How did finances impact your family size?

[tink]

We are parents to one DS who is now nearly 8 years old. We would love another child, yet, we realize what an impact that would have on our financial circumstances. I'm curious how much everyone allowed finances to impact their decision to add to their family. For those that had an only child, do you regret it?

[Thrif-t]

Oh ya, it definitely impacted us. We would've had more, stopped at 3. Always wanted 4 but daycare was just too much for 3 we had. I quit working full time and went to part time to cut down on day care. If I didn't have to work we probably would've had a 4th. But then again?? We had 2 girls then a boy, and the boy was a real handful, so I'd of had to think long and hard about the possibility of getting another one of him even if I could've afforded it.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Just one child. Don't regret it. Not a financial decision.

[tripods68]

Enough not to have a 3rd child.

[msomnipotent]

We wanted two or three, but we wound up having only one because of the financial mess we were in that took years to get out of. Now that we are fine, my husband doesn't want to adopt but I would like to have another kid or two. I don't regret it because she has a cousin that is very close in age and a few younger ones she sees a lot that she is close to, but she really wants a brother or sister. I'm too old now. Just babysitting my nieces for the weekend wears me out and they aren't bad kids.

[Smallsteps]

While finances were not the main issue in deciding, it was a big consideration. I always said that time was more important then money if I had quality time for each child. We planned 2 had three and then took permanent measures knowing that was all we could handle financially etc.
Many People with a single child are totally fine with zero regrets.

[disneysteve]

For those that had an only child, do you regret it?

Absolutely not!

I can't say that having one child was necessarily a financial decision but that's part of it. Lots of reasons we only had one and if I had to do it all over again I'd want us to do it exactly the same.

[phantom]

For me, finances have been a relatively small factor in the decision on how many kids to have, but they're definitely a consideration. In the short term, our budget could certainly stretch to handle a few extra years of day care costs. But, when I think about all the little extras adding up over the years and extra sets of college costs, I'd rather stop at two kids and save the money.

There are a lot of reasons I think I'll be happier with fewer kids, but my husband is more inclined than I am to have more. Bringing up money has actually been a pretty effective argument in convincing him that we're better off stopping.

[Singuy]

Did having a child(now almost 2 kids) impact financially for the short term? Yes. Wife who used to work 5-6x/week now works 3.5-5 days/week. We expect our revenue to decrease between 50-100k/year depending on coverage.

Does it affect us financially for the long term? I don't think so considering we paid off all our student loan debt/house mortgage, and we have a healthy retirement savings between our first born.

[Budget Kitty]

We have 3 kids and I wouldn't trade them for anything but they've certainly had an impact on our finances. If we never had kids our savings would be way larger and we'd have enjoyed some really nice vacations, but I'll still keep the little ones around. Besides, I think I lost the receipt.

[Gailete]

I wanted lots of children, but then hubby said we could only have 2 for whatever reason. The second one if he had come first, I might have rethought having another as he is the autistic one. Lots of problems when he was little. But I had two boys. After the youngest came I had all sorts of physical problems and had to have surgery that took away my chances to have another, but at that point I knew I didn't want to have another child with my husband. He is menatlly ill plus some other problems. I always did want a daughter, but now I have one of those via my oldest son. You couldn't ask for a better daughter than my DIL.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

we have two and i/we really wanted a 3rd. We only stopped this summer from the yearning. Finances were completely involved. We decided to move and quit a job and be without insurance when we moved and kiddos were 3 and 5. I was given a choice, move or 3rd kid. I picked move. So we didn't have the timing right. DH wanted a 3rd right after the second and pushed to have them 1 year apart (i think finances was affecting his decision). But I had terrible PPD and I just couldn't. Then after we moved it just seemed to late for us age wise with kids being too far apart and us being 35 and 37.

Now that being said if it happened that we had a 3rd now, I think i'd flip out more than DH. But we'd be okay with it financially not a big deal. But he's 40 and I'm 38 so I really sort of don't want to be this old a mom. I feel like we've moved to a different stage in parenting. I find it easy and I'm not sure I really want to go back to diapers and nights up.

[dojo]

We're stopping at one kid since we're a bit too old to go for another (I'm 40, hubs is 50). Otherwise a new kid wouldn't make such a huge impact