What's the record on children born of one marriage?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DanS


I don't think you have a good idea about their situation, dude. You live in San Diego, where things cost a lot of money.

Let's forget housing costs and just think about food. I'm guessing three meals a day for 15 kids and 2 adults is at least $3 per meal per person if they really shop around and save. That's $9 per person per day (with no extras for snacks) or $153 per day just for the bare amount of food. That's $55,845 per year just to feed people like a peasant and in order to survive on $3 per meal you'd likely have to farm much of your own food.

Clothes they can buy second hand and hand down to the younger kids but even so things will wear out and several thousand dollars will have to be paid per year to keep the kids out of rags. No considering housing costs, health care, school expenses, odd gifts (17 birthdays & 17 Xmas presents plus the extended family), utilities, and everything else it costs to live a normal life and we're easily into the $80k-$100k per year price range and we haven't even started to outfit the house with furniture or things like dishes.

Even if you scrimp and save and cut every corner I doubt he'll make enough living in a place where housing is dirt cheap to cover all of those expenses. They simply must be taking some form of welfare or charity. Either that or they're independently wealthy but that doesn't look likely given the clothes they were wearing in the family photo.

[DanS]

is at least $3 per meal per person

[Lancer]

Oerdin, are you in favor of cutting social programs and making the freeloaders work for themselves or go without?

[Lancer]

Rice and beans, a dollar a day.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Lancer
For one thing white people don't have them much anymore and Oregon is white, and for another the parents are too scared to let them play outside because society is so screwed up.

Lots of my friends are breeders. Three kids seems to be the vogue thing with young couples now days with a few having another. My sister and her husband have three and he has one from his first marriage. Their block is filled with young families and the place is swarming with kids. It's a mixed race neighborhood since it's in southern California but still around 65%-70% white.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Lancer
Rice and beans, a dollar a day.

Kids are going to need some protein, fresh fruit, and fresh veggies. That adds up.

[Ben Kenobi]

Hey Oerdin, you know why Canadian lumber mills can still make money even when they are given a tariff? What they do now, is crank out as much wood as possible, to lower their unit costs by increasing their volume.

This works the same way. You buy supplies in bulk and reduce your unit costs.

[Lancer]

If you eat rice and beans your body will manufacture its own protien. I've met people in the Phils who survive on less than a dollar a day. One guy was working cleaning concrete chunks of a roadway being repaired, making P80 a day. Hard work! That's more than a buck, but he supported his wife also. Skinny as a rail...very little protein. Happy man though. Can't figure that.

[GePap]

From the picture, I see at least one set of twins. I can't imagine being able to have that many children in such a relatively short period of time without having a few multiple births.They are lucky she has not had any miscarriages.

As for the kids, I wonder what being #8 is like- nowhere near the oldest, nowhere near the youngest.

[Ben Kenobi]

Uh, beans have protein Lancer.

[mrmitchell]

Oerdin for breakfast I usually have a couple frozen pancakes and a couple glasses of milk. Altogether this probably cruises in at about $2 for the whole meal.

Let's say Mrs Duggars buys a box of pancake mix at Sav A Lot and the kids each get one glass of milk each (which altogether comes out to about 1 1/2 or 2 gallons). That's probably $9 or $10.

This is the kind of economy of scale that Ben's talking about. They multiplied my serving by 18 times for only $8 more. Sure you have to put a little more work into it than just buying frozen pancakes but it's far from impossible.

[GePap]

Yup, if you buy in bulk, the costs goes way down. Besides, this guy surely does not live in the middle of a city, so he can;t be toow far from getting stuff directly from the producers, without the retail middlemen. That should cut down on the cost of vegetables. Grains and legumes are very cheap, and I guess if you can buy a whole cow carcass just for your family, it cuts down the cost per lb. significantly.

They must have a lot of food sotrage space though, and a really BIG freezer.

[Immortal Wombat]

Rice and beans is a really boring diet. Also, it lacks the small sugars which give you an energy burst after a meal, so takes away hunger without satisfying the desire for food. Vegetables are pretty important for the sugars and vitamins.

[Lancer]

Powdered milk will bring that cost down some too. So would making pancakes with fine flour instead of mix.

[Lancer]

Grow your own! The Irish supported families on potatoes raised in lots smaller than most yards.