CSW, You are doing a great job at the man o'steel thing. I think all of your friends here can see your progress, and it is both substantial and amazing. Keep up the good work, you are doing fantastic.
HP, starting a business is likely both the scariest and hardest thing I've done, but I've never looked back. I was fortunate in that my line of work requires a relatively low overhead (basically a top of the line computer workstation and a suite of certain CAE software). I was able to wrangle deals with the software companies whose products I use (CAE design software, some of which is many tens of thousands of dollars per seat) wherein I promote the product to my clients in the course of my normal work and get a deeply discounted price in return. I also had the advantage that MrsGGB was still working for a large well known computer and printer company and receiving a decent benefits package when I quit my day job, so there was a cushion there. I can tell you that starting his own business, he is going to work harder than he's ever worked for the company. There will be times he has to put in long hours, and he's going to need you 100% behind him even when he's immersed in the business to the point where you and the kids are being shortchanged for his time. There will likely be times, especially when he is starting out, when you'll be eating nothing but rice, noodles, beans, and PB&J to stretch the little money that is left over when an order doesn't come in or a customer renegs on a big invoice. Those are the downsides. The upside is the potential of doing quite well for yourself, the personal satisfaction of it being yours, and the fact that your work is enriching you, not some corporation.
Oh, that wasn't what I was planning to respond to here. HP is right, children don't have to be expensive but you do have to fight the urge to let them have anything they want (it is good for them to not have everything they desire as well). You can get perfectly good(often times brand new with the tags still on them) kids clothing and toys at less than 10 cents on the dollar by shopping garage sales and now even ebay. We get chided somewhat because of our clothing "store" in the basement. Mrs GGB has what must be 30 huge bins of kids clothing in various sizes she's collected over the years and passed down kid to kid. When the kids outgrow something, it gets washed, and if still serviceable goes into the appropriate size bin where it is stored until another kid needs it. Boxes of clothing have been circulated through ups to other family members, and stuff we haven't seen in 10 years has made it back here to be used again. As far as toys go....well, let's just say toys breed. Leave a pile of toys in a dark basement for several months, and when you come back there seems to be more.
Lunches: kids don't need a hot lunch. There is nothing wrong with a brown bag containing a PB&J, a piece of fruit, a couple cookies and an unbreakable container of koolaid. You can pack more than a dozen lunches like that for the cost of one hot school lunch, and at least a half dozen of these for the cost of one grocery store pre-packaged lunch like a lunchables. We make our kids pack their own lunches, starting right in first grade. It teaches them responsibility. If they don't make their lunch, they go hungry, and its their problem. (A 4 year old can make a PB&J if given a chance). Yeah, we've occasionally gotten a note from the school saying something like S6 didn't have a lunch or lunch money, so we bought him a lunch, please send in money for his lunch. He did that one time. When the school called us about it, we told them do not feed him, it was his responsibility to make a lunch and he didn't do it, so he's got to pay the consequences. Well they fed him anyway. That night we made his favorite meal for dinner, but gave him a PB&J and told him he already had his hot meal for the day. It never happened again.
My point is that you can raise kids on a shoestring. Don't buy into the common misconception that the kids need the best of everything to get a leg up. Based on my observations, the kids that have to do without come through much better prepared for life, and tend to be much more resourceful when it comes to getting things they want. Make do with what you have or do without.
