@sunflower232 We are about to put baby 2 in daycare in a week and I just stripped our budget to the bones after hyperventilating once I realized how much we spent last year. We have moved out of state/bought a house that needed tons of storage added to it, our HVAC and fridge needed replacement, and we had 2 babies all in 24 months (and our insurance sucks so those were some expensive babies, and I didn’t have any paid leave.) I am committed to spending less than 200/week on groceries (our old grocery spending habits were ridiculous—I’m a newly committed Aldi fan) and only buying the kids clothes at consignment stores (we have a Once Upon a Child near us). If we
actually stick to the budget we are just a little over into the red each year, but we are very lucky to have savings to cover it. We also both drive cars with over 100k miles on them so we need to make room in the budget to one of them to die probably. Oh and both of companies had raise freezes last year. Good times.
We also have free state funded prek when our kids turn 4, so I keep reminding myself we are only paying two full daycare bills for 24 months and then we are at least getting a little boost!
But I feel you. And we don’t even have any debt besides our house. I don’t know how other people survive with big car payments and student loans.