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Valiant Peterson rarely sees a movie in the theaters. He has found that taking his kids for an all-you-can-eat buffet meal at Ponderosa Steak House for $2.99 is a lot more nutritious and cost-efficient than the four nuggets and fries kids get for $3.50 at McDonald's. When it comes to shoes, he usually shops at Shoe Carnival, where often you buy one pair and get a second for half-price.
Peterson has seven children ages 8 to 26. He knows how to stretch a dollar so that his kids enjoy some of the same things smaller families get to do. He also knows they can't do everything smaller families can, so they do things their own way.
He is in a quickly shrinking category. Rising costs and women in the workplace have strongly curtailed the number of big families in recent decades. Since 1976, there has been a decline in families with four or more children, from 36 percent to 10 percent, and a corresponding increase in families with one or two children, from 31 percent to 53 percent, according to the U.S. Census. In 2004, 1.6-million families included six or more children compared to 29-million with two children.
Those who continue to raise big families in the era of $5.25 kids' movie tickets, $100 sneakers and cell phones know a thing or two about trimming expenses and putting their foot down. Parents who have one child, as well as those who have enough to fill a basketball starting lineup can learn from them.
"I'm not ashamed to say we put clothes on lay-away and pay for them over the summer. By the time school starts they have a new wardrobe," said Peterson, who lives in St. Petersburg.
When multiple toddlers and kids grow into multiple teenagers, it gets harder. They want the same shoes and cell phones their friends have. Peterson's 15-year-old has a cell phone, but she has prepaid minutes, so when her time is up, it's up. Most of her friends, however, have contracts with unlimited minutes.
"She'll have to get a job soon so she can start pulling her own weight for the extras," he added.
The Petersons haven't had a lot of vacations or seen many movies in the theater, but they have had a lot of fun over the years.
"You just have to use your imagination and take it back to the '70s when we were kids," he said. "We make our own tire swings. We do a lot of picnicking in the park. I show my kids how to make teeter-totters with the board and bricks. We fish a lot down at the Pier and Fort DeSoto. I make them treehouses. My son and I made a homemade go-cart out of old lawnmower parts. I take them to the track."
Other large families have their own ways of doing things.
"I can honestly count on one hand the number of times we have all gone to the movies together," said Jim Condon, a father of five kids ages 5 to 13. "We plan our menu around what's on sale at the supermarket that week. We actually post a menu so five kids aren't all asking what we're having for dinner."
All the Condon kids have chores, but they do not get an allowance for doing them. "They get to have a roof over their head," he said, laughing. "We are very fortunate. We may not have everything we want but we have everything we need."
When Kathy DeVicente's last child, a girl, was born she and her husband hung a banner outside their home. It read:
"Final Score: Boys 3, Girls 2."
Then they started planning how to get five kids through college. As it turned out, all five have worked summers as lifeguards and swim teachers at city pools. The pay is better than many other jobs open to teenagers. The money they made went into their college funds. The kids did not work during the school year so they could study hard and make the grades to earn scholarships. Four received Bright Futures scholarships to use at in-state colleges.
DeVicente's youngest is 16; the oldest 28. DeVicente said the main thing she sacrificed to have a big family was peace of mind. "It's a tremendous amount of work, but it is also a tremendous blessing," she said. "It's really entertaining to watch them grow from when they were little and now they are really good buddies."
Tracey Williams, mother of four children ages 4 to 12, has found birthday parties, both hosting them and attending them, can take a big bite out of the monthly budget.
"With four kids, we get invited to a lot of birthday parties, and we really only go to ones we are good friends with," she said. And for the ones they do attend, they look for a present on sale and make a card.
Her kids get to have a birthday party every other year. "If it's not your year, we have a family dinner and cake. When it is your party time, I don't go all out," she said. Each child may get to invite 3 or 4 friends.
Diana Lee has learned how to keep the costs low on a quick stop at McDonald's.
"You go to the dollar menu, and everybody gets one thing and you get a 20-piece," she said. The 20-piece chicken pack costs $5, a much better deal than five kids' meals with four nuggets of chicken at about $3.50 each.
At Christmas she shops early and looks for the sales when she's buying for her two children and three stepchildren, ages 2 to 15.
"We hit the consignment stores for clothes and furniture," said the St. Petersburg mother. She was pleased to have just found clothes from the Gap and OshKosh B'Gosh at Kiddy Corner on 47th Avenue N. For entertainment, they play a lot of board games. She's hoping the family can start going on camping vacations so she's looking for tents and camping gear at thrift shops.
"There's no such thing as a vacation," said Kimberly O'Brien, whose four kids are now ages 17 to 22. And you can't host four birthday parties a year at skating rinks and bowling alleys. But she threw a lot of sleepovers with homemade cakes. At Christmas, the kids drew names from a hat and gave one sibling a present instead of buying three. It added to the anticipation because they never revealed who had whom until Christmas morning.
"We cut out a lot of things like movies. Instead we did what we called family night. We played games, watched movies at home and ordered pizza," she said. "That satisfied the need to get out."
"Planning saves money," said Julie Musselman, a mother of six kids. "If you wait until the last minute (to think about dinner), you fall into that track of eating out or getting something that's already cooked. Even if I don't have the whole week planned out, I'll sit in the car for a few minutes before going into the grocery and jot down a few meal ideas."
Musselman said any extra work and tighter budget is nothing compared to the joy of her big family. "You have the hand-me-downs and you don't go out as much, but you can never put a price on a life," she said. "Each one of these children is so precious to us."
You can reach Katherine Snow Smith by e-mail at snowsmith@verizon.net or write Rookie Mom, St. Petersburg Times, PO Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.