My DH and I really would like to have a large family. 3-4 kids sounds perfect to us! The problem is that right now I still work with DS and adding another child to the family really means that I need to be home with the kids. During the day I nanny which is great! I can make some money and still have my DS with me! But, no family is gonna want me to bring 2 kids to their house and pay me to watch their 1 (or even 2) kids. It is hard enough to find a family that is willing for the nanny to bring 1. A few evenings a week I work at a restaurant. That was going great until I lost my good job and the replacement is not bringing me in even 1/2 of what I was making. ugh.... On top of all this we have no health insurance. I have health insurance for the baby only and I pay out of pocket for it. Health insurance for me with maternity is only $202 a month, but adding another child to that is almost $600/mo and that is not even including any coverage for DH! We deffiently cant afford that! I tried talking to DH yesterday about our bills and lack of health insurance. I suggested that maybe we try to find a job for him in a less expensive part of the US where he can make about the same $$$ and get some great benefits. He was outraged that I would even suggest moving! He was saying that I just want the easy way out rather than making it work here. The thing is that we need him to be making about another $1,000/mo for us to be able to pay the bills and get gas and groceries on his salary so I can even have the option of staying home. That is a huge pay raise and there is no way he would get that right now with this economy at his current job. I don't mind working 2 evenings a week for extra spending $$$ but I dont want the burden of caring for 2 babies and paying the bills. BUT i desperatly want another baby in the near future!!! There is not too much we can do cut our bills down other than to cancel cable and sell my car. I really don't want to sell my car but even if I did it would only save us around $400/mo and I would have no way to get anywhere. DH has a truck and it would be ridiculous trying to get 2 car seats in the tiny back and then ridiculous tring to get the kids in and out. Anyways sorry for ranting... Just hoping someone will have some advice. Is there a sure way I can make some money at home? How can I get DH moving to get a better job that at least has health care for us? How can I make this work? All I ever wanted is to be a mom and my DS is the light of my life. I think the hardest part is to go from 1 kid and working to 2 and not. After this falls into place the 3 and 4th child should be easy-breezy (i'm thinking).... Thanks for reading all this and I appreciate any advice!!!!!

Have you thought about opening up an in-home daycare in your home?

This isn't a grewat time to do that, unfortunately. With so many people out of work, tons of spots are open at daycares, and laid-off mamas are trying to do childcare. But it is something to consider. My aunt has 6 kids but has 2 or 3 kids at her house for childcare (she is registered and under the limit for # of kids in case anyone is worried).

If you don't mind sharing. How much does your DH bring home and is $1000 extra possible or likely for his field? Does he need more education to qualify for that? In the long term it's best if you guys can boost up his career enough so that he can support the family alone.

Your child is only 6 months old, you really don't need to be worrying about this issue yet. You have plenty of time for things to turn around. I do have 4 kids, and I had them in just under 5 years, the last 2 were twins. You need to start w/ going thru your budget and figuring out where you can cut. You say cable, but that's probably only the most obvious place to cut, there are other expenses that you absolutely CAN cut. You need to find something to do that brings in money that you can do at home or with your kids. Insurance is a biggie! I have health insurance but not maternity coverage and my bill for the twins, well, it was big. Thankfully they were big and healthy, but that's just something you cannot control, so getting at least some catastrophic insurance on both you and your DH is a must before another baby. If you were older and had little chance of being fertile much longer my advice would be different, but you have years. Seriously, years! I do like closely spaced kids, but 2 or 3 years apart are still close. Try not to worry too much right now, just plan and try to figure out ways to cut more expenses and add income.

I'm in the same predicament (sp?).

I want to have 3 or 4 or more children too! But, as it is we can't afford to have me stay at home with just the one :( All I ever wanted was to be a mom, have a lot of children, and a happy home. Then I settled for having a family childcare because then my children could be with me while I made some income. Now I can't do that plan because of my back injury. I will probably end up working away from home and having my son in care and not having more children. This is so not what I wanted, but there is not much I can do about it.

We are also in an expensive place and are considering moving- but would never see family if we did.

I'm listening for any advice here too!

If you cancel cable and sell your car you could save that all up every month and buy another car with cash in a few months. Would you still be able to get to work?

After that you could save up the extra and pay off other debt or save for a nice savings fund so your not so tight every month?

I'm sure there is a way!

Would you want to post a budget?

I am on the younger side and do have plenty of time to expand my family. However, my DH and I have struggled with infertility and our DS is adopted. Right before he was born we did narrow down the problem to DH. At this point in traditional medicine they can not find anything mechanically wrong with me. So, upon finding all this out right before the birth of DS we decided to wait until DS was 9mo-13mo and then try IUI with donor sperm and see if I could get pregnant. Our adoption process was an amazing journey and my son is the light of my life! But I do feel a strong need to experience pregnancy. I would kinda like to know sooner rather than later if I really could get preganant...

As for our budget/bills... they are just an emourmous amount. Both DH and I have school loans totaling almost $700/mo, mortgage and taxes, water, trash, gas/electric, cell phone, cable (internet,phone,cable in one bill), car (insurance we pay every 6 months) and our DS insurance (and dr bills since we have not met the $500 deductible yet) ... I think that's all although I am not at home to actually look! Then I budget $80/month per vechicle for gas, $300/month for groceries (in may I actually spent less than $150), $35/month for pet expenses aka dog food, fish food, and $100/month for the ingredients for the formula for DS (I make our formula from scratch daily)

On most months DH is only about $200 under on his salary to cover our *bills* that is NOT included gas, groceries, and misc expenses.

We could sell my car, but I NEED a car to get to work right now and there is NO way with our schedules that we can carpool :( I would prefer to be in a newer, safer car as my precious bundle is in the back seat. Also, we DONT go out. period. So as much as our cable could save us $100/month it is my only ONLY entertainment. And DH and I are both not wanting to give that up.

I'm thinking that there is no way in the near future that DH is gonna be able to pay our bills and gas/groceries/misc expenses on his salary. I don't mind working 2-3 nights a week to help a bit, but I'm thinking we are just gonna have to try to save up money to cover some bills for about 1 year after our potential child would be born. Does this make any sense?

BTW DH applied for 2 jobs!! Doesn't matter to me if he even gets a call, I'm just proud that he took the time to listen to my feelings and then actually did something about it. That's a start!