Putting the cart way before the horse, I think.
You don’t have to live in California, and you may not always. People are not physically tied to a piece of land. DH and I were raised in California. We did not move back after his stint in the Air Force, because we knew we could not afford to live there.
Not every kid goes to college. That mindset that every child should go to college needs to die. Some people have no desire to go, some people do not have the ability to handle college. We need to accept that some of those people are going to be our kids. Our family rule is that if you don’t go to college, you will be going to a technical school or apprenticeship to learn a trade, entering the military, or finding an entry-level job at a really good company with lots of room and opportunity to move up and make a career.
The kids who do go to college should pay for at least part of it, preferably the majority, themselves. The kids I remember in college who cared the least, and who would start partying on Thursday night and not stop until Monday morning, were the ones who had everything paid for by others. Those of us who worked our butts off to get scholarships and filled the rest in with loans and part-time jobs cared more and worked harder. Every time I felt like skipping class, I had to remind myself of how much of my own money I would be wasting, how many loan payments that missed class was going to cost me.
Children don’t have to cost a lot. Healthy food cooked yourself costs much less than processed convenience foods, and I can buy the same brand names at Walmart for less than at regular grocery stores. Quality clothing can be had for very little at secondhand stores like Once Upon a Child. Quality shoes can be found cheaply at places like Payless. Every child does not necessarily have to have their own bedroom. There is no reason for a household to have more than one television, phone line, or computer. We bought a used minivan to haul the brood, only a year old with 22,000 miles on it, for only $10,000. (And it has only a four-cylinder engine, so we save on gas.) If you are willing to wait a few weeks, you can see movies at the $2 theater instead of first run. I could go on for days with this list. Many of the things people think of as needs are actually luxuries.
I am not saying any of these things to convince you to have more children. I am just saying that many of the expenses we think we have are not things we must have, or can cost less if approached differently. My husband and I thought we were done having kids at four, mostly for financial reasons, but God touched me in a very obvious way, and we are expecting our fifth in the next 8 or 9 weeks. And I just found a brand new Evenflo carseat on clearance at K-Mart for only $26!!
(And yes, I checked, no recalls on it.) If you keep your eyes open and really look for ways to save money, they are there.
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