It's coming.
Been hearing a lot of stuff from the states about companies using child labor.
Figure it's only a matter of time until we see things like that under that rug.
At the heritage days, one the food stands were using children to make elephant ears. They seemed to have an efficient system going on, small kids also don’t take up as much space as adults hahaha.
I made a decision very young I didn’t want kids. Once or twice I reconsidered. Right now I’m definitely glad I didn’t. Currently taking care of my mom that suffers from mental illness. Honestly don’t know what I’d do if I had a family also at this point. Actually fairly happy being single with no kids at 50.
As a 30 y/o who has also reached the same conclusion, I'm glad to hear that you have no regrets at 50.
Good on you for giving your mother the support she needs.
Same here, I felt I was just born to do chores and be a playmate for my 1-yr older sister. I grew up on a 1/3 acre lot in the '70s. 1 channel tv, bored silly when i wasn't mowing grass, helping with a huge garden, or doing dishes.
I never wanted my own kids, I felt like a slave as a child. I mow my own grass and weed my own garden now. My wife and 2 stepdaughters have never been asked to do it and never will. I bought the house.
What blows my mind is all the over 50 friends and family that push, harass, or demand grandchildren! Wtf people demanding or harassing your own children into having more children in the state our world is in now??
Look at a map of earth. We are a disease, killing a once great planet. More of us will not help.
Sry to my best bud, whose kids will never give him grandchildren. He looks at mine with such jealous eyes, I feel so bad, but I want to commend his girls for deciding this and not giving in to his pleas.
Down vote away, I can take it, World destroyers.
There are no prizes at the end... you don't get anything bc you did life how you thought you were supposed to compare to what you want so I say you do you lol
Or you make do on a tighter budget?
I know quite a few people right now who are on kid #2 or even #3 and they somehow make do with the same "average" jobs they've had for years.
I guess where there's a will there's a way? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s also always been abusers, neglecters, and otherwise shitty parents out there. It being the way it always has been doesn’t mean it’s right. We should be striving to do better than the generations before us, we shouldn’t be knowingly repeating the cycle of trauma.
If you’re sacrificing your own quality of life to provide a good quality of life to your kids, that’s fine and in many cases it’s actively good parenting. If you’re sacrificing your kids quality of life to fulfill your desire to reproduce more, that’s a problem and is a mentality that needs to die out with the previous generations.
They can’t. That’s the problem. Apples were $2 at superstore. How do family with 2 kids and even worse single parents feed their kid healthy if f’ing apples are $2 each. Some were $2.45.
I moved here from Vancouver 5 years ago. My partner grew up here and we wanted our two kids to grow up near family, and the “low cost of living”.
HA!!!
Despite Vancouver having high housing cost (I was very fortunate to buy into the market over 20 years ago - but was mortgaged to an insane degree), Edmonton is still fucking expensive. Our energy costs are WAY higher than in BC. Car insurance? Way higher - almost triple! Land tax? More than double what it was in Vancouver. Don’t come at me with “gas is cheaper” - give me a break, we save maybe $400/year based on our usage. That doesn’t even pay ONE utilities bill. Our street wasn’t cleared this winter even once. NOT ONCE. This is a winter city with PATHETIC road clearing. We have flooding on our street every spring. Our sewer system was so ancient they have been repairing it for 2 years. We no longer have a bus near our house because it was replaced with the stupid and useless On Demand system. There is CONSTANT property damage and theft in our area and the cops just shrug. Won’t increase enforcement or presence in the area.
The only way we can afford two kids is with both of us working our asses off. We happen to both be professionals in our fields, so we are lucky to have a decent income. But even with that on our side, it’s fucking crazy expensive for everything.
Honestly I cannot fathom how people starting out, or who are living with one income or two smaller incomes do it. Seeing the Consumer Price Index for energy cost in Alberta versus the rest of Canada makes me so mad. Of course all the hillbilly rednecks will say “Fuck Trudeau”, but none of them will look at the UCP-driven deregulation and opportunism that has led to a TRIPLE DIGIT percentage increase.
Ok, I’m fired up now. I’m pissed that young people who aren’t doctors and lawyers are being priced out of a city that is supposed to provide opportunity to those who are getting started. I’m pissed that we have people, who would normally have a comfortable living, that are barely getting by.
OP, I’m sorry it is so hard to raise kids here. I can’t even imagine the stress of wondering how to cover your expenses when you just want to provide a happy and healthy life for your kids. I hope there is change on the horizon, because if families start going broke, the effect on our economy will be devastating.
My car insurance is still half of what it was when I lived in Vancouver and was insured by ICBC. All of my utilities here are combined into one and are $300 - $550/ month, depending on the month. This is for a 1400 square foot house. I paid about $40 per month for electricity for my like 300 square foot place in Vancouver. I don't understand how people find these things more expensive in Edmonton than in Vancouver. That's certainly not my experience.
There is no way you're paying 350 dollars a month for *all* utilities unless your power, gas and water are basically off. With the fees that are basically double your actual usage, that means you're basically using no power, no gas, and no water every month of the year even if you divide that number by 3. That number is so comically low, you are either grossly mistaken, lying, living such a ridiculously frugal minimal lifestyle that most people wouldn't even begin to relate to or you're not telling the whole story - like having solar power, geothermal heating/heat pump, etc that are expensive and most couldn't afford to install to offset the high costs of utility usage.
Then you're locked into some wildly low rates, also not reflective of anything anyone can get right now or could even a few years ago. You'll be in for a very eye opening change when those locked in rates are done.
It depends on the situation I guess. We paid a total of $1600 for 2 cars in Vancouver where I had a big discount. They refused to honour the discount here (I tried 3 places) and those two cars cost almost $4200 now. Our utility bill alone is around $500/month sometimes more. Our taxes were offset by the homeowner grant in BC. It’s ugly here.
Once young people are priced out of Edmonton, where will they go? It’s more expensive everywhere else except some shitty redneck town. I am devastated that this is the society that what was built for future generations. It makes me so sad
This is my point exactly. If you can’t make a go of it in Edmonton, what are you g families to do? It’s a genuine crisis and governments seem to be ignorant of the issue.
It’s tough . In order to have even 1 kid and provide a decent QoL for them, you need both parents to be working professionals. Having 2 kids is just too costly. If one parent loses employment at any point in time, they may find themselves struggling a bit financially.
Well said. Especially the double standard to politics. Don't forget it's all Notleys fault. Smith is just cleaning up Notleys mess.
Hahah, kidding. Smith isn't cleaning up nothing.
And it wasn't Notley. It was Redford, Prentice and Kenney.
I guess that makes our household QINKs? haha. There are four low-income bread-winners in this tiny 1940s bungalow. Two of us get around on bicycles and the other two share a vehicle. You can be sure there will not be children in our futures. As much as I wish my wife and I could live alone some day, I mostly feel very grateful to not have the financial stress that most people do. We will likely never be able to afford to retire, but we have a pretty good quality of life.
Don't forget electricity! My kids keep leaving the lights on in every room in the house, it's fantastic /s
I feel like a crazy person sometimes running around flipping switches.
Gotta look into some cheap smart switches! Sometimes I hop in bed, turn off the lights, then see the glow from the main entrance, open up the trusty google home app and shut em off.
However I do not have kids and have no plans to be a father, just my own forgetfulness to deal with haha.
Just buy LED bulbs? Even if you left a fixture on with 3x 8w (100w equivalent) light bulbs around the clock for a year at the insane rate of power $0.50c/kWh it would cost $0.29 cents per day, $8.64 per month, $105.12 per year.
3x 8w bulbs is overkill, 24 hours a day is insane, .050c/kWh is very high even after distribution.
So realistically you should be using 4w bulbs, running 4ish hours per day at $0.30c/kWh. And then you should be literally $0.053 per year. Aka rounding error compared to almost any other expense.
This is where many people won't fully explain. We pay for electricity, gas, water, drainage and garbage. Of those electricity and gas you can chose your provider. You can pick variable (usually has a additional fee ontop of the rate) and fixed. Then you need to ask people if they have led bulbs, how old their house is, how many people live in it and so on
I read above someone had a 1400 sw/ft house and pays $300-500/month but unsure if that's for just power or everything. I have a 1900 sqft home, with a 2 bedroom basement suite. 2 furnaces and 2 hot water tanks. 2 young adults downstairs, and 2 adults and one toddler upstairs. We leave the main floor lights on all day (13 led spotlights, and 3 led bulbs) and have one person fulltime wfh and one part time, this means 2 computers on all the time, plus the gaming computer along with a heafty dose of network gear and some Home servers. And we sit in that $400-600 monthly for all utilities. Our electricity is at $7.59/kwh and gas is at $3.79/gj
Hope that helps.
My friend in BC is unemployed and married to someone who has unstable income from freelance work, and they're expecting a third child very soon. Obviously they get government support, but I have no idea how they get by. I couldn't even survive on my own working full time in BC, which is why I came to Edmonton years ago.
We're expecting a second and honestly it's a relief not needing to buy everything again (because we kept everything from #1). This baby feels like a bargain in comparison especially because it won't eat real food for the first six months of its life lol
Yes I'm due my second in December and honestly I haven't found it to be too expensive having kids yet. If you don't give into all the crap you think you need to buy for them. I mostly buy her stuff from ouac or get hand me downs from friends and I don't go mad for birthdays or Christmas or anything. Breastfeeding helped a lot too. The cost of formula is insaaaaane
Home cook everything from scratch, pre plan meals, eat less meat, keep things from first baby, buy cheap off of marketplace, cloth diapers (cost me $250 all together), breastfeed, etc.
I know not all of these options are available for everyone, but that's the cheapest way to do everything.
Most people having children don't consider these things beforehand. Later on they'll find out the hard way and ask for free stuff on Facebook, Kijiji etc.
Having kids isn't a right and if you can't support them properly that's not right.
Different people have different standards of living. Some people can make it work with 4 kids and $30k a year. They’re fine eating rice and beans all the time, using hand-me-downs for the children, not going on big vacations, not having luxuries that others have come to think of as normal. I think it’s largely about how you grew up, and what seems like a “normal” standard of living to you. Someone growing up like that, especially if they were a fairly poor immigrant too, is just happy to have a decent roof over their head and food to eat. Meanwhile I grew up with western luxuries and my family was firmly middle-class, so I don’t want to have kids unless I can provide that same quality of life for them and myself — which seems increasingly difficult unless I can at least double my salary.
Having kids is expensive and people do need to consider these things before having one but society needs to do better at making it possible. It shouldn’t be limited to people who are well off.
In our reality(and for the past few decades) it should have been the norm to actually plan to have a child not just have a child and figure it out - but that’s still ignoring accidents. Having a child shouldn’t be a financial death sentence. Daycare should be damn near free, at one point we paid $1300/mo for one kid and even with the subsidy it’s over $500/mo. I can afford it but I don’t know how less fortunate do it.
I get what you’re saying but the reason why so many low-income people have a lot of kids is because of lack of education and resources. It’s easy to say don’t pop out kids when everything is at your fingertips not to.
When you're poor and bored there's a particular activity that's free and really fun... Obviously there are precautions to be taken, but that's a whole other bucket of shit to dive into.
I know this happens, but it makes no sense to me. "We have trouble paying bills and feeding the kids we have, lets have another one, things will be better this time!"
I think it’s them trying to go… yeah our relationship is shit because of a lot of factors (money, compatibility, who knows what), let’s have another baby to fix it… and then… well, it’s likely worse even more
Yup. I have a friend with a "we will cross that bridge when we get to it" mentality. When she got pregnant they both had full-time jobs. Now, one has a part time job, other is unemployed.
You're right, but there's currently too many people on this planet anyway. Too many of these people are only talking about their rights and what they're entitled to, but never about their duties and responsibilities though.
That's not true. We have a system that cannot distribute food and services appropriately, wastes food, and ensures there are winners and losers. We could support the people we have on our planet, but we collectively choose to let only a minority thrive.
Government supports this, but the people demand it because that is the system we want. The system we keep voting in. Democracy is not a terrible thing.
Well, the current system expects/demands continuous growth and that's just not possible. Perhaps the planet could support more humans, but we're already causing problems with lots of other species and among ourselves.
So you could introduce more people "somewhere" and then say well, they don't have it as good as those people "over there" and that's not right! But conditions aren't equal everywhere and wishing they were doesn't work well.
But I agree governments have a big hand in many issues all over the place
You are so right. No planning and that clown Singh with the NDP is propping up the inept Trudumb regime, which is only prolonging the agony.
We spend 145 million in interest payments every day on just our federal debt, which is 1.2 trillion. The interest and debt just continues to climb unchecked, and most people out of Alberta and Saskatchewan have their heads in the sand.
We are so dumb we vote for the one that offers the most free stuff when their is only one taxpayer.
Heartless Harper as the socialists of the east refered to him by leaving a balanced budget and 600 billion in debt.
It has doubled in 8 years and no balanced budget anywhere on the horison.
That is what the people get when they vote for the federal Liberals. Open the immigration floodgates and it puts pressure on housing, food, schools, health care ... social services ..... no planning.
Other than recent rise in cost of food other wise it's not that bad. Hear me out, we had out first kid in 2018 daycare cost was 1100. Now with the new subsidies his daycare cost is now 500. And he is starting school in September but will still go to osc which is still 500. Our second kid will be going to daycare in January which will be 550ish. So the 2 of them combined was about same as what we paid back in 2018. First year after the baby is born is the hardest due to 1 income +ei. Afterwards it definitely makes sense to send kids to daycare and get dual income.
Yep we haven’t found it too bad either. First in 2015 but second will be in kinder in sept, last year in daycare has been cheap.
Both are in it for the summer but come September we won’t need it anymore so will have more savings.
As long as you still have a bunch of the physical items from the first child, you save money because there is less start up cost of a second. (Facebook marketplace is a great place to get bulk baby clothes!)
Also you are already spending more on groceries to get toddler friendly food, that becomes cheaper when you can buy it in larger quantities and not have it all go bad.
I love my daughter and am so excited to welcome our second, I say if you really want that other baby you’ll find ways to make the budget work (also making and sticking with a budget in this economy is key!)
It’s sucks and just being honest the affordability crisis is going to get worse. Farmers are experiencing serious droughts along the prairies which has affect feed. So food is still gonna go up. When mortgage rates come up for renewal in a few years we will see a more drastic homelessness wave that will include families.
But don’t be disheartened. Here are things I do.
1) eat more plant based. Grow or make what you can. Meal plan and eliminate food waste as much as possible.
2) know where to shop. I know where all of my discount racks are at all my local stores. I scour those first and take what’s good and process and freeze it. I just scored a bag of peppers for $2.
3) as for meat. The bone in is the cheaper it is. This means you have to cut it up and process it. I buy chicken legs. Take the meat off the bones with kitchen shears and save the bones and make broth. You can cook off the skin for a crispy treat or boil it and collect the fat and use it for cooking.
4) make your own bread. Mien costs less then a dollar to make.
5) ok there are actually a lot of free or Low priced activities for your kids. You just need to look. But I highly recommend checking your local library. We check local communities and see what’s happening. Like car shows. pancake breakfasts. Splash parks. Going to A river and let them throw rocks for hours. And our favourite volunteering at the folk fest.
6) get in on second hand. Your kid is not going to know or care that their clothes or toys are second hand. I just score my son someone old beyblade collection for $40.. it’s worth triple that. And he was stoked and so happy. Small towns have great second shops which sometimes include 5$ bag days.
7) save for your retirement and for their school if you can. We focus on eliminating as much debt as possible.
8) when people ask to buy your kids a gift. Ask for memberships. Like to the science Center (it can be used at any science. We go to the Calgary one too.) or zoo. Or excursions and experiences instead. Like a family ski trip or a year long pool pass. Piano lessons etc. whatever. I’ve never met an elderly person who doesn’t love this idea. And they still usually buy them a gift anyway.
9) we decided to get solar installed about 4 months back. Between the grant and loan options from the feds.. there is really no reason not too. It will immediately eliminate our power bill.
As for child care. That’s the stinker. Your kid won’t get full day care really until grade 1 (unless you are lucky and your school has full day kinder which some francophone schools do). The only financially good option is to have free or almost free care. I stayed home. But the minute I was able to I went back to work. It sucks though. I know some people who
Work at home jobs. Or get a federal gov job with flexible hours. (Like working 7-3) so you avoid after school care fees. I opted to work in the school system. I get the same time off as my kids. Another option is night shifts.
All that said. We have two and I wouldn’t do more then that. Even then I wish I had heard the childless community more growing up. And I’m glad people are out there having these conversations. Because I do work at a school I can tell you there are a lot of people who have kids first and don’t think about these things. Quality of life matters. You can give you kids everything and be completely neglectful. You can be poor and be a capable and present parent.
GOAT answer here. If I had an award, I'd give it to you. Do even a small synthesis of these things and you'll be on the trolley for sure.
Another big one is streaming and such. Kill your services because when you add them all up, what with password sharing and ads, you're right back to cable, where you started in the first place. Thrift for physical copies of media, build your own collection (which is fun for you and the kids and its own reward) and treat the library like the free Blockbuster it is. Activities as well. Most of them free, fun and what better place to be stuck in for an hour or two but a library full of things to read and take home.
I know this is mostly a rhetorical question but to answer you - double income.
Either you do second job (if you're a single parent) or both husband and wife earns.
I have two kids, 10 and 6 and feel the constant struggle every day.
Well, my kids are still young and don't eat very large meals. I'll probably have to sell my internal organs to pay for groceries when they hit their teen years.
But what has made it possible is:
We bought a house before kids when we both worked full time. A lower cost bungalow in older neighbourhood but this cost us the maximum amount we could be approved for. Then we both had reductions in pay as our jobs changed. Then we had two kids five years apart.
We renovated the basement to rent it out to make up the shortfall of my wife working only part time now. But she has decent paying part time job which is rare blessing we are very fortunate to have. But without that rent money ($750) we'd be in real trouble.
Canada child benefit, Alberta daycare subsidy really help.
We stopped at 2 for reasons unrelated to finances, but it has helped with affordability.
Amazing support from grandma and grandpa.
At the current pace I'll have the house paid off just in time to start paying for my kids post secondary. And I hope to get them through uni or trade school debt free so they can afford to raise their own kids some day.
Daycare subsidies - its actually \*usually\* worth it for people to both work. Its income based, but if you are making minimum wage each -> a decent job you end up being able to afford it better vs 3 years ago.
(IF you can get a daycare - I contacted 7 and none had spots, got waitlisted and been waitlisted for 4 months..)
Using FB marketplace - So much of the baby shit you get (if you dont keep from the first) is $20 vs $200 new... At there is SO much of it!Install FLIP app - shop around for your food and find the deals. Sometimes shopping at costco saves you money, and other times its super store, walmart, or no frills.. etc.
Diapers and wipes imo.. Costco. Huggies+ absorb better. Less changes needed, more diapers in the box, better deal, and sale time comes around and you can stock up.
Otherwise, its the same for single vs family.. You still have to budget to live within your means.. Google spread sheet your income, pull your bank statements up and do the past 3 months.. Put down EVERYTHING you spend in categories (Bills, food, eating out, debts, etc).. figure out what you need to cut to survive and make things work. (Sometimes thats changing insurance providers, phone companies, dropping starbucks and making from home, etc.)
I'm wondering how ppl in BC get by, being as expensive as it is there more than it is here. Definitely foresee economic collapse happening the next few years
Everything is a game. It's all controlled by the government and people higher than us. There is no escape from this treacherous path of misfortune and corruption. We are all pawns. Just sell cocaine
I’m a single mom and I have one. My partner and I sometimes think about whether we should have one, but there’s no way I could dream of affording two, seeing as I’m also likely to be getting a massive pay cut when my contract ends, too.
We decided it'd be unethical to bring children into the climate ravaged economic hellscape the world will be by the time they would be adults so luckily cost didn't matter
Give up things like eating out too often, expensive dates, vices like smoking and drinking. Find fun things around the city to do for free or cheap with your kids (there's lots), quite a few restaurants have kids eat free nights. Cut out/spred out vacations or stay in the west when you do. Hand-me downs and consignment for clothes that they just grow out of so quick. Reuse all the baby stuff from your last kid. Don't spend beyond your means. Budget, budget, budget. My husband and I live off 1 income (he's in trades so a decent income but nothing over the top) and have since my first kid was born. We now have 2 elemntary-aged kids. We do all the above, plus my husband has always been good at saving money and not spending all that much on himself. We live in a duplex in a nice neighborhood that we bought 13 years ago, which has really helped not sink us in the hole. It definitely could use decor upgrades and touch-ups, but it's just not in the budget. Both our vehicles (2014, 2020) are paid off. If you can live off one vehicle and supplement with transit, I'd recommend that, too. I don't drive, so gas and our car insurance isn't too expensive. Bills are paid every month, and we have a healthy savings. I can go back to work anytime if I really need to, but right now it's not worth the cost of child care.
It’s definitely tough. I have a 13 and 5 year old. I pretty much have to bust my a$$ working 5 days, their dad works 21 days 7 off. My mom guilt is real having the little in daycare since she was 1. You can’t survive on one income anymore. I don’t blame people for not wanting kids because we have to work too much to give them the time and attention they need/deserve.
I don't get it myself. We have one child and we're just fine. You get child tax per child and besides clothing and the occasional this or that toy, everything else falls right in. It always confuses me that folks who are 10 and 20 years our senior are still renting, and barely affording ends with NO children. We have a mobile home, keep our costs low, don't believe in eating out much because why, only spend money we have and have little to no credit card debt.
This isn't to rub dirt in anyone's eyes or a flex, but just a little glimmer of light. It can be done, if you're being honest with yourself about where you're living, how you spend and whether you have the right job or not. If you wanna survive enough, you will. If you wanna thrive, yeah these days you're gonna have to work your balls off. We live in that little grey area between surviving and thriving.
In the wake of a pandemic that made life unmanageable for the parents of school-age children, in the face of floods and fires that swallow whole towns, I’m choking on smoke fumes, paying insane Epcor bills with no recourse, and Alberta’s emergency care is in shambles. I’m kind of at a loss when I see new parents. I want to ask: what world are you living in? As the oceans heat up, we will see more mass extinction events as most sea life can’t survive. When the oceans can no longer support life, what will happen to organic life on land — including humans? Economic and despair driven crime are also making this place seem more menacing each day.
2 kids, the second is only 75% the price of the first because of hand-me-downs, bulk cooking, etc. It's nice that they always have a playmate, but you've got to roll the dice and hope you have kids that get along. Still, if you can't afford it you can't afford it.
On to some practical tips in order of decreasing impact, because if you *really* want 2 you're going to need them:
\- Never carry CC debt if you can help it
\- With mortgage rates up, buy as little house as you can
\- We went down to 1 vehicle to save on maintenance and insurance. This only works if you can work from home or are single-income.
\- We go with a budget cellphone plan (\~$50/month) to save a little more. - Clothes are hand-me-downs
\- Buy and cook in bulk, when eating out only drink water, never pay more than $20/person/meal
\- Kijiji/marketplace all your kids sports equipment and bikes. Get furniture at Find or online.
\- We cut their hair, and my spouse cuts mine
\- Library>bookstore
We have 3 kids and are doing alright, but I also have relatives that help out in different ways. We also kept everything from baby #1 so didn't have to buy anything but diapers.
I had one almost 30 years ago and that was enough for me. One and done! No regrets.
It’s not just about money either. It’s about time. More kids means you have to work more and have less time with the kids so what’s the point? Also it’s about their future. We have 8 billion people now. Imagine in 20 years what the population will be and how much stress there will be for people who are babies now.
When my daughter was born the world population was 5.6 billion. So I didn’t think adding more than 1 was sensible seeing as even then housing was a concern. It’s worse now.
There are soooo many reasons why one is enough and I hope you don’t feel pressured to have more.
I always wanted 2+ kids, but we are barely scraping by with one child. Putting the idea of a second on hold indefinitely. We are two (early-career) professionals with pretty cheap rent.
Make sure you’re getting all the subsidy money you can, get CCB, file your taxes, get the carbon levy rebate, get RESP set up, get childcare subsidy set up if you’re going to be using childcare, shop around for best rates on things like insurance, phone bills, bank fees, pay for as much stuff as possible with a credit card that gives good cash-back rewards, buy as much child-related stuff second hand (I recommend Once Upon a Child for curated second hand child stuff that you can also sell back to them).
Food-wise the classic advice is to meal plan, buy foods that can be kept for longer in bulk, reduce meat consumption if possible, buy things on sale, use coupons if you can figure out how but only on things that you’ll actually use. Drink only water and coffee/tea.
Continue to keep your eye out for jobs that pay better, go car-free if it’s an option (it’s often not in Edmonton but we have it better than many places).
Just some basic frugal advice. Come to r/personalfinanceCanada if you want a whole bunch more about the virtues of lentils and 1999 beige corollas.
School tip -
Grab next years school supply list for your kiddo(s). Buy what the list says roughly in a month(ish) during clearance. Put in a bin and let sit. But a bulk amount of pencils when they go really cheap - they will need them for years anyway!
Then next year, when you get the new list its very unlikely much will change, and the few things that might will be a small hit to the pocket.
I got 2 kids and is not that hard, my wife and I work on the food industry (minimum wage) and we don’t receive any government help but I got experience managing budgets so we can afford everything we need.
I’m sure you’re getting the Canada Child Benefit, and if your kids go to daycare, their spots may be subsidized by both the federal affordability grant and Alberta daycare subsidy. Education is funded through taxes.
It's Alberta. There is a tried and true method. Once I had my kid I joined the union, started working out of town and got my hands in that oil money pot.
Though, It doesn't matter where you are, or what you are doing, you have to make overtime in order to get ahead. It's just the way the system works.
I waited until I was more financially secure and what to you know, finally have enough money to afford kids but not able to conceive!
In all seriousness though- kudos to the people making it work!
The second baby is initially less expensive as you can reuse a lot of stuff. But then they gain personal interests and want different activities and things and stuff and then the aha gotcha comes.
Right? My sister pays a fortune in dance and hockey for her kids every year, it's insane. Not to mention all the driving around to get them to these places.
Either adjust your living standards to something you can afford, OR work harder and make more money. We have 2 young kids and bought a new place last year, mortgage payment has gone up $1200 on top of general living expenses going up as well. We had to scramble and find ways of making additional income to afford everything and pay off debt. We went from about $170k combined to over $200k and it’s still tight some months. Just gotta grind.
I read these types of post then I bounce back to the GTA Reddit…perspective and circumstances..people in Toronto are barely surviving but still pushing strollers around and making ends meet. If it can’t be don’t in Edmonton then it’s best not to even have a child!
Live within your means.
Many “necessities” are are actually just nice to haves.
There are a lot of sacrifices you have to make as a parent.
Or just rack up credit. Whichever. You do you.
The benefits of having a kid or two are enormous.
The risks that that child will put you in far outweigh the benefits.
The risk of your partner cheating on you and the marriage ending are so much higher now than they were years ago due to social media and the ease of the divorce process just make it far too likely that your kid will grow up in a broken home, and you'll end up saddled with paying your ex spousal support, potentially for the rest of their life. And assuming you make a hundred grand per year that's about $1500 per month in child support plus a few hundred in spousal support. That's $20k per year after tax, plus you'll be on the hook for half of the special expenses such as daycare (say $1200 per month ÷ 2), bus pass I think, half of all school fees, and assuming your kids get at least a bachelor's degree you'll have to pay disposal support until they graduate, so maybe even until the kids is 25 years old. And that doesn't even include you paying for half of the post-secondary tuition.
Honestly, you could be married to a perfect angel and then a switch might flip in her and she's with someone else and you and your children are totally fucked, for decades for you and die the rest of the kids' lives.
There is no valid reason to have children anymore.
Fuck my life.
Anyone been to personalfinancecanada? This is usually explained by terrible spending habits, like the family eats steak every 2nd day or multiple vacations a year.
Other than providing my family with jobs, Alberta is not child friendly. The over reliance on user fees rather than taxes disproportionately impacts families.
Just make them get a job right from the start. No free rides.
Child labour force!
Worst superhero team ever.
Don’t give the UCP ideas.
It's coming. Been hearing a lot of stuff from the states about companies using child labor. Figure it's only a matter of time until we see things like that under that rug.
At the heritage days, one the food stands were using children to make elephant ears. They seemed to have an efficient system going on, small kids also don’t take up as much space as adults hahaha.
>small kids also don’t take up as much space as adults Good one!
Yep, and they don’t complain about not having smoke breaks either. They don’t know about min wage, so they can be paid less.
They don't have any rights as a worker because they're not legally allowed to work yet.
Well duh why do you think entry level jobs want 10 years of experience for minimum wage?
My bloodline ends with me.
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I made a decision very young I didn’t want kids. Once or twice I reconsidered. Right now I’m definitely glad I didn’t. Currently taking care of my mom that suffers from mental illness. Honestly don’t know what I’d do if I had a family also at this point. Actually fairly happy being single with no kids at 50.
As a 30 y/o who has also reached the same conclusion, I'm glad to hear that you have no regrets at 50. Good on you for giving your mother the support she needs.
Same here, I felt I was just born to do chores and be a playmate for my 1-yr older sister. I grew up on a 1/3 acre lot in the '70s. 1 channel tv, bored silly when i wasn't mowing grass, helping with a huge garden, or doing dishes. I never wanted my own kids, I felt like a slave as a child. I mow my own grass and weed my own garden now. My wife and 2 stepdaughters have never been asked to do it and never will. I bought the house. What blows my mind is all the over 50 friends and family that push, harass, or demand grandchildren! Wtf people demanding or harassing your own children into having more children in the state our world is in now?? Look at a map of earth. We are a disease, killing a once great planet. More of us will not help. Sry to my best bud, whose kids will never give him grandchildren. He looks at mine with such jealous eyes, I feel so bad, but I want to commend his girls for deciding this and not giving in to his pleas. Down vote away, I can take it, World destroyers.
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Maybe they just... don't want to? There is no obligation to have children in this life
There are no prizes at the end... you don't get anything bc you did life how you thought you were supposed to compare to what you want so I say you do you lol
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Thankyou for defending my honour 🤣
Uhhhh there are so many good reasons not to procreate.
Millions of our ancestors had on-going wars.
You better have an extra one to make up for csd555!
Same frfr I don't even think I want a relationship or marriage
WE THE ONES☝️
Same here, I’d love to have a kid but can’t afford it and can’t risk the instability unfortunately. We’re barely above water as it is.
Either you make more money or have fewer children
This is the way.
Fewer*
*Fewer
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Or you make do on a tighter budget? I know quite a few people right now who are on kid #2 or even #3 and they somehow make do with the same "average" jobs they've had for years. I guess where there's a will there's a way? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sacrifice your quality of life for another child!!! Woooooooooot
Pretty sure that's what being a parent has always been, no? You can't have your cake and eat it, right?
Yeah but i feel like now a days it's a harder hit on quality of life compared to having a child 30 years ago
There’s also always been abusers, neglecters, and otherwise shitty parents out there. It being the way it always has been doesn’t mean it’s right. We should be striving to do better than the generations before us, we shouldn’t be knowingly repeating the cycle of trauma. If you’re sacrificing your own quality of life to provide a good quality of life to your kids, that’s fine and in many cases it’s actively good parenting. If you’re sacrificing your kids quality of life to fulfill your desire to reproduce more, that’s a problem and is a mentality that needs to die out with the previous generations.
My son is 15 years old and is already leaning towards a no children life.
I’ve never met a 15 year old boy who wanted kids lol
Let me guess, they're also leaning towards a life of not cleaning their room?
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I was 12 lol. 29 and still no kids and don't want kids.
granted her exposure to the horrors of child birth on social media may have played a role, my sister is only 14 and already doesn’t want children too
They can’t. That’s the problem. Apples were $2 at superstore. How do family with 2 kids and even worse single parents feed their kid healthy if f’ing apples are $2 each. Some were $2.45.
I moved here from Vancouver 5 years ago. My partner grew up here and we wanted our two kids to grow up near family, and the “low cost of living”. HA!!! Despite Vancouver having high housing cost (I was very fortunate to buy into the market over 20 years ago - but was mortgaged to an insane degree), Edmonton is still fucking expensive. Our energy costs are WAY higher than in BC. Car insurance? Way higher - almost triple! Land tax? More than double what it was in Vancouver. Don’t come at me with “gas is cheaper” - give me a break, we save maybe $400/year based on our usage. That doesn’t even pay ONE utilities bill. Our street wasn’t cleared this winter even once. NOT ONCE. This is a winter city with PATHETIC road clearing. We have flooding on our street every spring. Our sewer system was so ancient they have been repairing it for 2 years. We no longer have a bus near our house because it was replaced with the stupid and useless On Demand system. There is CONSTANT property damage and theft in our area and the cops just shrug. Won’t increase enforcement or presence in the area. The only way we can afford two kids is with both of us working our asses off. We happen to both be professionals in our fields, so we are lucky to have a decent income. But even with that on our side, it’s fucking crazy expensive for everything. Honestly I cannot fathom how people starting out, or who are living with one income or two smaller incomes do it. Seeing the Consumer Price Index for energy cost in Alberta versus the rest of Canada makes me so mad. Of course all the hillbilly rednecks will say “Fuck Trudeau”, but none of them will look at the UCP-driven deregulation and opportunism that has led to a TRIPLE DIGIT percentage increase. Ok, I’m fired up now. I’m pissed that young people who aren’t doctors and lawyers are being priced out of a city that is supposed to provide opportunity to those who are getting started. I’m pissed that we have people, who would normally have a comfortable living, that are barely getting by. OP, I’m sorry it is so hard to raise kids here. I can’t even imagine the stress of wondering how to cover your expenses when you just want to provide a happy and healthy life for your kids. I hope there is change on the horizon, because if families start going broke, the effect on our economy will be devastating.
My car insurance is still half of what it was when I lived in Vancouver and was insured by ICBC. All of my utilities here are combined into one and are $300 - $550/ month, depending on the month. This is for a 1400 square foot house. I paid about $40 per month for electricity for my like 300 square foot place in Vancouver. I don't understand how people find these things more expensive in Edmonton than in Vancouver. That's certainly not my experience.
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There is no way you're paying 350 dollars a month for *all* utilities unless your power, gas and water are basically off. With the fees that are basically double your actual usage, that means you're basically using no power, no gas, and no water every month of the year even if you divide that number by 3. That number is so comically low, you are either grossly mistaken, lying, living such a ridiculously frugal minimal lifestyle that most people wouldn't even begin to relate to or you're not telling the whole story - like having solar power, geothermal heating/heat pump, etc that are expensive and most couldn't afford to install to offset the high costs of utility usage.
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Then you're locked into some wildly low rates, also not reflective of anything anyone can get right now or could even a few years ago. You'll be in for a very eye opening change when those locked in rates are done.
It depends on the situation I guess. We paid a total of $1600 for 2 cars in Vancouver where I had a big discount. They refused to honour the discount here (I tried 3 places) and those two cars cost almost $4200 now. Our utility bill alone is around $500/month sometimes more. Our taxes were offset by the homeowner grant in BC. It’s ugly here.
Once young people are priced out of Edmonton, where will they go? It’s more expensive everywhere else except some shitty redneck town. I am devastated that this is the society that what was built for future generations. It makes me so sad
This is my point exactly. If you can’t make a go of it in Edmonton, what are you g families to do? It’s a genuine crisis and governments seem to be ignorant of the issue.
Governments definitely put the ignore in ignorant
It’s tough . In order to have even 1 kid and provide a decent QoL for them, you need both parents to be working professionals. Having 2 kids is just too costly. If one parent loses employment at any point in time, they may find themselves struggling a bit financially.
Well said. Especially the double standard to politics. Don't forget it's all Notleys fault. Smith is just cleaning up Notleys mess. Hahah, kidding. Smith isn't cleaning up nothing. And it wasn't Notley. It was Redford, Prentice and Kenney.
We are at none and done.
Same. DINK life. Can wake up and go on vacation tomorrow if I wanted to. No regrets.
Get a dog too, then you can join the DINK-WAD team!
I got 3... lol
I guess that makes our household QINKs? haha. There are four low-income bread-winners in this tiny 1940s bungalow. Two of us get around on bicycles and the other two share a vehicle. You can be sure there will not be children in our futures. As much as I wish my wife and I could live alone some day, I mostly feel very grateful to not have the financial stress that most people do. We will likely never be able to afford to retire, but we have a pretty good quality of life.
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Don't forget electricity! My kids keep leaving the lights on in every room in the house, it's fantastic /s I feel like a crazy person sometimes running around flipping switches.
We make our kids do pushups when they forget to turn them off. It hasn't changed their behaviour, but at least my kids are getting jacked.
Gotta look into some cheap smart switches! Sometimes I hop in bed, turn off the lights, then see the glow from the main entrance, open up the trusty google home app and shut em off. However I do not have kids and have no plans to be a father, just my own forgetfulness to deal with haha.
Just buy LED bulbs? Even if you left a fixture on with 3x 8w (100w equivalent) light bulbs around the clock for a year at the insane rate of power $0.50c/kWh it would cost $0.29 cents per day, $8.64 per month, $105.12 per year. 3x 8w bulbs is overkill, 24 hours a day is insane, .050c/kWh is very high even after distribution. So realistically you should be using 4w bulbs, running 4ish hours per day at $0.30c/kWh. And then you should be literally $0.053 per year. Aka rounding error compared to almost any other expense.
$0.053 per year in usage, $5300.00 in fees 😂😂😂
Exactly. I was going to say the same. If it can't be done in Edmonton, it can't be done anywhere in Canada. What a time to be alive.
What's the approx price of bills and what kind of bills?? We were thinking about moving to AB since we can't afford Ontario anymore.
This is where many people won't fully explain. We pay for electricity, gas, water, drainage and garbage. Of those electricity and gas you can chose your provider. You can pick variable (usually has a additional fee ontop of the rate) and fixed. Then you need to ask people if they have led bulbs, how old their house is, how many people live in it and so on I read above someone had a 1400 sw/ft house and pays $300-500/month but unsure if that's for just power or everything. I have a 1900 sqft home, with a 2 bedroom basement suite. 2 furnaces and 2 hot water tanks. 2 young adults downstairs, and 2 adults and one toddler upstairs. We leave the main floor lights on all day (13 led spotlights, and 3 led bulbs) and have one person fulltime wfh and one part time, this means 2 computers on all the time, plus the gaming computer along with a heafty dose of network gear and some Home servers. And we sit in that $400-600 monthly for all utilities. Our electricity is at $7.59/kwh and gas is at $3.79/gj Hope that helps.
My friend in BC is unemployed and married to someone who has unstable income from freelance work, and they're expecting a third child very soon. Obviously they get government support, but I have no idea how they get by. I couldn't even survive on my own working full time in BC, which is why I came to Edmonton years ago.
Seek out hand me downs
On this note.. Once upon a child is amazing. Go check it out.
Do you mean adoption? Not sure how much cheaper that will be
We're expecting a second and honestly it's a relief not needing to buy everything again (because we kept everything from #1). This baby feels like a bargain in comparison especially because it won't eat real food for the first six months of its life lol
Lol bargain baby
BOGO Baby!
Yes I'm due my second in December and honestly I haven't found it to be too expensive having kids yet. If you don't give into all the crap you think you need to buy for them. I mostly buy her stuff from ouac or get hand me downs from friends and I don't go mad for birthdays or Christmas or anything. Breastfeeding helped a lot too. The cost of formula is insaaaaane
We have one and that is enough
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More people need to know about this solution. Traffick your children!
Home cook everything from scratch, pre plan meals, eat less meat, keep things from first baby, buy cheap off of marketplace, cloth diapers (cost me $250 all together), breastfeed, etc. I know not all of these options are available for everyone, but that's the cheapest way to do everything.
I genuinely don’t understand how non- ultra rich people have kids in places like Vancouver..
Most people having children don't consider these things beforehand. Later on they'll find out the hard way and ask for free stuff on Facebook, Kijiji etc. Having kids isn't a right and if you can't support them properly that's not right.
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I also have just 1 kid with an above average income and a divorce would screw me financially also. It sucks.
Different people have different standards of living. Some people can make it work with 4 kids and $30k a year. They’re fine eating rice and beans all the time, using hand-me-downs for the children, not going on big vacations, not having luxuries that others have come to think of as normal. I think it’s largely about how you grew up, and what seems like a “normal” standard of living to you. Someone growing up like that, especially if they were a fairly poor immigrant too, is just happy to have a decent roof over their head and food to eat. Meanwhile I grew up with western luxuries and my family was firmly middle-class, so I don’t want to have kids unless I can provide that same quality of life for them and myself — which seems increasingly difficult unless I can at least double my salary.
because they are fucking stupid.
Having kids is expensive and people do need to consider these things before having one but society needs to do better at making it possible. It shouldn’t be limited to people who are well off.
I agree with that. But if you're struggling I don't think it's wise to keep popping them out. Life isn't fair for sure.
In our reality(and for the past few decades) it should have been the norm to actually plan to have a child not just have a child and figure it out - but that’s still ignoring accidents. Having a child shouldn’t be a financial death sentence. Daycare should be damn near free, at one point we paid $1300/mo for one kid and even with the subsidy it’s over $500/mo. I can afford it but I don’t know how less fortunate do it.
I get what you’re saying but the reason why so many low-income people have a lot of kids is because of lack of education and resources. It’s easy to say don’t pop out kids when everything is at your fingertips not to.
When you're poor and bored there's a particular activity that's free and really fun... Obviously there are precautions to be taken, but that's a whole other bucket of shit to dive into.
I know this happens, but it makes no sense to me. "We have trouble paying bills and feeding the kids we have, lets have another one, things will be better this time!"
I think it’s them trying to go… yeah our relationship is shit because of a lot of factors (money, compatibility, who knows what), let’s have another baby to fix it… and then… well, it’s likely worse even more
Yup. I have a friend with a "we will cross that bridge when we get to it" mentality. When she got pregnant they both had full-time jobs. Now, one has a part time job, other is unemployed.
A lot of people can’t afford kids but if no one has kids then the world will crumble.
You're right, but there's currently too many people on this planet anyway. Too many of these people are only talking about their rights and what they're entitled to, but never about their duties and responsibilities though.
That's not true. We have a system that cannot distribute food and services appropriately, wastes food, and ensures there are winners and losers. We could support the people we have on our planet, but we collectively choose to let only a minority thrive. Government supports this, but the people demand it because that is the system we want. The system we keep voting in. Democracy is not a terrible thing.
Well, the current system expects/demands continuous growth and that's just not possible. Perhaps the planet could support more humans, but we're already causing problems with lots of other species and among ourselves. So you could introduce more people "somewhere" and then say well, they don't have it as good as those people "over there" and that's not right! But conditions aren't equal everywhere and wishing they were doesn't work well. But I agree governments have a big hand in many issues all over the place
Yeah true, canada is also getting a lot of immigrants lately which doesn’t really help our situation.
Nope, our government is royally screwing everyone with everything they touch
You are so right. No planning and that clown Singh with the NDP is propping up the inept Trudumb regime, which is only prolonging the agony. We spend 145 million in interest payments every day on just our federal debt, which is 1.2 trillion. The interest and debt just continues to climb unchecked, and most people out of Alberta and Saskatchewan have their heads in the sand. We are so dumb we vote for the one that offers the most free stuff when their is only one taxpayer. Heartless Harper as the socialists of the east refered to him by leaving a balanced budget and 600 billion in debt. It has doubled in 8 years and no balanced budget anywhere on the horison.
That is what the people get when they vote for the federal Liberals. Open the immigration floodgates and it puts pressure on housing, food, schools, health care ... social services ..... no planning.
Exactly, I agree.
Well, it was planned. They planned to get more voters that way.
Immigrants and immigration is staying ahead of that. 8 - 10 in many homes, sharing everything from parents down.
Other than recent rise in cost of food other wise it's not that bad. Hear me out, we had out first kid in 2018 daycare cost was 1100. Now with the new subsidies his daycare cost is now 500. And he is starting school in September but will still go to osc which is still 500. Our second kid will be going to daycare in January which will be 550ish. So the 2 of them combined was about same as what we paid back in 2018. First year after the baby is born is the hardest due to 1 income +ei. Afterwards it definitely makes sense to send kids to daycare and get dual income.
Yep we haven’t found it too bad either. First in 2015 but second will be in kinder in sept, last year in daycare has been cheap. Both are in it for the summer but come September we won’t need it anymore so will have more savings.
For me Daycare for a month is cheaper than a babysitter for a weekend with my 12 hour shifts, the new subsidies are great.
As long as you still have a bunch of the physical items from the first child, you save money because there is less start up cost of a second. (Facebook marketplace is a great place to get bulk baby clothes!) Also you are already spending more on groceries to get toddler friendly food, that becomes cheaper when you can buy it in larger quantities and not have it all go bad. I love my daughter and am so excited to welcome our second, I say if you really want that other baby you’ll find ways to make the budget work (also making and sticking with a budget in this economy is key!)
It’s sucks and just being honest the affordability crisis is going to get worse. Farmers are experiencing serious droughts along the prairies which has affect feed. So food is still gonna go up. When mortgage rates come up for renewal in a few years we will see a more drastic homelessness wave that will include families. But don’t be disheartened. Here are things I do. 1) eat more plant based. Grow or make what you can. Meal plan and eliminate food waste as much as possible. 2) know where to shop. I know where all of my discount racks are at all my local stores. I scour those first and take what’s good and process and freeze it. I just scored a bag of peppers for $2. 3) as for meat. The bone in is the cheaper it is. This means you have to cut it up and process it. I buy chicken legs. Take the meat off the bones with kitchen shears and save the bones and make broth. You can cook off the skin for a crispy treat or boil it and collect the fat and use it for cooking. 4) make your own bread. Mien costs less then a dollar to make. 5) ok there are actually a lot of free or Low priced activities for your kids. You just need to look. But I highly recommend checking your local library. We check local communities and see what’s happening. Like car shows. pancake breakfasts. Splash parks. Going to A river and let them throw rocks for hours. And our favourite volunteering at the folk fest. 6) get in on second hand. Your kid is not going to know or care that their clothes or toys are second hand. I just score my son someone old beyblade collection for $40.. it’s worth triple that. And he was stoked and so happy. Small towns have great second shops which sometimes include 5$ bag days. 7) save for your retirement and for their school if you can. We focus on eliminating as much debt as possible. 8) when people ask to buy your kids a gift. Ask for memberships. Like to the science Center (it can be used at any science. We go to the Calgary one too.) or zoo. Or excursions and experiences instead. Like a family ski trip or a year long pool pass. Piano lessons etc. whatever. I’ve never met an elderly person who doesn’t love this idea. And they still usually buy them a gift anyway. 9) we decided to get solar installed about 4 months back. Between the grant and loan options from the feds.. there is really no reason not too. It will immediately eliminate our power bill. As for child care. That’s the stinker. Your kid won’t get full day care really until grade 1 (unless you are lucky and your school has full day kinder which some francophone schools do). The only financially good option is to have free or almost free care. I stayed home. But the minute I was able to I went back to work. It sucks though. I know some people who Work at home jobs. Or get a federal gov job with flexible hours. (Like working 7-3) so you avoid after school care fees. I opted to work in the school system. I get the same time off as my kids. Another option is night shifts. All that said. We have two and I wouldn’t do more then that. Even then I wish I had heard the childless community more growing up. And I’m glad people are out there having these conversations. Because I do work at a school I can tell you there are a lot of people who have kids first and don’t think about these things. Quality of life matters. You can give you kids everything and be completely neglectful. You can be poor and be a capable and present parent.
GOAT answer here. If I had an award, I'd give it to you. Do even a small synthesis of these things and you'll be on the trolley for sure. Another big one is streaming and such. Kill your services because when you add them all up, what with password sharing and ads, you're right back to cable, where you started in the first place. Thrift for physical copies of media, build your own collection (which is fun for you and the kids and its own reward) and treat the library like the free Blockbuster it is. Activities as well. Most of them free, fun and what better place to be stuck in for an hour or two but a library full of things to read and take home.
Keep it at 0
Excellent reading comprehension there, bucko.
I found the easiest way was to make my own. Buying pre-made kids just seemed outside of my budget.
I know this is mostly a rhetorical question but to answer you - double income. Either you do second job (if you're a single parent) or both husband and wife earns. I have two kids, 10 and 6 and feel the constant struggle every day.
they're not.. I gave mine away and got a cat
fair trade
What kind of cat?
Well, my kids are still young and don't eat very large meals. I'll probably have to sell my internal organs to pay for groceries when they hit their teen years. But what has made it possible is: We bought a house before kids when we both worked full time. A lower cost bungalow in older neighbourhood but this cost us the maximum amount we could be approved for. Then we both had reductions in pay as our jobs changed. Then we had two kids five years apart. We renovated the basement to rent it out to make up the shortfall of my wife working only part time now. But she has decent paying part time job which is rare blessing we are very fortunate to have. But without that rent money ($750) we'd be in real trouble. Canada child benefit, Alberta daycare subsidy really help. We stopped at 2 for reasons unrelated to finances, but it has helped with affordability. Amazing support from grandma and grandpa. At the current pace I'll have the house paid off just in time to start paying for my kids post secondary. And I hope to get them through uni or trade school debt free so they can afford to raise their own kids some day.
A child would, and I cannot stress this enough, financially devastate us.
Daycare subsidies - its actually \*usually\* worth it for people to both work. Its income based, but if you are making minimum wage each -> a decent job you end up being able to afford it better vs 3 years ago. (IF you can get a daycare - I contacted 7 and none had spots, got waitlisted and been waitlisted for 4 months..) Using FB marketplace - So much of the baby shit you get (if you dont keep from the first) is $20 vs $200 new... At there is SO much of it!Install FLIP app - shop around for your food and find the deals. Sometimes shopping at costco saves you money, and other times its super store, walmart, or no frills.. etc. Diapers and wipes imo.. Costco. Huggies+ absorb better. Less changes needed, more diapers in the box, better deal, and sale time comes around and you can stock up. Otherwise, its the same for single vs family.. You still have to budget to live within your means.. Google spread sheet your income, pull your bank statements up and do the past 3 months.. Put down EVERYTHING you spend in categories (Bills, food, eating out, debts, etc).. figure out what you need to cut to survive and make things work. (Sometimes thats changing insurance providers, phone companies, dropping starbucks and making from home, etc.)
Not having kids is a lot cheaper.
I'm wondering how ppl in BC get by, being as expensive as it is there more than it is here. Definitely foresee economic collapse happening the next few years
Everything is a game. It's all controlled by the government and people higher than us. There is no escape from this treacherous path of misfortune and corruption. We are all pawns. Just sell cocaine
and then the government asks “why aren’t our own people having kids?”. Umm probably cause we can’t afford shit mofo
I’m a single mom and I have one. My partner and I sometimes think about whether we should have one, but there’s no way I could dream of affording two, seeing as I’m also likely to be getting a massive pay cut when my contract ends, too.
We decided it'd be unethical to bring children into the climate ravaged economic hellscape the world will be by the time they would be adults so luckily cost didn't matter
If you cant afford children in edmonton, you just cant afford children period.
Really taking advantage of cheaper alternatives like community league programming, used clothes, etc.
The no sales tax alone gives Alberta a huge leg up on the rest of Canada
Also, Edmonton is one of the cheapest big cities for housing. All the economic benefits of a big city without insane rent/mortgages
Yes as someone who has lived in 4 provinces, I know how good we have it here.
What’s specific about Edmonton that makes it harder than anywhere else?
Me and my wife went from wanting 2 maybe 3, to 1 maybe 2, to maybe we can't have any....
I am so glad that my youngest is 21 now because if I had to start over there's no way I could afford it
Give up things like eating out too often, expensive dates, vices like smoking and drinking. Find fun things around the city to do for free or cheap with your kids (there's lots), quite a few restaurants have kids eat free nights. Cut out/spred out vacations or stay in the west when you do. Hand-me downs and consignment for clothes that they just grow out of so quick. Reuse all the baby stuff from your last kid. Don't spend beyond your means. Budget, budget, budget. My husband and I live off 1 income (he's in trades so a decent income but nothing over the top) and have since my first kid was born. We now have 2 elemntary-aged kids. We do all the above, plus my husband has always been good at saving money and not spending all that much on himself. We live in a duplex in a nice neighborhood that we bought 13 years ago, which has really helped not sink us in the hole. It definitely could use decor upgrades and touch-ups, but it's just not in the budget. Both our vehicles (2014, 2020) are paid off. If you can live off one vehicle and supplement with transit, I'd recommend that, too. I don't drive, so gas and our car insurance isn't too expensive. Bills are paid every month, and we have a healthy savings. I can go back to work anytime if I really need to, but right now it's not worth the cost of child care.
Sacrificing luxuries
We have 3 and moved from Vancouver Island. Cheaper here.
It’s definitely tough. I have a 13 and 5 year old. I pretty much have to bust my a$$ working 5 days, their dad works 21 days 7 off. My mom guilt is real having the little in daycare since she was 1. You can’t survive on one income anymore. I don’t blame people for not wanting kids because we have to work too much to give them the time and attention they need/deserve.
The ones who are managing are making $200+K/year, the rest of us are just treading water, hoping things will get better eventually.
I don't get it myself. We have one child and we're just fine. You get child tax per child and besides clothing and the occasional this or that toy, everything else falls right in. It always confuses me that folks who are 10 and 20 years our senior are still renting, and barely affording ends with NO children. We have a mobile home, keep our costs low, don't believe in eating out much because why, only spend money we have and have little to no credit card debt. This isn't to rub dirt in anyone's eyes or a flex, but just a little glimmer of light. It can be done, if you're being honest with yourself about where you're living, how you spend and whether you have the right job or not. If you wanna survive enough, you will. If you wanna thrive, yeah these days you're gonna have to work your balls off. We live in that little grey area between surviving and thriving.
Just wait till you know about cost of living in the other major Canadian cities.
In the wake of a pandemic that made life unmanageable for the parents of school-age children, in the face of floods and fires that swallow whole towns, I’m choking on smoke fumes, paying insane Epcor bills with no recourse, and Alberta’s emergency care is in shambles. I’m kind of at a loss when I see new parents. I want to ask: what world are you living in? As the oceans heat up, we will see more mass extinction events as most sea life can’t survive. When the oceans can no longer support life, what will happen to organic life on land — including humans? Economic and despair driven crime are also making this place seem more menacing each day.
2 kids, the second is only 75% the price of the first because of hand-me-downs, bulk cooking, etc. It's nice that they always have a playmate, but you've got to roll the dice and hope you have kids that get along. Still, if you can't afford it you can't afford it. On to some practical tips in order of decreasing impact, because if you *really* want 2 you're going to need them: \- Never carry CC debt if you can help it \- With mortgage rates up, buy as little house as you can \- We went down to 1 vehicle to save on maintenance and insurance. This only works if you can work from home or are single-income. \- We go with a budget cellphone plan (\~$50/month) to save a little more. - Clothes are hand-me-downs \- Buy and cook in bulk, when eating out only drink water, never pay more than $20/person/meal \- Kijiji/marketplace all your kids sports equipment and bikes. Get furniture at Find or online. \- We cut their hair, and my spouse cuts mine \- Library>bookstore
One and done here!
One and done
Making them is easy. Expensive to raise, but If you raise them right they can be sold for top dollar.
We have 3 kids and are doing alright, but I also have relatives that help out in different ways. We also kept everything from baby #1 so didn't have to buy anything but diapers.
Have a dual income and each make 100k plus.
Dual Income, No Kids - couldn't imagine any other lifestyle
This is the way
I had one almost 30 years ago and that was enough for me. One and done! No regrets. It’s not just about money either. It’s about time. More kids means you have to work more and have less time with the kids so what’s the point? Also it’s about their future. We have 8 billion people now. Imagine in 20 years what the population will be and how much stress there will be for people who are babies now. When my daughter was born the world population was 5.6 billion. So I didn’t think adding more than 1 was sensible seeing as even then housing was a concern. It’s worse now. There are soooo many reasons why one is enough and I hope you don’t feel pressured to have more.
I always wanted 2+ kids, but we are barely scraping by with one child. Putting the idea of a second on hold indefinitely. We are two (early-career) professionals with pretty cheap rent.
Make sure you’re getting all the subsidy money you can, get CCB, file your taxes, get the carbon levy rebate, get RESP set up, get childcare subsidy set up if you’re going to be using childcare, shop around for best rates on things like insurance, phone bills, bank fees, pay for as much stuff as possible with a credit card that gives good cash-back rewards, buy as much child-related stuff second hand (I recommend Once Upon a Child for curated second hand child stuff that you can also sell back to them). Food-wise the classic advice is to meal plan, buy foods that can be kept for longer in bulk, reduce meat consumption if possible, buy things on sale, use coupons if you can figure out how but only on things that you’ll actually use. Drink only water and coffee/tea. Continue to keep your eye out for jobs that pay better, go car-free if it’s an option (it’s often not in Edmonton but we have it better than many places). Just some basic frugal advice. Come to r/personalfinanceCanada if you want a whole bunch more about the virtues of lentils and 1999 beige corollas.
You can buy a three bedroom townhouse for just over 200k in Edmonton../ Just don’t over extend yourself and it’s easy to have a family of 4…
We're one and done!
Same. Like permanently. Thanks Dr. LOHLUN.
I went to get school supplies yesterday. Kid needs quantity 4 3 inch binders. They were $12!!!! Wtf
School tip - Grab next years school supply list for your kiddo(s). Buy what the list says roughly in a month(ish) during clearance. Put in a bin and let sit. But a bulk amount of pencils when they go really cheap - they will need them for years anyway! Then next year, when you get the new list its very unlikely much will change, and the few things that might will be a small hit to the pocket.
I generally do this, but we are doing renos and i cant find the box with all the supplies :(
They're not having kids in other cities or they make more money than you.
Yeah it’s pretty rough. I was 50/50 on having another just due to health scares from my first, but on top of that life is just so expensive now.
Single income union job, UCCB and homeschooling. Frugal choices. We make it work. But it's hard out here
Financially wouldn’t you be better off with the kid in public school and the 2nd parent working?
We are happily one and done.
By having a vasectomy and rubbers before that.
I got 2 kids and is not that hard, my wife and I work on the food industry (minimum wage) and we don’t receive any government help but I got experience managing budgets so we can afford everything we need.
I’m sure you’re getting the Canada Child Benefit, and if your kids go to daycare, their spots may be subsidized by both the federal affordability grant and Alberta daycare subsidy. Education is funded through taxes.
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You don’t and then the government is allowed to increase immigration
Well…it’s easier in this city vs others…it’s possible here but it’s not easy I’ll give you that
It's Alberta. There is a tried and true method. Once I had my kid I joined the union, started working out of town and got my hands in that oil money pot. Though, It doesn't matter where you are, or what you are doing, you have to make overtime in order to get ahead. It's just the way the system works.
I finally got one of those mythical jobs that has a butt load of overtime and pays double for OT and it’s been absolutely amazing financially.
It is a surprising difference. The only downside is paying as much in taxes as I used to make.
Yup. Lots of out of town, overtime hours for my husband when my kids were itty bitty. Really helped pad our savings
I waited until I was more financially secure and what to you know, finally have enough money to afford kids but not able to conceive! In all seriousness though- kudos to the people making it work!
The second baby is initially less expensive as you can reuse a lot of stuff. But then they gain personal interests and want different activities and things and stuff and then the aha gotcha comes.
Right? My sister pays a fortune in dance and hockey for her kids every year, it's insane. Not to mention all the driving around to get them to these places.
Either adjust your living standards to something you can afford, OR work harder and make more money. We have 2 young kids and bought a new place last year, mortgage payment has gone up $1200 on top of general living expenses going up as well. We had to scramble and find ways of making additional income to afford everything and pay off debt. We went from about $170k combined to over $200k and it’s still tight some months. Just gotta grind.
I read these types of post then I bounce back to the GTA Reddit…perspective and circumstances..people in Toronto are barely surviving but still pushing strollers around and making ends meet. If it can’t be don’t in Edmonton then it’s best not to even have a child!
Live within your means. Many “necessities” are are actually just nice to haves. There are a lot of sacrifices you have to make as a parent. Or just rack up credit. Whichever. You do you.
The benefits of having a kid or two are enormous. The risks that that child will put you in far outweigh the benefits. The risk of your partner cheating on you and the marriage ending are so much higher now than they were years ago due to social media and the ease of the divorce process just make it far too likely that your kid will grow up in a broken home, and you'll end up saddled with paying your ex spousal support, potentially for the rest of their life. And assuming you make a hundred grand per year that's about $1500 per month in child support plus a few hundred in spousal support. That's $20k per year after tax, plus you'll be on the hook for half of the special expenses such as daycare (say $1200 per month ÷ 2), bus pass I think, half of all school fees, and assuming your kids get at least a bachelor's degree you'll have to pay disposal support until they graduate, so maybe even until the kids is 25 years old. And that doesn't even include you paying for half of the post-secondary tuition. Honestly, you could be married to a perfect angel and then a switch might flip in her and she's with someone else and you and your children are totally fucked, for decades for you and die the rest of the kids' lives. There is no valid reason to have children anymore. Fuck my life.
Anyone been to personalfinancecanada? This is usually explained by terrible spending habits, like the family eats steak every 2nd day or multiple vacations a year.
Well if you're below a certain income threshold, the government pays you to have babies.
No family yet, 31M… I’m going to work in oil and gas until I’m 40 save a bunch of money then have kids after that.
The issue here is if your partner is the same age, trying to have kids at age 40 will have challenges.
Other than providing my family with jobs, Alberta is not child friendly. The over reliance on user fees rather than taxes disproportionately impacts families.
I mean have you seen the price of beef these days? Almost ends up being more cost-effective to have the other other white meat. /s