I'm curious what she thought she was going to do when she knew she was having sextuplets and didn't have the TLC show yet? Wouldn't they have thought they would have to make it on a nurse's and an IT's salaries?
What she means is she can't live the lifestyle she likes on regular salaries.
Here you go - sell the million dollar house and go back and live in the other house. Take the kids out of the ridiculously expensive private schools and put them in public schools. No more flying out to California for spa days. Harsh, I know, but hey Kate most people DO live that way!
i've thought this as well, but then kate is on the record saying that she believes that since medical science makes it possible for women to have this many children society is obligated to support them-so maybe her mindset was that if they could'nt support them it was no worry-you, i, and all the other u.s. taxpaying dis'rs would
the one thing i would disagree on is the issue with the private school-if she were going to work outside the home such that she required child care until say 6 p.m. m-f, the entirety of those kid's private school tuition might result in a tremendous cost savings. the reason i say this is because with many christian type private schools (not the high end elite but i don't think that's the type the gosselins have used) each additional child in a family receives a discounted tuition, and by you hit the 4th child their tuition can be as much as 50% less than a singleton (with 8 kids you could be paying little more than you were paying for 5). those private schools can have far fewer days off than the public during the traditional school year, and can start and end their school years much earlier and later. then you have the added advantage of before school and afterschool programs that can be pennies per hour as compared to traditional daycare. on top of that you can have summer programs that start one week after regular school ends with only one week between their ending and the school year resuming.
this was a HUGE draw for the private schools in the area we lived in-parents crunched the numbers and found that because before/after school care (and for the days off, breaks) was very expensive they saved money sending their kids the private route. then IF a person was a member of the church that their kid's school was affiliated with they could see an additional huge savings, and they might qualify for substantial additional scholarships so they saved even more.
another advantage of those kids being in a private system is they could conceivably (depending on the school) remain forever on a shared campus-which means no dealing with different school scheduals (like i am this week and beyond-one kid gets out at noon on one campus w-f, one gets out at 12:25 t-f on another b/c of p/t conferences, one gets out at noon the tuesday before thanksgiving, the other at 12:25 the wednesday before thanksgiving, one has a 2 hour late start one day the other does not....) and just having one centralized location for parents or caregivers to pick-up from, communicate to.
i think realisticly in this situation parent(s) need to sit down and crunch numbers-is daycare excessive such that it cancels out what one parent is making at work (and is the cost of working such that you spend more to do it than it results in bringing home???), is private school a necessity b/c of the care/schedual it provides or would you end up financialy ahead with one parent not working such that they would'nt need it? what are our expenses and how can we cut them back-are all the cars needed, can we downsize to less expensive ones? is the benefit of having a large home offset by the cost of maintaining it (and heating it, and paying taxes on it)-or does that size realy not matter b/c none of are ever realy together in it b/c we're always at work, kids are allways in daycare? can we end up saving in the long run by just selling our other home-even at a small loss, OR could we use that in the interim as the house the non custodial parent lives in during their non custodial time? do we REALY need to own a utah time share and pay those monthly maintainance fees and taxes?
i look to the families (large and small) that have had extreeme financial downturns that lived where we used to live and where we live now-i was'nt nescessarily privey to their situations but as an outsider you could see what was going on because they all seemed to follow a familiar pattern that seems absent in the entire gosselin 'poor us' scenario-
first the highend leased vehicals were returned to the dealerships and either not replaced (if they had sufficient cars for the household) or replaced with much less expensive ones,
then the expensive 'toys' were sold off (including the kids atv's which cost them to insure),
then the service staff they used stopped coming (the lawn guy, the pest control, the pool maintainance...), newspapers stopped getting delivered (they used the internet),
then the kids stopped doing the costly extracurriculars, mom's nails showed no more salon trips or a more 'home styled' maintainace standard,
as the kids were getting bigger and outgrowing things there was a marked absence of the brand name logos on their clothes (still well clothed just not the expensive brands),
you did'nt see mom with shopping bags from whole earth or the other trendy higher end grocery stores-she was still shopping but at the more mainstream less expensive places,
definatly did'nt see the sitter there anymore during the hours mom/dad were traditionaly off work but tended to do their own extracurriculars/errands that were easier w/o the kids.
the second to the last step was usualy a large garage sale with the non essentials being sold off, the last was a real estate sign on the front lawn.
the gosselins seem to continue aquiring or planning to aquire consumer goods absolutly of no neccessity to the support of their children (atvs as bday gifts, diamond rings to replace wedding rings, rental properties for adults who have an entirely vacant home at their disposal). if they are able to do this or perceive they can then there is nothing occuring income wise that could endanger the current support of those kids-and if they are worried about the future they could be proactive and address it NOW; the money they save today could go a long way in providing for the many tomorrows.
)) is counted as a separate tweet, that last one seems really long.
