Resources for larger families

A lot of stuff we read about tends to be geared towards a couple or a couple with one or two kids. That makes sense to us because that is the norm.

I did not want to be too specific on this. If you have a large family or even if you do not but have suggestions. It could be something you found helpful in any area of life.

A couple of examples:

We joined the HSLDA lifetime membership. I have talked to them a few times and they are very helpful. We hope to never need their legal services.

Judith Browning brought up Azure Standard in a recent post and we looked more seriously into it and are picking up our first order this coming Monday.

We read out loud together a lot. Little House on the Prairie series, Chronicles of Narnia, Wingfeather saga, etc. Any other suggestions?

Hi Josh,
My family is not as huge as some, but we are bigger than most.

I find that organization and schedules are a must. There is a reason why cities have more laws than rural communities. With more people, you get more chance that someone is going to do something stupid and create the need for a rule/law against that thing. By organizing and scheduling things, you are creating guard rails to keep the family in check.

You can get away with last minute things and no planning with 1 child. If you have 10 children, not so much. I'm thinking of mealtimes, school lunches, outings, etc. When it is planned ahead of time, there is more time to prepare, and less chance of forgetting something. This is also helps the kids know what is coming down the line. Despite what some people say, most kids I know do better with routines.

Give them plenty of autonomy in some areas, but at the same time, take away reasons for conflict. My kids used to argue over who would get which cup at meal time. I got fed up with it, and bought them all a specific cup that was theirs... no more arguing. Same with towels and blankets. If each has their own, it will reduce conflict. And less conflict means more time and energy for everything else. Another way to deal with this, is to get all the same thing. It may seem like a small thing to have a couple different cups or different plates or different silverware. But if something is considered "special" then they will argue over it. If all the plates are the same, no one complains that their brother or sister got the "special plate". If all the towels are the same, then no one complains the "special" towel didn't get hung up to dry.

One family I heard about, went so far as to pick colors for each child. Bobby was blue, Sarah was pink. Joe was green, and Ruth was purple (I'm making up the names, but you get the idea). And it didn't matter what it was. Dishes, towels, folders, pencils, coats, storage bins, blankets, etc. If it was that color, it belonged to that child. An interesting idea, but I don't know that I would have done it that way.

I feel that resources that teach budgeting would be great resources for large families.

Next to me would be resources that teach cooking on a budget.

Also food resources would be very helpful.  Most counties have Food Banks.

There are also some organizations that help such as Feeding America, Salvation Army, and United Way among others that offer food aid. They can assist in pointing you to the right resources within your locality.

We used to use a service through our church that offered a week of meals for
$10.00 or $20.00.  I cant remember the name though it seems like it was something like Angel Food.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Josh,
I find that organization and schedules are a must. There is a reason why cities have more laws than rural communities. With more people, you get more chance that someone is going to do something stupid and create a rule/law against that thing. By organizing and scheduling things, you are creating guard rails to keep the family in check.

Thanks, Matt. I read recently that a to do list should not take the place of a schedule. That is why airports run so well, normally. They are not a giant to do list of flights but a schedule of flights.

Matt McSpadden wrote:
One family I heard about, went so far as to pick colors for each child. Bobby was blue, Sarah was pink. Joe was green, and Ruth was purple (I'm making up the names, but you get the idea). And it didn't matter what it was. Dishes, towels, folders, pencils, coats, storage bins, blankets, etc. If it was that color, it belonged to that child. An interesting idea, but I don't know that I would have done it that way.

I only have two kids and we still do it that way to reduce mental load. Our youngest' name starts with J, so "jaune" (French for yellow) is  for her. Not for things that truly matter in terms of identity - I wouldn't dress her in yellow from head to toe - but for silly things like sandwich containers when I'm packing two slightly different lunches, or beach towels, toothbrushes, hair brushes... of if I'm marking the stack of passports with little adhesive dots when travelling. The trick helps with not having to figure what belongs to whom everytime, and reduces the need for communication with my spouse (e.g. I might be the one packing the mustard-less sandwich in a yellow container, but he will be putting the lunchboxes together).

We also initialized absolutely everything when they were small, and probably should do it more. Kids as young as two year old can recognize "their letter" (it's actually easier than recognizing a cat from a dog), and saying "this is mine" is very strong motivation for early literacy. Bins for putting drawings. Bins for putting their winter gear. Christmas gifts. Water bottles. Napkin rings (we use cloth napkins but we don't wash them every meal).

Another trick I'm really proud of is the "generation of socks" system.

Let's say my oldest needed a new size of socks: I'd buy at least twelve pairs in a single pattern. Next size over, I'd do the same trick with a different pattern/color. Only one color/pattern per age, and no duplicates in different sizes.

Not exactly fashionable (I tried to use fairly neutral patterns) but life is too short to try to match socks in slightly different sizes.

(now if I could convince my husband to buy a hundred pairs of identical black socks and use those for the rest of his life instead of very slightly different patterns every year...)

We have 3 girls, 2 boys, and ? incubating.

We have noticed that the boys don't care about who has what. Even though they are almost 2 years apart, they can wear the same size clothes. They interchange clothes/stuff/whatever.

The girls, not so much......

Kena Landry wrote:Not exactly fashionable (I tried to use fairly neutral patterns) but life is too short to try to match socks in slightly different sizes.

I didn't have a large family, but I did similar for a different reason: #1 Son had black socks, #2 Son had grey socks. We live in a wet climate, so socks often get taken off because they're wet. But if they were left on the floor... I knew simply by colour who needed to do the picking up!

Life is also too short to be nagging kids, particularly the wrong kid!

Bulk food ordering can be very helpful. I don’t really go food shopping anymore because everything comes in every now and then either from our homestead or from various bulk places/direct from farmers.

Bulk ordering or normal shopping, keeping notes on what was spent on each thing for a year can help put things in perspective and figure out what to cut back on, what to focus on growing/making more of, and so on. After a bit of bulk ordering chaos at first, I went through my spending notes for a year and figured out how often I need to order from each place, so that I can top up a different supply each month rather than needing to get everything all at once.

Coming up with a list of clothes that are actually needed for the next season, then getting them when one of the kids clothes shops puts everything on sale can save a lot of money.

Buying clothes with handing them down in mind. Some colours, patterns, and fabrics will look better after being handed down several times than others. Some things are easier to mend than others.

Having each child have a set of nice “going out clothes” set aside in their room, so that when we need to go out, they always have something normie-acceptable to wear.

Homesteading Family did a good post about their approach to clothing a large family here: https://homesteadingfamily.com/affordable-clothing-for-the-homestead/

Teaching older children to mend their own clothes, look after their own bikes etc, and do household and garden chores and crafts.

We read aloud a lot too. Just finished Chronicles Of Prydain, I think this is about the 3rd time we’ve read these, but the first time our 9 and 8 year olds have heard it. Onto The Hobbit now, and then Lord of the Rings now, lost count of the amount of times we've read these. For younger children we like Elsa Beskow and Beatrix Potter a lot, as well as Grimms and Anderson fairy tales.

Having lots of books around the house is good. We picked up heaps of books here and there over the years from second hand bookshops, even when they were too young to read, and now have a decent home library so they don’t have to choose from the crappy selection of kids books in our local public library system. We picked up an old Encyclopaedia Britannica set for $20 at the tip shop years ago and this has come in really useful for low tech homeschooling.

Meal planning really helps. Making as much stuff as possible from scratch helps. If you do lots of baking, an electric grain mill will probably pay for itself within a year as it’s a lot cheaper to buy whole grains compared to flour.

Kena Landry wrote:Another trick I'm really proud of is the "generation of socks" system.

Let's say my oldest needed a new size of socks: I'd buy at least twelve pairs in a single pattern. Next size over, I'd do the same trick with a different pattern/color. Only one color/pattern per age, and no duplicates in different sizes.

I buy mostly Darn Tough socks for my kids. They have a lifetime guarantee. When socks get holes, you can send them in and get a rebate to buy new socks--as long as you have a complete pair. I wait until we have LOTS of holey socks, and send them in all at once (this saves on shipping). I usually only send socks in for returns once every 2 or 3 years, because Darn Tough socks really do last a long time.

My husband always get the "Tactile" black socks, and I get the "tactical" socks in "coyote brown." Darn tough usually changes their sock styles every year or so, but the Tactile socks are always the same (since they're made for military use). We always get the same color and style, because even if we lose one sock from two different pairs, we still have complete pairs to send it.

I let my kids pick their own sock styles, but they can only pick one or two sock styles--that way, even if they lose a sock, I can still return a pair of socks.

Since Darn Tough socks last so long, my son's styles get passed onto my daughter, and then by the time she's done with them, they usually have holes and can be sent in. So while the kids don't have just one style, we still save a lot on socks--while still having high-quality wool socks!

I wrote out way too much. To summarize what has worked for our family of 8:

1) Have an emergency meal plan that I can make no matter what.
2) Yes on color coded dishes
3) For booklists I love Ambleside Online
4) Relationships trump my goals. I let go of a lot to respect the person in front of me and pick my battles on the rest.
5) Yes on checklists but we prefer a routine to our day anchored around natural “pegs” than a formal schedule.