How to Save Money With Kids (for Neurodivergent Mothers)

PLEASE PIN THIS IMAGE – How to save money with kids is different for neurodivergent parents.

A lot of conventional advice about how to save money with kids falls short for neurodivergent parents. Here are some of the usual tips, and what to do instead.

Table of Contents

WHAT does that say?

When I set out to create this blog post as part of my series on frugal homemaking, I was mostly going to copy and paste a section from a book I self-published in 2014. All I’d have to do was write an introduction, make a few tweaks, jot down a conclusion, and voila! I’d be done in fifteen minutes.

Then I began reading the section in question. My eyebrows went up. Whaaat???!! Much of the advice was completely inappropriate for many neurodivergent women.

But then, I didn’t know I was neurodivergent until I was fifty-three years old. By then, our son was sixteen. I had suspected he was autistic for months, and had begun to feel guilty about some of the decisions I’d made in raising him (the occasional spanking comes to mind).

I’d also wondered if I hadn’t been a little too rigid and perfectionistic in my ideas about how to properly raise a child. Of course I had; rigid thinking and perfectionism are common traits of autistic people. But until I skimmed over the section of my book about saving money with children, I hadn’t realized how unhealthy some of my decisions had been.

Not for my son, but for myself. And my highly sensitive autistic husband, too, while we’re at it.

I also realized that a lot of my well-meaning advice which worked for me wouldn’t work for a lot of neurodivergent women.

So instead of copying and pasting my wonderful advice and leaving it, I’m going to copy and paste it… and explain where and why I was wrong.

I will show you that how to save money with kids for neurodivergent women can’t be exactly the same as for neurotypical women.

I’m not going to edit it, either. I came off quite bitchy and holier-than-thou in a lot of places. At the time I wrote it (and my other books) I justified it by telling myself that people needed just to get over themselves and do things my way, and the best way to do that was to beat them over the head.

Sometimes, autistic directness is good. Sometimes, it causes sales of a self-published book to wither and die. Especially when the autistic directness is coupled with autistic non-self awareness.

All that said, let’s dive into some awesome advice on how to save money with kids… not. After each tip, I’ll type my current thoughts and beliefs in bold. The entire book is a list of numbered ideas, which is why the ideas are numbered.

My tips on how to save money with kids, verbatim from the book.

Many of the ideas that apply to adults also apply to children. For instance, I’ve already talked about purchasing clothes and furniture used instead of new and reducing gifts at holidays, so I will refrain from repeating myself. I simply ask you to keep such ideas in mind for your children as well as yourself.

Buying used as much as you can is great advice for how to save money with kids, regardless of a parent’s – or child’s – brain type.

Lest I be accused of repeating myself with this first “frugal kid” idea, I declare that I am not. The previous time I discussed breastfeeding it was in relation to bonding. This next idea goes a bit further, challenges your thinking on the issue a bit more.

283. Mothers: breastfeed as long as your child wants to. Breastmilk is much cheaper – and much healthier – than either formula or solid food (in the early years, at least). In many non-Western cultures, breastfeeding children until age two or three is the traditional norm. You don’t have to tell anybody that your three- or four-year-old is still getting some of their calories at your breast.

Eesh. My nipples hurt every single one of the ten times a day my newborn breastfed, for the entire first month after his birth. Whether it was due to my sensitivity or his not realizing he could get the milk without pretending to be the world’s most powerful vacuum, I’m not sure. Probably a mix of both.

But many highly sensitive women would be miserable in this situation. Not everyone’s second-biggest strength is self-discipline, and I get that. Now. For them, researching for second-best other than breast would make for happier mothering.

If this is way out of your comfort zone, or not possible because you must work outside of the home, at least consider not introducing your baby to solid foods until she is really ready. Arbitrarily trying to feed a four-month-old mush just so she can “have the experience” is like making a born athlete sit down and knit for hours on end just for the experience.

I still agree with that. And neurodivergent women don’t need another thing to clean up; i.e. splatters of baby food everywhere because the baby has no interest in anything but liquids.

It’s unnatural. Let your baby, not a book or pediatrician, tell you when he is ready for solids. My son was nine months old before he began crying for and grabbing at our food. At that point, he had both teeth and better eye-hand coordination than an average six-month-old. I started giving him small pieces of what we were eating. Even then, he didn’t really take to solid food for another three months. And when he did, there was no “practice” necessary, no need for me to turn food into mush or buy baby food. He was physiologically ready for it.

Okay, yeah, but just because this worked for us doesn’t mean it’ll work for everybody. You may have a legitimate reason to introduce Baby to solids at six or seven months. And some babies may be ready to eat at least pureed fruits and vegetables well before the age of nine months.

284. Use cloth diapers. They are not that much more difficult to deal with than disposables. Simply launder them with everything else – except you want to make sure you are using the most chemical-free laundry detergent possible. Either the washing soda/Borax combination or liquid soap nuts I mentioned earlier would be perfect.

You will spend a chunk of money up front for cloth diapers, but in the long run – especially if you buy one-size diapers – you will save a few hundred dollars; you will save even more if you have more than one child.

I don’t have experience with diaper blow-outs, but I’m pretty sure cloth diapers wouldn’t cut it for that. Also, even if your city has a diaper service that picks up your dirty diapers and delivers new ones, a new mother who is neurodivergent may not want to deal with an extra step in taking care of her child. She probably won’t care for extra laundry.

File this one under “to do if my family has to be extremely frugal.”

285. Avoid the baby “stuff” frenzy. We never had a changing table (our bed or the floor sufficed), and the only reason we had a crib was that my in-laws offered it to us and I didn’t want to turn them down.

Our son hardly ever slept in it (more on that coming up).

We didn’t have a wipe warmer, special diaper pail (we just used a five-gallon plastic bucket), classical music CD’s, or Baby Einstein anything.

All his clothes were provided by a friend with a son who was three years older than mine, up until our son was about three. The baby shower, of course, provided onesies and a few other items of clothing, plus a few basic baby toys.

You might be thinking, “What did your poor little baby have, for Pete’s sake?” In addition to clean clothes, a warm place to live, and healthy food (my milk), he had his parents’ attention and love. And those things are free.

Mostly, I still agree. But if you’re neurodivergent, chances are your child is, too. So something like a wipe warmer would make for a much more pleasant diaper-changing job all around. In addition, a neurodivergent baby would probably appreciate various stimuli to hyperfocus on.

286. Let your baby sleep with you. This is particularly easy if you already sleep on a mattress on a floor instead of in a bed.

Ha ha! So, yeah, everybody has to sleep on a mattress on a floor in order to save the fifty bucks you’d otherwise spend for a used crib in a child’s consignment store.

And no, it’s not dangerous unless either mother or father regularly goes to bed high or drunk. In which case a person has no business having a baby, anyway. Not that I’m opinionated about it or anything.

I think I was justified in that bit of bitchiness, yes?

Co-sleeping saves you money on a crib and all the accessories a crib requires. But there are a couple of reasons other than frugality to consider this option.

If you are breastfeeding and your baby sleeps with you, it’s a whole lot easier for you to turn over toward your infant in bed and offer your breast in the middle of the night, than to get up and go to another room to feed. Babies who sleep with their parents also, as a general rule, regulate their breathing with their parents, thereby reducing their risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome).

The problem is the baby gets used to sleeping with you, and the baby gets bigger and takes up more of the bed…

Of course, this is a highly personal decision and you may have legitimate reason to choose to have your baby sleep elsewhere. In that case, at least consider having the baby’s crib in your bedroom for a while. You won’t save money, but you’ll get more sleep that way. So you’ll be happier, which will make life simpler.

Okay, good to know I wasn’t complete devoid of all compassion in my mid-forties.

287. Cut your children’s hair. Watch some videos about it. Pay attention to how your hair stylist cuts your and/or your spouse’s hair, and endeavor to imitate. Better, let a pro cut your child’s hair a few times, and watch them like a hawk. Then start doing it yourself. In the ideal world, you start practicing on a three-year-old so that by the time she (and everybody else) cares what her hair looks like, you’re an expert.

Or… not. While this may be a kind of creative outlet for some women, for many others learning to cut and then actually cutting hair is just another thing to cut into their already flagging executive function. Again, file it under “if we’re desperate to save as much money as we can.”

288. Don’t let your kids watch T.V. advertisements. The fewer toys they know about, the less begging and whining you will hear.

LOL, obviously I knew nothing about T.V. in the 2010s. Or how kids were actually spending their free time. I’m such a Gen-Xer.

289. Avoid the toy aisle in department stores when your kids are with you. See previous idea. And for mercy’s sake, never take them into a Toys ‘R’ Us! It will be hard enough to get them not to plead for the cool toys they play with at their friends’ houses.

Still agree with this one.

290. Don’t give allowances. Once your child is old enough to understand money, have them work for it. At the very least, whatever money you give them should be based on them having fulfilled certain basic requirements for the past week or month: making their bed, speaking respectfully to all members of the family, cleaning up after themselves, taking their turn at clearing the table, etc.

Agree, but I could have been a little more diplomatic about it. Phrased it better.

291. Teach your children to save. Many Americans who get into debt and live paycheck to paycheck as adults don’t do so because of a low income, but because they were never taught to save. Every time you pay your child her wages, have her set aside at least ten percent of it in a jar that she is to save for something big in the future. Once your child is old enough to get a job, this mini-nest egg will grow quite rapidly. Now she will be able to buy big-ticket items out of her own stash, instead of dipping into yours.

I agree with the principle, but again, if you’re neurodivergent, your child might be, too. They’re not necessarily going to go out and get a job as a teenager, maybe not until they’re well into their twenties. And if they do but have ADHD, you’ll have to do a lot of coaching to keep them from spending impulsively.

292. Encourage older kids to have their own garden. Start teaching your preschoolers how to plant and take care of, say, a tomato plant or small strawberry patch. By the time they are ten, they will be able to nurture their own small garden plot. The rule will be: whatever you can grow there, you get to eat. Of course they will have their fair share of the larger family garden, but when a growing child can have access to food that he has grown himself he will help save on the family food budget.

This could be fun if you have the space and you put it in a positive light, maybe turn it into a family challenge. But I couldn’t get my son interested in growing food, and you might have the same experience.

293. Make your teenagers get a job. Most young people are capable of juggling a part-time after- school job as well as school work (this is even easier if you are homeschooling). I believe that if a kid wants a car, he should pay for it himself. Ditto for expensive designer jeans or tennis shoes. If he wants a college education, his parents shouldn’t have to give up their retirement dreams to fund it.

Like I said two “how to save money with kids” tips earlier…

Also, I was obviously completely out of touch with how much higher education costs these days.

If you have a budding entrepreneur in the house, he likely has his own ideas about how he can make money with a small part-time business. Talk about the possibilities, get him books on marketing (go to amazon.com and search “guerrilla marketing”), and help him get organized and focused.

In my dreams, lol.

294. Every kid doesn’t need her own cell phone or iPad. If you send your kids to a school, and the administration requires all students to have an iPad, the school should foot the bill for it. Make sure that your child has the radiation protection discussed earlier.

Oh, did I mean those scam devices that actually do nothing? For a health scare that was never real?

Again, I was out of touch with reality here RE schools and technology.

If you use an iPad as a homeschooling tool, children can share.

Regarding cell phones: maybe when a child is sixteen or seventeen years old, she would do well to have her own phone. But she should pay for both the phone, and part of the service for the phone.

Younger children should only have a cell phone when they are away from their family. And in such a case, the phone would be used only to call a parent in case of an emergency. No texting, no frivolous calls.

Call me old-fashioned. I will heartily agree with you.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes to the last two paragraphs. I am still old-fashioned when it comes to limiting technology to pre-teen children. They need to learn to play, laugh, converse, and not lose their innocence, optimism, and creativity as early as phones and video games are causing them to do.