 do with four children - a financial and emotional cost calculator _1.jpg "Seven things to (do) do with four children - a financial and emotional cost calculator -1")
It is a struggle for ideas on what to do when you have such a big family to keep everyone engaged and engaged, other than video games, movie rentals and television. Here are a few examples of what I tried to do and / or did, and found that this is really not a viable option when you have four children, both for financial reasons and for reasons of reason:
1. Go to the grocery store ~ This is a good walk for me. Even me and one child. But two or more, or, God Forbidden, 4 ?! No. Let me calculate how it does not work. You will not be able to refer to your grocery list, because every time you look away from a baby in a buggy, he will grab the bread from his back and squeeze him until he appears. A child who walks near the buggy (at worst) disappears in the air, or (at best) randomly picks things on the shelf and places them in the buggy. You will spend an extra $ 50 on items you don’t even realize you bought until you return home. Older children (who, in your opinion, will have assets in this situation) return to the babies and start whining and arguing with you about your choice of products. One of them will strike and / or erase the other to break out of him / her, causing you to loudly say obscene things and make you an object of views and judgments that are thrown by viewers who think (no, KNOW) that they are better than parents . Once I said to an older woman: “Do you think you can do better than me?” “Take.” I realized that this does not make you a good parent. You cannot win in this situation. Avoid it at all costs. If you have to go to the store, take only one child, or - better yet - make ONE. Here's another tip: don't bring your husband. He will ask you what brand of rice you bought in the last 5 years, which will cause irritation, leave the rice and continue your purchases faster than reasonably ahead of your husband, and then miss a lot of things on your list.
2. Go to eat ~ Many people said to me: "I think it is cheaper to eat than to cook today." These people do not have 4 children. As long as our grocery bill is pretty steep (just take all your recipes and double them, sometimes triple them, to feed the family for one meal), we have to sell the heirloom to go to the local buffet. In these rare cases, we all order water, and we still spend an average of $ 65 on "cheap" restaurants. Tacos at home at night: $ 20. In addition, we have the opportunity to install a smaller or larger plate, depending on the appetite of each child on this day. My 4 and 5 year old children will walk around, eating only pieces of food and pieces of bread, and then on the third day they will eat everything in the house. We can pay for everything you can eat for these children, and they will eat two pieces of corn, and then whine the rest of the food. This makes the tab a little hard to swallow. So, we decided to plan our menu and buy what we need this week. Of course, this only works because my husband does most of the preparation. If my children had to rely on me on homemade cooked food 3 times a day, 7 days a week, we would be greasy McDonald's often-frequented flyers.
3. Go to the cinema ~ Even a show for matting will cost us $ 30 for tickets and $ 400 for popcorn and drinks. If we want to see a 3D movie, add $ 80 to the above. These numbers are slightly skewed to inflate the same emotional discomfort that I feel after you played all this dough in exchange for an hour, pushing my children to sit down, shut up and watch a movie with dad. Rent, fully. I can't stress this enough.
4. Go to the water park / amusement park ~ My mother is a very good friend who works at the radio station and controls the free tickets to the entrance to the water park 2 hours away from home. We sent there about 5 hours. It was hot and swimming makes you hungry. We spent $ 5,000 on drinks and crappy food. I never left the “zone for children” because someone had to keep an eye on the little ones. Large ones stand in rows forever, only to smoke at the last second and shamefully descend the stairs. It was a train wreck. Stick to the local park. Bring your own drinks and snacks.
5. Go to church ~ Wah ?! How could you say that? Do not go to CHURCH with children? What is wrong with you. Oh, no, don't judge me. I take my stupid children to church because they need Divine intervention. It's just not fun, that's all I'm saying. My 4-year-old man spends all his service on me and confuses my hair, and asks me what I am talking about when it comes time to pray out loud or sing a hymn. She points to other people and in her most high-profile attempts to whisper, asks me rude questions about them. My 5-year-old man reacts to the fact that he was ordered to sit down and calm down, throwing himself on the floor at our feet, kicking and whining, and then trying to run away, rolling under the bench. My 15-year-old man taps his hand on the seat next to him to cheer up, which he plays in his head, to drown out the message and to avoid brainwashing, which, in his opinion, seems to be trying. By the time the church was over, I was exhausted. Too exhausted, in fact, to keep up with the little ones, because they run away from me, screaming when we try to get to the car and get back to the safety of our own home. People in my church know my children well. The first few months they let them run and laughed when they saw me running after them. Now they are chasing me before they get to the parking lot.
6. Go to Disney World © and / or any other vacation ~ We have never been to Disney World ©, but I tried to book it. You have seen these advertised special offers for families of 4. Try connecting a family of 6 people. You cannot stay at a resort with value, because they will not book it with this multitude of people. You can book only luxury resorts. "Special" goes from $ 899 per room, tickets and meal plan for 4, up to $ 4,000 for a family of 6 people. I do not exaggerate at this price. If you don't believe me, try it yourself. Keep in mind that we can not go in the offseason, as all my children are in school. Even ordinary vacation looks out of reach for us. We cannot book a regular hotel room because we exceed its maximum capacity. We have to book a room. We went to New Orleans for the weekend, with a free hotel room on the points of a good friend, free tickets to the Aquarium from the same friend who gave us tickets to the water park, and we went to tickets to the zoo. We spent $ 900 this weekend. We ate at IHOP ©, McDonald, and at the food market at the zoo. We did not buy t-shirts. $ 900. I'm not exaggerating either.
7. Go to relatives relatives. My children are loud, and they fight each other. When we are at home, it really does not put us. We are used to it. When we go to see people, it really bothers them. I do not know which of them is more, noise or our careless attitude towards him. "Honey, the children are rolled into a ball under the table, scratching each other!" "Oh, yes, they do it all the time ... that's fine." We take the “let them understand it” approach to solve this problem. One day, maybe they will get tired of it. Probably no. Maybe they will go to college together and fold into a knot in the community area and buy it back. I don't care. Keep in mind that those who love you will judge you most. It’s best to keep your children at home, I think, and let your relatives and / or friends think that you have a normal family.
 do with four children - a financial and emotional cost calculator _2.jpg "Seven things to (do) do with four children - a financial and emotional cost calculator -2")
 do with four children - a financial and emotional cost calculator _3.jpg "Seven things to (do) do with four children - a financial and emotional cost calculator -3")
