How can I afford for my children to have a good life?

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Hi all. I am a 35 year old married man with 5 kids. A son, who just turned 5, triplet girls, who are 3, and also a 6 month old little girl. I never finished high school, but received my GED and took a few vocational classes. College just isn’t for me. I do have a decent paying job while my wife stays home and takes care of the children because it would cost a fortune to send them to daycare.

Here’s the problem. I’m not one to talk about how much a man makes, but for the sake of help and this topic, I’ll tell you I make a little over $1,800/month after taxes. The public schools in our city are downright horrible. We feel that our only option for our kids to have a good education is to send them to a private, Catholic school. We send our 5 year old there now. Wonderful school. Right now, we have no problem paying his tuition, but when the triplets go to school, we figured I’ll be paying about $1,500/month for my kids to go to school there.

I know I’m going to hear that I need to get a second job, but I already work 5-6 days a week and 12 hour days, so I’m pretty burned out. My wife can get a job once the triplets are in school, but the only jobs here in town are low paying jobs that would probably cover the cost of sending my 6 month old to daycare while she works.

I know i have a while to worry about this, but I’m a worry wart.

Any advice?
 
Welcome to CAF! God will bless you for your desire to provide for your family and raise them in the Catholic faith.

It sounds like the best option would be for your wife to learn how to homeschool, since she’s already staying home with the kids. There are bountiful resources and support networks for homeschooling these days–just about anyone can do it. What do you think?
 
The good life is one filled with a devout practice of the faith in their homelife, love, and virtue. The rest is gravy.

On a practical level, you could:

Ask the Catholic school and your local parish if they have a scholarship program and see if you might qualify.

Consider homeschooling with a structured program such as Seton or other Catholic homeschooling programs.

Send your kids to the public school and pay close attention to what they are learning, be involved, and supplement at home.

Consider a virtual school, in our state any kid can go to the virtual school for free.

Consider moving-- seriously. Wichita’s Catholic schools for example are fully funded by the parishes and diocese, no tuition. There are many places that have good public schools.

I would NOT suggest you getting a second job. Your family needs its husband and father to be involved and available.
 
Call about a financial aid program, or homeschooling (as mentioned above)
 
1ke said:
The good life is one filled with a devout practice of the faith in their homelife, love, and virtue. The rest is gravy.

On a practical level, you could:

Ask the Catholic school and your local parish if they have a scholarship program and see if you might qualify.

Consider homeschooling with a structured program such as Seton or other Catholic homeschooling programs.

Send your kids to the public school and pay close attention to what they are learning, be involved, and supplement at home.

Consider a virtual school, in our state any kid can go to the virtual school for free.

Consider moving-- seriously. Wichita’s Catholic schools for example are fully funded by the parishes and diocese, no tuition. There are many places that have good public schools.

I would NOT suggest you getting a second job. Your family needs its husband and father to be involved and available.
Click to expand...
👍👍
 
Irishmom2 said:
As usual, 1ke hit that answer out of the park! 👍
Click to expand...
Yep.

A couple of other thoughts…

-Is there anything your wife could do part time from home to supplement the family’s income? I am a nurse by profession, but for the last two years I’ve done the bookeeping for two local dentists. I do it at night and occasionally on weekends and it does not interfere with family time. This income helps cover Catholic school, karate, dance class, etc.

-Are your local public schools dangerous and unhealthy, or do they just have low test scores? A low performing school is not necessarily bad. A lot of times wonderful teachers are found in low performing schools, and the low scores reflect the home lives of the kids. Just because a school has poir scores does NOT mean YOUR child will do poorly there. With support from home, kids come out of “bad” schools doing quite well many times.

-Have you considered increasing your skills through a vocational program?
 
Homeschooling is a good option, there are low cost options here that won’t leave your wife on her own. I would highly recommend Seaton homeschool program. Very highly rated, very catholic and you get actual teacher assistance.

Another option is frequent catholic conferences around you. You’ll be surprised how God can answer your prayers. We for instance found a fantastic homeschool coop which has effectively become a catholic school. The twist is, if you volenteer with them you get up to 75% off tuition. Volunteering can be anything from teaching a regular course to cleaning up on Saturdays. Obviously I have no way to know if you have something like that near you, but it’s worth looking into.

You can also look into scholarships an tuition assistance.

Outside of this, you really need to find ways to supplement your income. More work is one way, another is to move up in your career in some way. Perhaps additional certifications or more vocations training? Do you have a specialization? There is a SEVER lack of skilled labor in this nation. You can really make a ton of money specializing in plumbing, electrical work etc. Just some ideas.

God bless, good luck!
 
I agree that Homeschooling is the good life. I have done Homeschooling, Catholic school and Public School, and I can say that Homeschooling for an intact family is truly the good life. AS the wage earner, you will enjoy coming home to happier, more relaxed kids, too. And a happier, more relaxed wife. Two fulltime wage earners and five kids means when they are in school everyone comes home tired, having spent the best part of the day away from each other living in completely different paces, and there is a homework list for your kids, a package of surprises for the evening that you must now supervise even though the last thing your active young children want to do is more seatwork - they already did that with the best part of the day and they want to play now. And there is dinner making and cleanup, and lunches to make and laundry to do. Its really not the best family. life. But Homeschooling is a different story altogether. And you don’t even need a high school education to do it!

Wow, five kids so young and low income. You must be very committed to being open to life, and trusting God to find a pasture for His Lambs. He is faithful!
 
  1. Make sure you have your priorities straight. The good life shouldn’t mean only material things.
  2. I agree with the others who have suggested doing some sort of vocational education or specialized certifications.
My husband also only had his GED. To be eligible for the jobs he wanted, he had to take certification courses. Then, he ended up going to college because the 4 year degree was a requirement for the jobs he wanted to advance into. We didn’t have kids at the time he was doing these things.
 
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