You paint such a vivid picture, beautiful writing. I’m in Canada and my grandmother spent her day doing similar things, minus the goats but with the addition of tending an enormous vegetable garden, canning and preserving since she had 10 mouths to feed and money was tight. Catholic, so church duties as well. She was a ‘stay at home mother’ but definitely didn’t spend the day doing enriching activities with the children. It’s a wonder they all made it through.

I agree it’s a bad idea and the coming rate increase is also concerning from what you describe. If they’d go for it maybe sit down and determine what you can save together every month, perhaps you can save the 15K and then in 18 months you will all also be in the habit of setting some money aside so you’ll be more prepared when the mortgage payments go up which they inevitably will.

It feels tight to me. We pay $4400 a month these days thanks to variable rate (used to be $3400) but not otherwise comparable since our HHI is more than double yours and we are older. But depends on your lifestyle. This could work if you have no other debt and a half decent cushion of savings and are mostly homebodies. And don’t plan to drop a lot of money on a big wedding or getting a car or a bigger car (which people who have kids also often feel they need). You’ll be wedded to that mortgage for a long time so if you have a kid let alone more than one I’d be crossing my fingers for one of those $10/day childcare spots.

While you decide, you should try living on your planned budget and saving the difference to see how comfortable it is to live with that amount of discretionary spending.

You can also anonymously report to the Ministry’s LTC action line, 1-866-434-0144 an inspector should follow up. Thank you for being vigilant on behalf of your residents

I have teenagers. I’d pay the yard kid $15/hr and rather than for specific jobs I’d start by having him come over for a set number of hours at first and see what he can get done from your list in that time. Like have him come for 3-4 hours to start, or a day on the weekend. It’s simpler and more akin to working where you have a shift so you can see how he works plus it’s good practice for him and he’ll know what his “hours” are.

For the 10 year old I’d pay $10-$12/hr for “babysitting” depending on # of kids and how much of a handful they are since she isn’t doing it independently. When she’s able to fully babysit for you (if she wants to do that, rather than yard work) I’d likely adjust that upward depending on circumstances. Babysitting rates are very local. I live in a city where it’s competitive to find a good babysitter. My teens would be looking for $15/hr. A good reliable babysitter is like finding gold and if you don’t pay them enough when they are teens they’ll get some other job that will, or be poached by other families who pay more.