Stay at Home Moms

Want to be a stay-at-home mom

I'm a working Mommy and desperately want to be able to afford to stay at home with my son. We try to watch our money, but I'm not sure what else I can do to make this happen. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Jamie

Re: Want to be a stay-at-home mom

  • For starters, even working moms raise their children, they just have assistance during the day while they are at work.  Smile

    Now if you haven't already done so you need to create a spreadsheet or use an online tool like mint.com to keep track of every penny spent and I do mean every single penny.   This will give you and your husband a visual of where all the money goes.  Then start living off of just your husband's salary and bank yours into an account that is not used to pay bills.  This will give you a reality check if it is feasible for you to stay home or not.  Look at where you can make cuts, of course you will save on daycare costs, if you eat out for lunch or your husband does, consider packing lunches to save money.  See how much you can save on car insurance if you change your driving status to recreational use(not using your car for work/school is considered recreational).

  • Thanks for the suggestions -- and I edited my post so as to not offend anyone; that wasn't my intent -- I didn't realize how it sounded - thanks
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  • iteachkiteachk member
    We took more than a 50% cut in income when I quit.  To prepare, we moved to a smaller house & do not drive new cars.  Our mortgage is not a huge amount, and we have no car payments.  And it helps that our health & DH's car insurance, our cell phones & bills, gas for our cars, and several other things are paid for by DH's work now.
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  • Also if you haven't looked at our FAQ section it is located in the header section of our sahm home page.  There are some good threads in there that may give you some ideas too.
  • For us, being able to stay at home means continuing to rent (a house with a yard, on the positive side) rather than buying a home. Vacations are now things like camping or a weekend at the beach. I clip coupons, we use pay-as-you-go cells now (downgrade from my iphone, sad) and we only eat out a few times per month, usually with coupons. I don't mind at all since it means I am doing what I want with DD most of the time! :) I should add - DH is currently in school, so it helps to know that he will be (hopefully) making more money in the near future and we will be able to have more financial freedom and home-ownership.

    Are there areas that you could cut back to make things work? It really depends on how big of a gap there is in your budget without your income and how much you are able or want to sacrifice/cut back. Hope everything works out for you :) There are definitely positives and negatives to every situation.

    DD1: Maya 05/10
    DD2: Lucia (Lucy) 07/13
  • Thank you all so much for your suggestions. I really appreciate it!

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