How to Stay Home with Your Kids When It is Not in the Budget
Do you want to stay home with your kids but can’t find a way to make it work with your current budget?
I’ve been there too and it is a hard spot to be in. Fortunately, you are not out of options. We have some great ways for you to make it possible for you to quit your job and be home with your kids.
Then I held my son for the first time and knew that there was no way I was going back to work willingly.
When Staying Home with your Kids is Not in the Budget
The problem was, we had gone over the budget backwards and forwards. There was simply no way to make it work on one income.
I spent most of my maternity leave stressing about how quickly my first day back at work was coming up. I couldn’t imagine leaving my son and going to work every day.
As moms, we do what needs to be done though, and it wasn’t long before I was dropping my son off at the grandparents house and heading back to work — I cried the entire way there.
I’d like to say I adjusted and going to work everyday . . . but it didn’t. After a few months, I knew I had to do something.
I believe in prayer. I’ve seen it work miracles in my life. During that time, I spent a lot of time praying that something would miraculously work out to allow me to stay home with my baby. Nothing worked out.
I’m stubborn though so I just kept praying. One day, as clear as could be, the words came into my mind, “You are asking for this to be easy. Life is not meant to be easy.”
It was a hard answer to hear, especially since I REALLY DIDÂ want an easy answer to my problem.
There may not have been an easy fix but I knew there was a solution.
I started researching work at home options and finally landed on opening a home daycare. I quit my job with no families lined up but a business license in hand and a hefty dose of faith that things would work out.
After 4 weeks of hustling my daycare was so full that I was turning families down. I had not only replaced my former income but I had nearly doubled it!
For me, the solution was running a home business. If you want to stay home, you have a lot of options.
Do you want our list of favorite places to find work at home jobs? Click here and we will send it to you.
Start with a Budget
I break my expenses into:
- Housing
- Insurance
- Utilities
- Automotive
- Food/Household expenses
- Dining
- Clothing
- Entertainment
Customize your categories to fit your needs but you can use mine as a starting point if you need to. Use our free printable budget worksheet to help you get it all down on paper.
Can you cut costs?
Look at how much you are spending in each category. If your experience is anything like mine, you are probably a little surprised at a few things.
Ignore the set expenses like utilities, mortgage, and insurance for now.
Look at the variable expenses. The food budget is the fastest place to start if you need to trim your budget. In the beginning, I cut out our dining budget completely. You can always add that back in if you find your have a little wiggle room later. Look for ways to save money on your grocery budget. Most families can cut their food budget by half if they work at it.
- When prices are low, stock up.
- Cook from scratch as often as possible.
- Eat cheaper foods, like beans, chicken drumsticks or thighs instead of breasts, ground beef instead of more expensive cuts of beef, and seasonal produce.
- Eliminate food waste. You can lose a huge amount of your food budget to food waste if you aren’t careful. Check out these tips for preventing food waste.
- Use coupons and shop sales.
Look at anything you can cut out of your budget. There’s often quite a few things you don’t truly need (or even want sometimes) in your budget.
Cut out subscription services you aren’t using, eliminate satellite TV (there are plenty of ways to stream the shows and movies you want to watch), and get rid of any upgrades that you don’t need (like a higher cell phone plan).
Downsize
Downsizing may seem extreme but there are a lot of things to consider. Maybe you can go with one car. When I first started staying home with my kids, we went with one car for about a year to save money. It was rough sometimes, but most days I didn’t even notice.
If you can’t go with one car, can you sell a nicer car and buy something cheaper? Before my maternity leave ended, I sold my car, which I loved, and bought something cheaper. I didn’t love the new car but I did love being free from my huge car payment.
What does your living situation look like? Can you sell your house and rent for a little while? Can you rent something smaller? Do you have a basement that could be turned into an apartment and rented out?
Sometimes you need to get a little creative. There is usually a solution that will allow you to be a stay at home mom . . . you just have to decide how much you are willing to sacrifice.
Start living on less
Gradual changes are always easier than the sudden ones. Give yourself an adjustment period. Start using only half your income. Put the rest in savings. You’ll get to practice living on less and you’ll be able to build up an emergency fund to give you a bit of a cushion.
Once you are able to live on half your income comfortably, start taking your full income and put it in savings. This will give you the chance to really test what life would be like living on one income while giving your savings a healthy boost.
Is staying home still not in the budget? Then it’s time for phase 2. Go to the next page to find out what your options are.
Do you want our list of favorite places to find work at home jobs? Click here and we will send it to you.
love this! My husband and I are not expecting, but have been praying for the Lord to guide us in this area. I would love to stay home when that time comes, and I know my husband would love to give me that option. So enjoyed your insight! 🙂
You are so smart to think ahead. If you started working on a home-based job, even if it was just something on the side, right now you’d probably have a pretty decent income going by the time you have kids. Don’t discount direct sales as a side-gig either. Those are great to do when you only have a bit of extra time at the end of the day. I just started one in January as a side gig and was shocked at how much money I’ve made in such a short period of time.
Was your husband 100% on board with your decision to quit your job without any clients? I’m currently itching to make the leap but my fiancĂ© is hearing any of it haha
He was, but he didn’t want me to have to work away from home when I didn’t want to either. I did a lot of research before hand and I was pretty confident that I could make it work. If I couldn’t, I would have been able to find a job closer to home. I loved my old job but it wasn’t close to home and the extra time away from my son during the commute was making me crazy. It was also cutting into what I was actually bringing home.