Just going to say that “they don’t make things like they used to”.
My $50 (lower middle range at the time) Grayco stroller had a basket underneath which my 5 year old would climb in so I could push them and baby around. I have no idea how it stood up to the abuse but it certainly did. Huge wheels that took us across bumpy terrain yet small profile and lightweight. It was still in good shape when I gave it away.
The portable baby carrier (probably Grayco too) had storage at the bottom so you could ditch the diaper bag.
The bassinet of 35 years is still making the rounds. (of course that’s not a lot of abuse there!)
What you REALLY need to have a kid is a sense of humor and the ability to breathe regularly. To know they are most likely to survive despite all the horrible mistakes you make.
We had a very small house growing up and it’s only now going through my late dad’s tax returns that I realize we weren’t “rich”. I felt rich. My dad though was financially smart–you can’t be financially ignorant and provide for kids.
Amen to that. There’s a phrase in psychology “good-enough mother,” Father too. I would never say “all you need is love” but hopefully we learn from our mistakes. (BTW, mine was a Maclaren. Once I figured out how to fold it up, it was great on subways and buses.)
The best thing you can do is teach your kids to live within their means. My parents did and in retirement they don’t have to worry about money. They are not rich by any means but they are fine.
I always tried to balance what my kids got. Oftentimes when they were growing up if they wanted something I would tell them I am willing to pay half. I really believe kids need skin in the game.
When my oldest started driving the cost of gas was on her. We provided an old car. This allowed us to stop being her Uber driver and for her to work. She found out pretty quickly which of her friends paid their own gas. The ones that did always knew the price of gas and where to get it the cheapest. The ones who just put it on Mom & Dad’s CC really didn’t pay attention.
I’ve also heard of people making their kids pay the difference in insurance costs. Depending on the area and the sex of the child, that could be a big increase. I know when I started driving the insurance doubled if the new driver was female and tripled if it was a male.
We always taught our kids to live within their means and save. It’s amazing how much saving and living within your means can really help you get a handle on your money.
In most cases with our kids, if they wanted something expensive, we’d pay for part of it and they had to pay for the rest. Or they had to save up their allowance and money they got for gifts for it. They got a weekly allowance (that increased by age) and could use that for spending money, though we also encouraged them to save it too.
Sometimes if they wanted something that was more expensive for their birthdays or Christmas, we’d do combined birthday/christmas presents and that would be the only item they’d get. When D wanted an American Girl doll, she didn’t want anything else, and when her relatives asked what she wanted, we said they could chip in for the doll.
When D went to prom, I ended up buying her a more expensive prom dress, because it was a dress she could wear again and get a lot of use out of it. She had that dress for years and wore it to many events. D used her allowance to pay for the shoes, purse, nails, hair, and prom tickets.
As for clothes, we generally paid for those, they had a set budget and if they went over budget they had to pay for that themselves (obviously not when they were little kids).