How do you afford it?!

Where we live the weather just decided to get super nice, which would be fine if my kids had spring clothes. The older boys are fine, they have grown much this year-thank God they grew three sizes last year and Brooke is ok, she doesn't grow very fast so it's safe to buy a size up from what she's wearing and have it fit the following season. However, the other five all need clothes. This is honestly one of the hardest parts of having a large family. Budgeting for our family is something we didn't do very well last year and we paid for it, literally, so now we're making up for our stupidity and hoping it doesn't happen again. We've noticed however, clothes might be the easiest of the things we need to buy. Most of our kids wear the same size, the older boys all finally wear the same size, Estella and Callie wear the same size, Savannah and Brooke, and Ryker and Skyler do too. Not that the last group helps too much, but I'll take what I can get. Anyway, buying clothes has become a lot easier for us than it was last year when we had kids in what seemed to be every size. Now we just walk into a thrift store and buy all the clothes they have of the size we need and we're set! That was one lesson we learned the hard way, buy used. We were spending so much on clothes it was kind of pathetic we made the decision to start only buying our kids clothes at thrift stores, aside from holidays and birthdays, and so far that has helped out a lot. The thing we struggle with budgeting for is food, we never go hungry but we always spend A LOT more than I plan. I always walk into Target with my list and coupons even if I buy exactly what is on the list we end up spending more than I budgeted so we have to adjust things other places. Part of me wishes I could just take the time and read about how to become an extreme couponer, but the other part of me realizes that I can't afford to take that time away from kids because according to the show they have about it couponing is often someone's full time job so no thanks to that one. So to answer everyone's question of how we afford a family of 11 in today's economy I really have no idea, we just do it. I'm not sure what the secret is, I haven't figured that out yet but I do know my kids never go without even if it means I don't get to have everything I want, but I mean hey that's what being a mom is all about.