You could you call it fortuitous — or a not so happy coincidence — that on the week I'm asked to write a piece on family budgets, ours blows out.
Me? I call it life. This week's overdraft wasn't unexpected. Such is the cyclic nature of our one-and-a-half-incomes-and-two-kids lives that just when we think our savings are safe for another day, a new enrolment fee is due, the kids' jeans are suddenly a size too small and I've completely run out of nappies.
I'm also convinced that the utility bills use our letterbox to host their quarterly reunion. Why else would they arrive at the same time demanding our undivided attention?
Whether it be by design, luck or accident that we parents welcome a precious little person into the world, the two words we are taught to fear most in a single sentence are 'kids' and 'money'. There does seem to be a weird logic in it. Just when you lose an income, the cost of living goes up.
You need only read the reports and crunch the numbers to conclude that Life + Kids = Big Expense. Back in 2009, social researcher Mark McCrindle refuted the Federal Government's child-raising cost estimate of around $384,000 per child until the age of 18, saying it was closer to the $1 million mark.
For my husband and I managing the family budget isn't a matter of survival — no, certainly not that — but it's increasingly become an exercise in adaptability.
Terms like 'meal planning', 'going green' and 'free family events' are part of our everyday lexicon. We make good use of our local parks, schools, libraries and our annual subscription to the zoo. We're lucky to live in the inner city where we can take advantage of being so close to the river (free) and museums (economical).
Who would have thought we were such lateral thinkers? Certainly not us before we had children. Now, anything that can stretch the dollar is worth a second and even third consideration.
In truth, I feel I was more than ready for the changes parenthood would bring. Retail therapy was never my bag; nor were monthly trips to the hairdressers. My one regular treat was getting a shoulder massage. Now being 'worked on' by my own little 'doctor' and 'nurse' somehow meets the brief.
My husband, too, has long traded in the expensive late nights