How to stay at home

aminser · March 2015

I quickly searched for this topic and didn't see it so I apologize if it has been discussed. Have any moms found a way to make some income for the family while staying home? Basically, when our second arrives I will be working to pay for daycare and be bringing home only 300-400
Dollars a month. We can do without that money however I carry our insurance. My hubby's insurance is triple the costs that we pay now. So, in order to stay home I would need to supplant the additional
Insurance costs. All of those work from home seem
Like scams...and I live in a new place without a huge family/friend base so selling directly may not work. Anyone been in a similar situation and made it work??

Miz_Liz · March 2015

I sell stuff on Ebay. I also know lots of people who have very successful Etsy businesses if you are creative.

BrianandKatie2012 · March 2015

I decided to work and only bring in about $400 bc of the benefits. It's such a hard decision!

Miz_Liz · March 2015

BreezyMeema said:
Instead of worrying about bringing in additional income, would cutting expenses to balance your budget work? I have been a SAHM since 2012 and haven't looked back since. It definitely takes some work and discipline but me and H knew that this is how we were/are going to raise our family. Some quick examples off the top of my head are: bulk grocery shopping, meal planning, no cable, bake your own bread, thrift store shopping, gardening, etc are all ways that have helped my family save money so I can SAH.

Great point! Other things you can look at: joining your cell phone plan (or can you eliminate one?)...if you have a home phone, change over to magic jack instead of a monthly service. Find a bank with rewards checking or other perks - there is one around here that will pay you $20 a month if you meet certain criteria. Also factor in the money you will save on gas if you are not driving to and from work every day. Switch your insurance so that your car is a "leisure" vehicle if you are not working daily. You could babysit a kid at your house for extra $$....lots of options.

malamaza · March 2015

I work from home as a travel agent but its not really something you could just start doing without previous experience or knowledge. It would be great if you could get like a data entry job or similar that you could do at your own leisure... Good luck hun!

jadetree1080 · March 2015

I am exactly in the same boat. I want to stay home once baby comes. My husband is totally supportive of it and since I don't make much money at my job anyway he assures me that if I stay home and do more of the house stuff he could get more clients, do more work to make up the $ difference. The problem is insurance. My work covers all of us, me, him, his 3 kids and soon baby. The out of pocket costs to get private insurance for all of us is over $1k a month in premiums alone!!! Even if after day care costs I'm not bringing home anything it seems I'm going to have to go back to work just for the health care benifits. But I would love to hear how others are affording health insurance while staying at home.

cosplaymom · March 2015

You should start adjusting your spending now, rather than waiting. Make a list of all the financial changes too, what money you will not have, and what expenses you will no longer have (eg commute costs). Are you living paycheck to paycheck now or do you save money each month? Account for that too because that's money you don't have to make up for really. After everything if the difference is only $300 then surely isn't there someway to make that every month? Reduce your bills, sell stuff, pull it out of emergency funds as a last resort?

cosplaymom · March 2015

Oh, disclaimer for me, I get free health insurance through my husband's job so I'm actually paying less for it now than when I was working full-time.

Miz_Liz · March 2015

@jadetree1080 is your husband self employed? If not, can you get insurance through his company? We are on DH's insurance, but we were also fortunate that we were already on his so we did not have to make any changes when I quit my job.

JemHolo2015 · March 2015

aminser said:
I quickly searched for this topic and didn't see it so I apologize if it has been discussed. Have any moms found a way to make some income for the family while staying home? Basically, when our second arrives I will be working to pay for daycare and be bringing home only 300-400
Dollars a month. We can do without that money however I carry our insurance. My hubby's insurance is triple the costs that we pay now. So, in order to stay home I would need to supplant the additional
Insurance costs. All of those work from home seem
Like scams...and I live in a new place without a huge family/friend base so selling directly may not work. Anyone been in a similar situation and made it work??

Appreciating that you would be breaking even on childcare now if you work, just curious if you've also thought about the impact on future earning potential if you stay home. I have several friends who work and their entire salary goes to daycare, or they even work at a bit of a loss right now. But their future earnings potential is much higher if they don't temporarily exit the workforce. Better to only bring in $400/month now and make 30% more in 5 years when your little one is in Kindergarten than to stop working now and find out your earnings potential has decreased by 30% when you want to go back.

I think it's a perfectly fine choice to stay home if that's what you want. My husband is going to stay home, which is worse for us financially but we both want one of us to be home for the first few years. My only point is that if you are making the decision based on finances, just make sure you're considering both the short and long run financial implications.

jadetree1080 · March 2015

@Miz_Liz yes, he is self employed. So no health insurance on his side. If I quit my job we could probably qualify to put the kids on the state health care but he and I wouldn't have coverage. And it just feels wrong to do that when I am physicly able to work, just not wanting to. Health insurance is just so damn expensive, it is certainly the biggest challenge for us when I consider staying home.

WDDCH · March 2015

Look into medical sharing. We have Christian Healthcare Ministries. It is recognized by ObamaCare as being acceptable insurance but it technically isn't "insurance" and there are no "networks" - you can go anywhere you want and send CHM the bills. They negotiate the bill and then pay on your behalf. You have to file everything, not the medical office or hospital. My midwife also has CHM. She had double hip replacement surgery and CHM got the bills cut down to almost half AND paid for the final balance in full.

My prenatal care and birth are covered in full.

We pay three units (husband, wife and all our kids are considered one unit even though there are five, soon six, of them). We pay $450 a month for a family of seven (soon eight).

Look into other insurance options. You don't have to take his insurance that is offered through his employer.

aminser · March 2015

Cutting back is definitely doable:..we have some savings and don't live paycheck to paycheck..:but don't want to live in our savings since we won't be able to contribute as much without my earnings. However, our insurance will go from 300 a month..:I have great insurance as I work for a university...so almost 1k a month....so I don't know that cutting back can cover all of that as we still have some bills...I thought about babysitting...I have an education background/advanced degree and 9 years in an elementary setting...so maybe that is an option. Going to try and crunch numbers for ridding cable and reducing cell iPhones and insurance and see how much that can help save. I do agree where there is a will there a way...damn insurance:)

sandrabrooke · March 2015

I'd love to stay at home but since I can already command six figures and I have a ton of career momentum ill keep working! Future earnings are a big deal.

megastar007 · March 2015

I have a fairly successful Etsy shop and am also a distributor for Young Living Essential Oils. I didn't start using the oils with the intention of "selling" them, but it has worked out that I am able to have all of my oils paid for plus a few hundred dollars extra per month on top of that.

Miz_Liz · March 2015

sandrabrooke said:
I'd love to stay at home but since I can already command six figures and I have a ton of career momentum ill keep working! Future earnings are a big deal.

I walked away from six figures. And I don't regret it. I think it really depends on what your situation is, how much you are working, if you are happy, etc. It was NOT an easy decision for me because I made good money, but I got lucky (in a weird way) that my region got changed and I knew I did not want to be traveling as far as was going to be required and so it was easier to walk away. We are fortunate that DH makes good money too so we are not struggling on the one income. Would it be nice to be saving more each month towards college educations, etc.? Of course, but the way we see it I will probably choose to go back to work once the kids are in school and then we will take my entire income and put it towards savings since we know we can live without it.

visualcircus · March 2015

I will be transitioning from a job I love to a stay at home mom (not really by choice due to family move- I would love to take maternity leave and keep working) After about 6 months, I'll start looking to work again. Even though its 6 months, the identity shift is going to be hard for me, since I base a lot of my success on how much I'm producing and contributing. While at home, I've thrown around ideas of making websites using wordpress, and looking into remote/virtual jobs to do engineering consulting.

trudytudy · March 2015

After a few months of going back to work after my last baby I decided to go part time at my job. We cut extra expenses, no cable, and save money where we can. Since his company doesn't provide insurance we got insurance through the healthcare exchange aka obamacare. I am also going to watch another child a few days a week. It works out and we are all happy with the arrangement.

oliviaf11 · March 2015

My mom has been giving me Arbonne products for a few years since she is a consultant. I love the products so much that I am joing as a consultant myself to help bring in some extra money for us especially since my husbands job may have us moving this summer.

shmarpler · March 2015

I realized that if I watch one child in my home, I will make the same as if I were still working full time and having to pay for child care.

larthur13 · March 2015

I am in the same boat. I started selling Plexus which is doing good and thinking of things I can make and sell on etsy. Good luck with everything, I'm sure you will find something.

Hairdesignee6 · March 2015

I am a hairstylist and my company considers 30 hours a week full time to get benefits and we are moving into a town home we bought to be closer to my sister who is a stay at home mom which will be watching our little one about 2-3 days a week and my husband will be watching our boy one of those days

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