A mom-of-14 revealed that she spends just $75,600 annually on food, bills, and clothes for her family—and says her large family is her “treasure.”
Sarah Wolfgramm, 48, and her husband, Haini, 56, a musician, had always dreamed of having a big family.
To run her household, Mrs. Wolfgramm spends $6,300 a month, out of which $2,700 is used on mortgage payments, $1,200 on food, $2,000 on bills, and $400 on necessities. But the “thrifty” mom—a caterer from Redlands, California—spends her money wisely, buying discounted clothes and items and purchasing food at wholesale prices.
Mrs. Wolfgramm, who has given birth to 14 children over 21 years, says each pregnancy has only gotten “easier,” and that for her, “giving birth is like riding a bike.”
The couple has ten daughters together—Eve, 27; Isabella, 24; Tihané, 23; Nora May, 18; Hazel, 17; Mary, 13; Vaké, 11; Sariah, who passed away at 3 months old; Lynnae, 8; and Joy, 6—and four sons—Heinrich, 26; Abraham, 21; Maikeli, 20; and Wesley, 15.
Mrs. Wolfgramm said: “Your family are your treasure, and when you start to see wealth in family—it’s easy.
“I have the gift of being thrifty and frugal. So we need a minimum $6,000 a month to run the house. I go to bargain bins, Goodwill [stores]; and use my catering business to get food at wholesale prices.
“When the kids want something not in the budget, like a brand-new t-shirt, they work for it and buy it themselves. The older kids pitch in and take care of their personal needs such as phone bills.”
The couple have been together for 30 years and come from big families themselves, and they shared the dream of having lots of children. They welcomed their first child, Eve, 27, in May 1996. Mrs. Wolfgramm assumed she would stop having children once she had her “baker’s dozen” until her 12th child, Sariah, passed away from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDs) at just 3 months old.
She said: “Sariah was our beautiful little girl. She gave me my baker’s dozen, and so I thought I was done. But one day, she fell asleep in my husband’s arms while I was baking a cake. He put her downstairs, and when we checked on her, she wasn’t breathing.
“It broke all of our hearts. She was the youngest in the family, and it rocked all of our worlds just knowing one of us could be taken in an instant. As we grieved as a family, our children asked us to consider having another baby because they didn’t want their perception of babies to end on that note.
“It was so scary saying goodbye to my baby and not knowing what was next, but I left it in God’s hands. Shortly after that, I was blessed with my rainbow baby, Lynnae. She put a rainbow over all of our broken hearts. We assumed we were done.
“We had a baker’s dozen but then, another rainbow baby, Joy, came when I was 42. We know that my youngest two were sent by Sariah, who is up in heaven, and we all feel comfort knowing we have an angel on the other side watching over us.”
Mrs. Wolfgramm says she has lots of patience and support to help her run her busy household.
“We have a huge resource of extended family—aunts, uncles, and cousins—who are always happy to help,” she said.
The family lives in a six-bedroom house with three bathrooms along with Mrs. Wolfgramm’s parents, Carl Knapp, 74, and Lynn Knapp, 73. They each share a room, apart from Eve, who has her own after Tihané moved out. Heinrich, Bella, and Maikeli have also fled the nest and don’t live under the same roof.
“It’s weird, the house feels empty,“ Mrs. Wolfgramm said. ”We homeschool the kids because it works best for our schedule, and it means I can stay on top of everything.
“The household is a very well-oiled machine, and my eldest daughter has the self-appointed role of keeping everyone in line. Each month, each kid is assigned one house task that they have to keep on top of and that rotates, so they all try different things. But obviously, if I notice something needs to be done, I'll do it.”
Mrs. Wolfgramm puts on 21 loads of washing a week to get through the dirty laundry. She doesn’t make the family sit down for a regular meal every day, but she always cooks dinner.
“I only do one meal a day. At dinner, I set it all out on the counter, and kids can take it whenever,” she said. “I leave it out so that when the kids come in and out in the evening they can grab whatever they want.
“You have to go with the ebb and flow of who needs what. It never works according to plan, you just have to take it one day at a time.”
