clothes 20%, Food 10% and the lots of other things for the last 10% (see Exhibit 1). The trick to budgets here is economies of scale (i.e., does it cost 2x as much to have two, or just a little more). We didn’t set a specific budget for these categories, but looking around the USDA, and MSN, here is a guess on where they stand.
On equipment the girls are 10% below budget for one child, or 55% below budget if you assume two kids takes twice the stuff. One great perk of living out East is that moms have their kids later in life. After having twins, they don't plan on a another set and are happy to sell you top-of-the line stuff, two at a time, at bargain-basement prices. So being connected with the Mothers of Multiples here has helped quite a bit.
These fiscally fit girls took it even one step further: they have also been self-financing so far. If you take the budget surpluses from the recreation and dining out categories (because its a lot harder to get out with the girls), we have broken even across those categories and the baby expenses. Who said children were expensive? Go team.
The girls are also 17% below budget on clothes, and 83% below budget on food (which probably assumes formula where we did not have that cost). The clothes are a little embarrassing because the other reason he girls are so fiscally mature for their age is you. The many, many gifts we received were not included in the numbers. Thanks again, I still have many of you on my thank-you list, which is getting older every month that passes by.
5 comments:
This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time.
Echo to Ben -- only a post by John and Edna. I am glad to hear the girls are under budget -- keep up the good work.
That is so great! I love the people who have one or two kids and then sell you stuff dirt cheap! My kids know all about being economical, Ethan ran out of diapers so we are potty training. Well so far he mostly pees his pants, but he'll get it eventually!
You guys make me smile. Thanks for the laugh.
Sometimes with you John, my admiration crosses over into fear.
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