Cost of Living in Arkansas

http://www.foxnews.com/

Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year's Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins.

"We've had three in January, three in December. Those two months are a busy time for us," she said, laughing.

The Duggars' oldest child, Josh, is 20, and the youngest, Jennifer, is nine months old.

The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are home-schooled.

Duggar said she's six weeks along and the pregnancy is going well. She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they'll keep having children as long as God wills it.

"The success in a family is first off, a love for God, and secondly, treating each other like you want to be treated," Jim Bob Duggar said. "Our goal is for each one of our children to be best friends, and everybody working together to serve each other makes that happen."

The other Duggar children, in between Joshua and Jennifer, are Jana, 18; John-David, 18; Jill, 16; Jessa, 15; Jinger, 14; Joseph, 13; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 10; Jeremiah, 9; Jedidiah, 9; Jason, 7; James, 6; Justin, 5; Jackson, 3; and Johannah, 9 months.

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I wonder what it must be like to live in a family like the Duggars. Even being one of five children was sometimes difficult. Little privacy, lots of responsibility, and little one-on-one time with parents. On the plus side, there was always someone to tag around with. And get-togethers are more enjoyable considering we didn't have cousins growing up (Russell is older than my two youngest cousins).

The cost of living in California (well, in an overpopulated area) is high. I buy groceries twice a week (TJ's and Safeway) just because produce doesn't keep long (we eat a lot of berries and bananas and avacados) and I like to buy some junk food (chips, hot dogs, drinks) for the weekend when Dan is home. He puts up with the healthy meals during the week so I don't mind;-) Gas is now over $4/gallon. Thankfully, our gas bill is only about $150/month because Dan's commute is only 20 minutes and I just putter around town (we used to spend $40/month when we lived in SD and Dan was deployed and we only had the one car).

I suppose in Arkansas, providing for 18 children is still tight, but living on a farm would help. The land is pretty out there (in a flat, endless kinda way). Too far from an ocean, though. I went out to Arkansas in 1999 to visit friends from my days at Palomar Camp. With the solid foundation the Duggar children are getting, I am sure they will all succeed in where God leads them. I'm sure they know how to deal with selfishness!

So, how many automatic dishwashers to you think their house has???