Ask:
I REALLY want to stay home next year and DH is totally freaking out about the money. How do you other SAHM's do it?? I've been looking into west at home and I'll be cleaning my moms house, but not sure what else to do!
Thanks!!
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Try living on just dh's salary and see if you can swing it. Save all your salary during that time and you'll have a little nest egg. HTH
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For us all the money that I would make would have been spent on daycare so instead I stay home and then we can save that money. It may look harder than what it is. write down all your bills including groceries, gas, and fun activities, then see if you could still spend the same only using his earnings. It might be that deciding fact.
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Good luck. I work outside the home and would love to stay home, too. I hope it works out for you!!
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Live on one paycheck now and begin to plan where the money goes. You might consider tracking all your expenses for a month or two to give you a more realistic idea about where you want to budget your money.
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Make him a pro/con list. list how much money it costs you to work. I know when I was working (we only had 1 child) I was only bringing home like $30 a wk after expenses and that's when we decided that for $30 I could afford to be home with DS
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I'm not going to lie, it's not always easy to make ends meet with one salary. But to us, it was very important for me to be here for our boys and honestly, it makes it much easier on my dh to have me here to take care of things. He has had to pick up some extra hours to make it work, we do without extra things like vacations, going out to eat, extra pay channels on the tv, the list is long. But when we thought about it, everything we need, we already have. We bbq in the back yard, we pitch tents right here and camp together, go to the drive in for a cheap outing. We have saved a ton on expenses too. I used to wear business suits to work, drive a long distance and used to eat out for lunch everyday. When we looked at the numbers, I really wasn't making much after all of that. I cook from scratch now and have time for a garden. Although at times we struggle, I would not change a thing.
Good luck with your decision.
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theres alot of things you save by staying home....less eating out...less gas for you driving to and from work...less money on work clothes...etc...it is a good idea to try living off just one(and do it w/out dh knowing...then you can hit him with your info on how it's been workin out next time he freaks)
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Jules,
You said "West at home" are you talking about West telemarketing? If so PLEASE don't get involved with them. I used to work with them but quit right before they were brought under a HUGE class action lawsuit. They aren't good people to work for IMHO. Staying at home is hard on our budget, but we always make it work. You have to learn to be a penny pencher and be frugal (hence why I am here )
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I too would love to be a stay at home mom so I will be paying close attention to this thread.