I’ve come to the place where I really dislike “labels” — you know “stay-at-home mom” versus “working mom” and such. Honestly, I think that the so-called “Mommy Wars” really do nothing profitable and serve to just divide and frustrate women, rather than building up and encouraging women.
That said, I know some of you have written in recently asking about how to make the jump from work-outside-the-home mom to stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. So, I wanted to pass along this post I wrote in response to a question that my friend Tricia received recently on how to prepare financially to be a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom in the future. If this is a subject you’re currently considering, I thought you might find this post helpful:
Considering make the switch from a working woman to a stay-at-home homeschooling mom? While it might seem daunting, it can be done — if you’re willing to get creative, put forth some effort, and think outside the box:
1) Get on a Written Budget
This is vitally important. If you don’t tell your money where to go, it will just slip through your fingers like sand.
A written budget puts you in control. No longer is your money just slipping through your fingers like sand. Instead, you are telling it exactly where to go.
The beauty of a budget is that it gives you freedom. You don’t have to worry that by paying one bill, you’re not going to be able to pay another important bill. Why? Because you’ve already allotted enough money to cover both bills in your written budget.
If you’ve made the leap from working outside the home to staying home, I’d love to hear your advice and thoughts on this. Any words of encouragement or counsel for other moms considering making the switch? How have you pulled it off financially?
This happened quite a few years ago, but it is something I share as a testimony to God’s faithfulness. When we adopted our son we decided I should quit my job and stay home with him. I was making more money so our income was cut by about 55%. God convicted me that we should be tithing at the same time. After tithing, paying the bills and living on a bare bones budget we were still $75 short each month. I shared that prayer request with my Bible study at church. That week we recieved a notice in the mail with my husband’s student loan bill that his loan would be forgiven 20% a year if he worked in certain professions. Being a math teacher was one of them. Guess how much that bill was each month? $75! God was faithful and showed us so clearly that we were making the right decisions for our son and with our money.
Great advice, but what do you do when you and your husband aren’t on the same page. He doesn’t feel we can afford it (me to stay at home) and it’s true if we stay spending the way we do. On top of that I have health insurance through my job and would lose that. I don’t want to not honor my husband so I keep working but my heart breaks every day over leaving my little ones. I’m tired, my house is always a mess, we don’t have a lot of family time. But, he likes to have the extra money. What do I do?
I sat down and figured out how much I was spending to work – day care, gas, clothes, extra meals out, expensive clothes I bought the kids, Starbucks every morning, etc. Basically everything that we spent because I was working – not only the musts like day care, but all the things I felt I could justify buying because I worked and didn’t have time to yard sale, bargain shop, etc. Once I realized how much that was and subtracted from my income, there wasn’t much left. Then dh and I sat down and did a budget. Even if he would still like you to bring in some money, maybe you could work part time a couple of evenings a week or a weekend so you don’t have to incur any babysitting costs.
Leigh,
This is exactly what I am currently going through right now as well. My heart breaks leaving my little guy every day to go to work, but my husband feels strongly that we need the financial security of us both working right now. We have talked about me staying home over and over again and it always ends the same way, with him saying he will support my decision but he doesn’t fully agree it is the best move for our family. Ugh, well I can’t really see myself being okay with staying home knowing those are his thoughts. Anyone else have a similar dilemma at their house and how are you handling it??
I became a SAHM about 18 months ago, following the birth of our fourth son. We didn’t do a lot of planning ahead financially beforehand, and looking back I wish we would have, but regardless, God has been faithful!
We follow the Dave Ramsey plan. Prior to my quitting work, we paid off our last debt (a car loan), and my husband got a promotion – but his pay wasn’t fully raised for over a year, so we lived on a lot less at the beginning. Part of his taking this promotion was an agreement for him to travel, and it only made sense for me to be there 100% for our kids – as our oldest was starting full time school the same year. But please know that this is something we BOTH desired for our family.
We manage to SAVE more on one income than we ever did on two – even though we now pay out of pocket for health insurance through my husband’s company (about $400/month for a family of 6, compared to FREE insurance through my previous employer…yes, that one hurt a little bit ;), and had very cheap child care (family and a part time sitter) through 6 years of working full time with my first 3 sons.
Things that help us:
1. Prayer, trust, and tithing 10% + of our income to the Lord
2. Written budget & cash envelope system – every month we meet to discuss
3. Communication (I cannot emphasize this enough!) between spouses
4. Establish what’s really a WANT vs. a NEED ~ for example, for us, DH always “needed” new books or coffee on the way to work, I always “needed” to spend $100+ at Target ….um, nope we were both wrong! 🙂
5. Buy everything that you can used – clothing, books, toys, electronics, etc.
6. Handmake as much as you can – food, laundry soap, gifts, gift wrap, cards, etc – the savings really add up!
7. Say NO a lot – to eating out, to kis begging at the grocery aisle check out, to unplanned events that end up costing a lot of money, to not having a menu plan, etc.
8. CONNECT ~ as a SAHM, it’s also important to stay connected: to your friends, old co-workers, family, to the outside world, etc. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed or depressed when you change roles, even if it’s a positive change that you desired. It took me about 6 months to find a New Normal following quitting my job, but I can say now that I love my current job the most!
I also connected to a local MOPS group. What a wonderful blessing this group has been in my (and my husband’s and childrens’) life!
Thanks for the suggestions, but talking to him about this is a mute point. He likes being able to have things. We’ve talked about wants vs needs but it never gets anywhere. It just hurts. I see other families do it and make the sacrifices, but we can’t. I just keep praying and I often just pray God will help me to balance the two as it looks like I will never be able to stay at home.
If someone wants to be a SAHM, they should live off only one salary from the beginning. I see so many unhappy women who want to stay at home but have committed themselves to a lifestyle they, their husbands, or both don’t want to give up. If you never get used to two salaries, it won’t be such a shock to give one of them up.
Expect curve balls. Your plan might be awesome on paper and in your head, but sometimes life gives you things that you don’t expect; be flexible enough to adjust. Financial planning is a big part of that flexibility, but being able to adapt to new situations emotionally is important, too.
My babies are now 19 and 15, but I was a stay-at-home mom for 18 years! The best thing we did to prepare, other than develop a budget, was this: the last year that I worked full-time, we put ALL my earnings into savings, and learned to live on one income. It made it much less scarey to “learn” how to live on less while we actually still had my income to fall back on when we didn’t do such a good job. That year of “learning” was the best thing we could have done. It helped us prove to ourselves that we could do it and that we weren’t going to suffer eating beans and rice for the next several years!
If you are looking for some wholesome DVDs you might enjoy http://www.piusmedia.com/ It is very similar to Netflix in that it provides a way to enjoy DVDs without having to purchase every single DVD. The selection of DVDs on
Pius Media were carefully chosen so as to provide very wholesome products. There is a category specifically dedicated to home school resources and other categories that could creatively be tied into Christmas/Easter themes, faith formation lessons, and character development. There are also a number of movies that would be appropriate for a family movie night. They also have a wide selection of titles organized so you can easily find something special say for children, to encourage teens, or delight a sports enthusiasts. Also, for the saints in the making among you, your cup will run over with inspirational examples. You can get DVDs for as low as $8.50 a month. Enjoy!
Before I had my son, I thought I was going to return to work but after our sweet baby was born in 2010, so was my intense desire to stay home with him. I couldn’t agree with you more Crystal on having a budget in place and being on the same page with your spouse. They were an essential element to making it work for us. It also took a lot of faith that God would provide. But it required action on my part as well: I needed wisdom!
I never thought it would be possible to stay at home. But the Lord totally new my heart. I prayed like crazy asking the Lord for wisdom to spend wisely so I could stay home. My prayer was answered when I found your blog in Feb 2011.
I spent so many hours reading your blog to help us make it work. Learning to be a “home economist” has allowed me to stay home with my son.
I’m so grateful!
I wanted to add that it’s not just reading what you write but applying a lot of your money saving and home management techniques have allowed me to continue staying home while meeting our financial goals.
Being open to being creative with your resources and learning to be continent (I know I’ve share that before) have been big for me.
If I was to encourage anyone who may want to stay home I would say: read Money Saving Mom and other great books that talk about finance, apply what works well for your family and enjoy the journey!
I meant content. 🙂
We made this move a few years ago and it was not easy but I’m positive it was the right move. It was very hard to trim down the budget but what helped us was our plan and the fact that we had almost a year to plan. We took that time to try our best to only use my husband’s income and put mine into savings, this helped a lot because we did have a few bumps in the road during the year but it really showed us how we were going to need to live when I quit working outside the home.
Yet another post with perfect timing for me! Crystal, you’re my hero!
That post is full of such practical, needed advice. Lots of wisdom there!
I worked part time nights as an RN (ugh!) until right before my #3 was born. If I could do it all over again, the biggest financial preparation I would make is in my thinking. While I prepared us financially on paper, I had not prepared myself mentally.
It is a radical shift in thinking to move from 2-incomes-go-to-the-store-whenever-I-want to 1 income and only near payday. We had to really evaluate wants vs. needs and what I learned about myself wasn’t pretty. I missed the boat on being content in that first year or two.
Thankfully, the Lord has shaped my thinking and life couldn’t be more sweet after taking the plunge to be a SAHM, homeschooling mom.
Everyone has really great advice! I’ve been a SAHM for just over 5 years now! I worked in management at a phone company while my husband was a fast food manager and I never thought it was possible to live off of his salary and health benefits. However, you can do it!! It isn’t easy and we live in ways that other people don’t believe. For example, we don’t have cable, new cars, new phones and I do a lot of cooking. BUT it can be done and we now hav 4 children. Personally, I think we live BETTER than we did when I was working. My husband advocates for women to stay home and says that he has never second guessed our decision for me to stay home.
The best advice that I can give, is when you are ready to stay at home. Keep working for another month. Take all of your salary and stick it in an emergency fund. This way when something unexpected comes up, you have a little rainy day fund…AND you can try out your budget and see what adjustments need to be made. This also gave me a little peace of mind that we could live off of just my husband’s check. It’s a difficult month, because you have to cook a little more and work…but it was worth my peace of mind.
My oldest is only 3 (also have a 2 year old and 7 week old) so we haven’t started formally homeschooling yet, but my husband and I knew from before we were married that once kids came into the picture I would need to be at home. I was a teacher for a couple years before that happened, and looking back I wish we had worked harder at saving more before I quit… but God has been faithful to provide every step of the way. My husband has never had a high paying job by any means (started out in the mid 20Ks and now in the 30K’s) so the biggest thing for us has been to have different expectations that most of our society has in terms of material possessions. We firmly believe that our kids will benefit more from my being home with them on a daily basis than they will from having more stuff or a bigger home or nicer cars, etc. So depending on where you are in regard to your view of material things, that might be something you need to re-evaluate. If you are a reader of Money Saving Mom then you most likely are not overly concerned with having the best of everything, but I remember when we had 2 incomes I would’ve considered myself very frugal but now on one income with 3 kids, it’s at a whole new level. It may have happened out of necessity, but it has been for the better for us as a family for sure.
🙂 You can do it!
I made the switch when our son was born this spring, and it’s been tough at times. For me, the finances are not too difficult because we’re used to living on one income and putting the other in savings. But, I wasn’t prepared for the sense of…well…boredom. I was used to the fast pace of being a lawyer, and suddenly slowing down to a life of part-time work, cleaning, cooking and child care just wasn’t the same excitement. On bad days, I stay motivated by reminding myself of all the bad things about my former job which helps me appreciate staying home. Also, it helps to voice my feelings instead of pretending everything is great just because so many women appear to love being at home.
I was just going to leave a comment about this very thing. I have always been home myself but about 12 years ago I mentored a much younger neighbor during her coming home transition. Many days she just wanted to take the kids back to daycare and go back to work because she had no idea how hard it would be. I believe that it took her a year to finally settle into being home and many, many tears and hours of sitting at my kitchen table and talking about how to structure her days. It would be so helpful to have someone to help during the transition process.
I went from being a synthetic chemist for a pharmaceutical company, but in my case I was ready to go. I felt so strongly the pull to be at home, and not once have I wanted to go back (which really surprised me!). But by the time I stayed home we had six kids and juggling schedules was stressing me out. I joke that I have just as much work to do now that I am home but WAY less stress! 🙂
Heather, I would suggest that you incorporate outings into your schedule for you and your child. Visit storytime at your local library (you will find other moms there also looking for companionship). Take your child to the park, depending on the age of your child/children take them along somewhere to volunteer your time. I am a stay-at-home grandma that also deals with seasonal depression. We only have 1 vehicle which my husband used for work, so unless I walk somewhere to do all of these things I am stuck in the house. I make a point of walking daily. Sometimes just for a walk, other times to visit the library, park, pool, and volunteering. These things can truly change your mindset and help you get over the hump of staying at home and getting in a rut.
I’m sorry Heather. I’m assuming you have one small child. Trust me, it will get a lot more interesting as they grow and as you add to the family! You probably won’t be bored very long 🙂 Thank you for your honest response. As a working mother, I appreciate it.
Being a mom is hard, and in some ways being a stay-at-home mom is harder. I quit when my first was born, and while I was sure I was doing the right thing, it was SO hard to avoid depression when my whole day was cleaning, cooking, changing diapers and talking baby talk. It helps to talk about it, and also to create some structure for your days (including getting OUT of the house and seeing other adults – even if it’s just other moms at the library).
Secondly, I think it’s really important for a stay-at-home mom to have at least ONE area of her life that is not about her children. I joined a choir when my oldest was about a year old (I would have joined sooner if I had known that I could). I stress out sometimes about the rehearsals or difficult music to learn – but when I’ve had to take a vacation from it (like when my second child was born), I feel my whole mind just concentrating on my children and my house again, and I get very depressed. Whether it’s taking a class, or joining a sport or music group, a book club, or even a part-time job; it’s just good to have something that YOU want to do and that no one else is forcing you to do.
I agree with Antria. It’s good to have something that might just get you out f the house on your own. I am not a SAHM but I am a WAHM so sometimes I just NEED to leave the house even if its to take out the garbage. I do a book club. It only meets onces a month but tht is one night a month when I can go spend time with other women and I am outside the house. It’s a big help.
“appear” to love being at home.
It’ a challenge for many of us. And like someone else said, it is harder with just one child. I had a very challenging job prior to having kids, and it was a shock for me to transition. Many women on here seem to compensate by making themselves schedules, etc. I don’t care for that, but it may work for you.
And, it does get more rewarding mentally as they get older – especially school-age. I don’t homeschool, though. That would really make me lose my mind!
My children were in elementary school and I had a great job I loved. But I missed my children, my son kept getting very sick and both dh and I felt convicted that I should be at home, and homeschool. I first bought The Tightwad Gazette. This was the most important thing I initially did to start thinking and acting frugally. We set up a budget and for a few months just lived off dh’s income. I actually started lightly homeschooling during the summer, and we made the final decision to homeschool. My work actually saved my job for a year, and put someone temporary in place. After one year we knew we wanted to keep homeschooling. Later I did go back to work part time, and they let me work from home.
I like the idea of trying it out during the summer. See how it works, how everyone (including Mom and Dad) like it.
I highly recommend as soon as possible paring down to where you’re just living on your husband’s income ASAP. Even before you actually quit work. This makes the transition a bit more gradual and less shocking.
Also, look for ways to make money from home… Even if it’s just a little bit here and there. Use any free minutes you might have to work into some wahm ideas.
And, definitely pray and ask God to show you how to go about it. He knows your desires and He wants you with your kiddos teaching them as much as you can be! And He’s pretty big to handle quite a few roadblocks that might be in your way. 😉
Great advice and suggestions! I love The Other 8 Hours book for ideas of ways you can starting building income streams while still working full-time.
This is good advice, but I would also add: DON’T BURN YOUR PROFESSIONAL BRIDGES. The economy is dicey, and hopefully your spouse will not lose a job, but if that happens, it helps to have the option of jumping back in to your field, either part-time or on a contract basis. That’s advice I didn’t take, but after leaving the work force my husband was out of work twice, once for over a year, and our savings dwindled fast. You CAN work part-time and homeschool, and you really can’t predict what will happen in your family, so I think it’s smart to keep your options open. On-ramping is a lot harder and more time-consuming than you might thing (at least it was in my experience!).
Excellent input! Thanks, Catherine!
I would recommend viewing yourself as a home economist too. You can really save a lot of $$ for your family by being at home to increase the amount of sales, freebies, budget planning, consignment sales, cooking from scratch, etc. Viewing your role as SAHM and home economist can be very effective to reducing your family’s costs, and while it doesn’t always increase income, it can greatly cut expenditures that you might have thought necessary when working outside the home.
Great advice!
Except you don’t have to be a SAHM to do all of that. I already do and work 50 hour weeks.
Great advice Crystal!
At the beginning I thought that homeschooling was going to be insanely expensive but through the years I’ve learned what we actually need to buy and what we can do for free. It’s amazing how many free resources are out there!!
We as a family made this move 16 years ago. I consider it to be a great privelage and blessing to train my children and take care of my home and bless my husband full time.
You cannot buy relationships. They are made one day at a time. If I had to do it over again I would do it the same way, except I would have been more frugal early on.
It can be done.
I became a SAHM in April and this is what we did to prepare:
1. Make sure my husband and I were both on the same page. I wouldn’t have stayed at home if it was something just he wanted, so why would I expect him to be okay with me staying at home if it wasn’t something he wanted as well. We sat down and discussed the pros and cons and decided that the best place for me to be for our family was at home with the kids. Both being on the same page and having the same goals made the transition so much easier.
2. Started living off just my husband’s income. With the exception of daycare (an expense I knew I wouldn’t have when I was no longer working), my entire paycheck went to pay off credit cards, and the build an emergency fund. Not only did this put us in a better financial position, but we had about 9 months living off just his income before mine truly went away.
3. We upped my husband’s life insurance policy. I know this sounds a bit morbid, but when you going to be a SAHM, you have to accept that you are relying on another person for money. If I were to suddenly lose my husband, I would get a job, of course, but I probably couldn’t right away. Aside from the emotional reasons I would want to wait, it isn’t super easy in the current job market to get a decent paying job when you have a gap in employment. Through his work we were able to up his insurance for a very small cost to an amount that would let me get back on my feet should something happen.
You should up your life insurance policy, as well. God forbid something happened to you, your husband would have to pay for daycare for your children.
We also have Disability Insurance for me (I think you have to earn some income in order to get this, with most insurance companies) so that if something were to happen to me and I was disabled, insurance would cover some of the additional expenses that might be incurred with childcare costs, etc.
I’d recommend life insurance first, but if you can afford disability insurance, I’d highly recommend getting it for both spouses.
My husband has a disability plan through work, but I don’t know if I do. Would this pay for daycare if I was disabled? I earn only a little money (through mystery shopping and such) so would I still need it?
I would check to see before I bought a policy.