Affording To Stay to Home

Nursenic78 · May 2015

Hi ladies,I know there is no simple answer to this but I guess I'd like some feedback about how you went from a 2 income family to a one income family. I have pretty much realized that I cannot have a 2nd child and handle working full time. Has anyone sold their house and moved somewhere cheaper/smaller to achieve this? Currently my husband ad I both work full time and have a 6 year old but want to have another child. Any feedback would be appreciated.

hayleydeee · May 2015

We did sell our house and move to a cheaper living situation for a couple of years. When I found out my second pregnancy was twins we knew our 900 sq ft house wasn't going to be a good fit, but couldn't afford a bigger one. Money was already tight.

So we sold our house (for about 500K) and moved to a manufactured home that was half that price. It was twice the size, new(ish) and SO nice! It turned out to be cheaper than renting a comparable apartment, but we didn't have to share walls. We just had to get over the stigma of living in a "trailer"

! Then when we sold it about two years later we even made about 100k in profit!

The other thing I did at first was find any way I could to cut costs. I wan't bringing extra money in, but I could control how much went out. I knew where every dollar was going before it even came in. We cut all cable and had the most basic cell phone plans. We stopped eating out, going to movies or doing any extras. It was rough, but we made it work.

Boonhilde · May 2015

We've never both had jobs at the same time. He worked while I finished up my bachelor's, then I worked while he got his credential/master's. Then he got a job teaching and I had a baby. We're swimming in a giant ocean of student loan debt. DH is now, while I'm pregs with second baby, getting another master's online while working. We don't think we'll be able to afford a third baby, but I'd rather go to work and have a bigger family than stay home and have a smaller family. But I'm also turning 35 this month!

Anyway! Point being, I'm going to work when our youngest starts school. Right now we survive by living in inexpensive rental homes, DH's GI Bill and student loans. Thank you years in the Navy, and thank you more debt!

Meagain31 · June 2015

Boonhilde said:
We've never both had jobs at the same time. He worked while I finished up my bachelor's, then I worked while he got his credential/master's. Then he got a job teaching and I had a baby. We're swimming in a giant ocean of student loan debt. DH is now, while I'm pregs with second baby, getting another master's online while working. We don't think we'll be able to afford a third baby, but I'd rather go to work and have a bigger family than stay home and have a smaller family. But I'm also turning 35 this month!

Anyway! Point being, I'm going to work when our youngest starts school. Right now we survive by living in inexpensive rental homes, DH's GI Bill and student loans. Thank you years in the Navy, and thank you more debt!

If you are living off student loans you need to get a job.

mamaskittles09 · June 2015

I cringed at the living on student loans as well. Absolutely no judgement here, I was an advisor at Great Lakes and heard every day how crippling student loans debt can be. Families making 6 figure incomes struggling to beat just the interest rates to their principal every month. Average interest rates range from 4-9%! Definitely not designed to live on, and certainly designed so people who are trying to better their lives for themselves and their families end up hanging themselves! It's disgusting and your not alone. Do what you've got to do to get by, that's what we all for our families! Just be very careful! People everywhere are digging themselves in pits they can't get out of.

saiyurri · June 2015

I guess we've been living off pretty much a single income for a while now since my work cut my hours down after coming back from my honeymoon in Oct last year. I was a casual and went from working pretty much full-time hours (min 35hrs a week) to only getting 8-15 hours a week (managed to pick up extra shifts over the Christmas period though).

After having lost all my hours and not getting maternity leave anyway it's made my decision to be a SAHM easy at least since I'm not losing a whole lot more money.

We're still managing to pay the mortgage luckily so no need to sell and downgrade the house, we've just had to change a few of our lifestyle choices is all.

To save money when Bub gets here I'm planning on using cloth nappies (it costs a bit to start up but then just laundry costs after), have made cloth baby wipes out of old flannelette sheets and plan on breastfeeding if possible.

Pretty much all of our baby stuff we've gotten as presents or for free 2nd hand. Our parents and grand parents bought us all the large stuff (crib, change table, car seat and pram) and I've inherited the family bassinet that my grand father made 55+ years ago when my mum's older brother was born (used for him, my mum, my sister and myself). We've been lucky that one of the guys my hubby works with had LOADS of baby clothes and a few toys, etc he needed to get rid of so gave them to us for free and my mum found a lady giving away her old Pea Pod nappies for free so I managed to score them.

It's all added up, all I've had to do is buy a few more different types of cloth nappies to complete my stash and a couple of small things. Anything we don't have now is stuff we've decided we can do without and will get later if we change our minds. I think all up I've only spent about $600 on everything including wall decals to brighten up the nursery.

Now all we have to do is watch our spending on us for a while. My hubby has just downgraded his phone plan saving about $20+ a month, we're only using heating/cooling if we have guests around (our house stays pretty cool in summer anyway so winter we just rug up), I'm cutting down on use of the dryer and we're lucky enough to live relatively close to the shops/train station so we try to ride our bikes places if the weather permits, I have a basket, carrier and saddle bags on my bike so often take that when doing shopping and we'll probably get a baby seat or something for hubby's bike so we can continue to ride places. Food shopping is our hardest thing I've found, trying to keep a healthy balanced diet on a budget. My hubby works away so when he's not home it's cheap as I'm not a big eater but when he's back it's tough as most of the real cheap meals I make for myself he's not fond of. I've actually found a Thai restaurant that does delicious curries for very reasonable prices so occasionally get a few of them, cook up my own rice and 1 dish will do 2-3 meals so it's cheap as, plus they go great in the freezer.

npierce19 · June 2015

Yes, my husband and I have made many significant changes to make more money available for me to stay home. We sold our house in the city for starters. The money we made on the house allowed us to put down a sizable down payment on a smaller home in the near suburbs, fix it up, pay off the car and have around $30K in savings for an emergency fund. My husband renegotiated his pay structure to go from a 30/70 - salary/commission split to the opposite 70/30 - salary/commission split. The utilities are much cheaper in the new house, and pretty much every expense went down simply by moving out of the city. All of these changes are saving us around $3,000/mo.

Disneygeek77 · June 2015

We didn't sell our home but we did refinance and that helped out a lot.

My husband also changed his deductions so he could bring home more money with each paycheck instead of getting a bigger refund.

stlmomof2 · July 2015

We are currently saving for a house but with 2 kids we are getting a 3 bed with a basement eventually. You could downsize to cut costs that's not a bad idea.

DH got lucky and found a wonderful job that provides him with the ideal Work hours and benefits for us, he decided to keep his other job as well which he realllllly loves. So I got lucky and one day he just told me to stay at home he liked it better when I am a SAHM. He commented on how he loved the townhome always being clean, dinner ready when he gets home and knowing that his son is being taken care of. He said he would rather take that $ spending on childcare and use it towards our needs.

We haven't been able to save money as FAST as we used to but I am just blessed to be able to care for my son all the time.

SnowySnow · July 2015

I stay home during the Summer because I work at a University. When we first went from 2 to 1 incomes we did end up moving from a large metroplex to a small town at the end of the first year, in 2008-09 the economy where we were in was hopeless. We didn't have a fancy nursery, extravagant trips or money to eat out. We ate beans and tortillas as the main staple the first year. After moving I began working from home and only went back to a formal office this past year when my twins were in kinder. His job has taken off and we are comfortable but I'm always watching our back, saving just in case. I teach in the evenings and during the school year I save as much as possible.

Designermomma · July 2015

We've just started as of January down to 1 income. Fortunately, DH makes enough to cover all our expenses but my main concern was insurance (self employed) so we found an affordable individual insurance plan. We did cut cable and our phone and refinanced a few times. I coupon a lot and use shopping apps all I can. I try to plan meals so we don't waste ingredients and or freeze stuff. I also have an Etsy shop to make a little extra income here and there. I don't spend money on haircuts or fancy clothes for myself anymore (no need) so we are saving the money on daycare, fuel, dr bills (kids aren't sick), eating out. It adds up. Our plan is I would study and change careers to a high paying job and catch up on saving after a year or 2 of staying home.

Latina211508 · July 2015

Hi. I'm currently not working and I'm pregnant with my fourth baby. I worked but only a minimum wage job and I ended up quitting when I was pregnant with my second baby (I was 19 at the time). My husband wanted me to stay home to be able raise our kids. I'm now 24 and my husband is the only income we have. He's in the military and has a very good job. We live in south Cali and have a nice home etc. My husbands job also covers insurance so that's something we don't have to worry about which I know is expensive. I'll admit we wouldn't be in a great situation if it wasn't for my husbands job and I wouldn't be having a fourth child. I have been in and out of college but I am now waiting for my husbands GI bill so I can go to school full time since school is crazy expensive now. Especially since we don't want to be in any debt. I would like to go on to finish a bachelors degree. I hope the best for everyone. I would definitely cut down on things that are not necessities. One thing we did do years ago was not buy a second vehicle until our first was paid off. That was a struggle myself being without a car while my husband was working (long hours). But definitely worth it now.

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