What have you done to cut costs so you could be a SAH parent?

[hannahi]

I currently WOH four days per week and I have a nine-month-old son. I want to stay home with him full-time so much. Currently my MIL is staying for us and caring for my ds during the day while I'm at work. But I don't think she'll be staying much longer, due to visa issues and the fact that we haven't been getting along well. I can't stand thinking about how much of my paycheck would go to daycare. However, my DH and I have built up a lifestyle that requires two paychecks. In particular, our housing costs are a huge chunk of our income. My DH's check barely covers housing costs (plus payments to a HELOC with a balance that is not insignificant). Would you sell your house or refinance in order to stay at home? I'm looking for ways to make some extra income at home, as well. What would you do?

Hannah

[Malva]

We sold our car.

The savings from not having a car payment, insurance and gas were substancial enough to allow my dh to stay home.

[thismama]

Moved to a cheap apartment, and ditched my car.

[Mallori]

To answer your question, yes, I would move to be/remain a SAHM.

Pay debt, cut expenses. It's hard to tell you what to change, not knowing your lifestyle. Log every dime you spend for a couple months. What could you have done without? What could you have made at home, or found an alternative source for?

[MissLotus]

Yup, I would move to a cheaper place! Although I probably "should" have been working more all along and put money towards owning a home, my son's baby years have been precious. So I do not at all regret renting.

[hannahi]

Thanks for the encouragement...I need to start tracking our expenses more carefully. I don't think getting rid of our car is an option at this point (though we could get by with driving less). We did live car-free for quite a while, though. I don't like to drive so it's not like I minded!


Hannah

[~Nikki~]

We lived car-free for a long time, but it won't be an option where we're moving (country living requires a car....or a horse ) When you look at how much I'm making at my job, versus how much I'm paying in childcare, the difference isn't that large. My take-home pay is about $400/month. Hardly worth it, when you factor in the cost to take the bus ($100/month), food related costs, etc. I'm lucky enough that I'm able to bring in some extra income doing freelance graphic design, and am hoping to develop a business selling some of my other products.

We'll be moving this summer. Right now, we're paying an astronomical amount living in the city, paying rent for our house, paying utilities for a home that is too large for us, etc.

Here are some things we've done to cut costs in the meantime:
-cancelled cable
-downgraded phone package (no extra things like call display, call waiting)
-buy store brand food, buy veggies/fruit in season and freeze them
-started taking kids' clothes to a consignment shop, and buy their new clothes there
-I make "coloring books" out of the paper at work that is going to be recycled. The kids color the blank side.
-I cook a little extra at dinner, so that I have leftovers to take for lunch the next day. Much better than anything I can buy in the cafeteria!
-We grocery shop only once or twice a month, and only buy what we need. This also cuts down on gas use.

Here are some things we'll be doing when we move:
-staying home will eliminate the childcare cost. Savings of appx: $1250/month
-staying home will eliminate the bus cost. Savings of $100/month
-Will be growing a garden and learning how to can my own soups/stews/etc.
-Will hopefully aquire more freelance projects, which brings in $1000+ per month.
-Will hopefully find a store to sell my products in.
-Downgrading the house, which means selling pretty much all of our furniture. DH will be building smaller pieces to fit the smaller house.
-The smaller house means less costs. We will also be relying mostly on heating with a woodstove (we have 3 years of wood already stockpiled...for free!)
-Eventually will get a few chickens to provide eggs for the family.
-The farm has a sugar shack, so I'm going to learn how to use it and will hopefully be able to start selling maple syrup as a side business.

Just a few things, that probably won't even be relevant to your situation. But there are many many things out there that you can do, regardless of where you live/how you live. I came across this website this morning, about the "cheapest family in america" that lives off of just over $30K a year, debt-free. I haven't had a chance to look through the website, but the article about them had some good info.

www.HomeEconomiser.com

Goodluck!

[Eman'smom]

You could look into moving and/refining. But really think and run numbers beforehand.

Also think about locations. If you have to move to a less safe area, or an area with fewer resources likes parks, it might not be worth it.

[lil'mama]

I would move to a smaller house to be a SAHM.
We were in a similiar situation where we could barely pay our mortgage with one income-so we cut out everything else that we could. No cell phones, no cable, no extras. It's hard sometimes, but it's worth it to me to be home with my sweet babies.

[lmonter]

If I were in your shoes, we'd probably move. Get rid of as much debt as possible to be able to live how we wanted, vs. how the banks and other people wanted us to.

Luckily, we bought our house with the thought that dh would probably be the sole income earner at some point in the near future, so we needed to be able to afford it. Although me having a job at that time sure helped us qualify really quickly.

* We shopped around, got a low, fixed interest rate on the house.
* We've lightly discussed a HELOC, but decided keeping a roof over our heads rather than a fancy-looking roof was more important (a HELOC would be just to make our house look *cosmetically* better, it didn't/doesn't need major structure repair for at least a dozen years). But we can save up to do cosmetic stuff over the years, and we don't plan on selling anytime soon so it's not a big issue for us. We also want to be mortgage free at some point - my goal is by 2020 after we've decimated dh's student loans.
* When we were getting our utilities hooked up, we shopped around and got the best deal we could for what was available in our area.
* I started using cloth diapers on the kid, then kiddos.
* I breastfed both boys. So I honestly don't have a clue how much we've saved from those two things, but it's definitely a chunk of change.
* I also use mama cloth, we have a ton of washcloths for kid messes, that kind of reusable stuff.
* I don't have much of a wardrobe. Hanging up in the closet, I probably have about a foot and a half of clothes, plus a drawer of underwear/bras/socks. I keep wearing stuff until I kill it. But this only works because I don't have to go into a suit-and-tie office anymore - my kids love me just the same if I'm only in underwear.
* I started making a lot more food from scratch. It's a process though, and it's taken me a few years to get to this point.
* We put wood stoves in our house for heat rather than using the natural gas furnace or electric baseboard heat (yes, we have lots of options). Cheaper than Avista and dh gets a good workout to boot.
* We just don't buy a ton of expensive stuff. The last thing we bought was a mattress at Ikea because the 3yo's mattress had 2 springs thwack me in the back and it was driving me nuts.
* We research big ticket items. Almost a compulsion, really.
* Now we save up for items, so it takes some planning. And not much instant gratification for anything more expensive than $40 (and even then we usually discuss it with one another, we're weird).
* Budget! It sounds scary, and can suck until you're worked out the tweaks, but once it's going, man, is it a load off. Dh and I both used to be up at night sometimes worrying about money until we finally implemented an actual pencil and paper budget. We haven't stayed up at night worrying since (well, at least about money).

[wife&mommy]

Yes, I would sell my house to stay home with my child! If you really want to stay home, I'd sacrifice almost anything... nothing is sacred! LOL

[*andiflipping*]

Originally Posted by wife&mommy

Yes, I would sell my house to stay home with my child! If you really want to stay home, I'd sacrifice almost anything... nothing is sacred! LOL

ita

[annethcz]

Originally Posted by hannahi

Would you sell your house or refinance in order to stay at home?

I would.

I have always SAH with my children. As we are a homeschooling family, I plan to SAH with them for many years. We made the decision early on to live a lifestyle that can be supported by DH's income. We took our income into consideration when deciding where to live, what to drive, where and when to vacation, etc.

I did have a WAH small biz for several years when my children were babies. Quite honestly, it was more for my mental well-being than for our financial well-being. Although I did make money with my business, it was never enough to pay our bills. My income was supplemental- it was fun money that we didn't count on having.

Yes, we live in a less-expensive house, we've never bought a brand-new car, we don't have cable TV or cell phones. But I never look at those things as sacrifices. Those are simply the choices we've made to live the lifestyle we want. Our priority is having a good family life (and for our family, that means I stay home with the kids), and we make choices to make that happen.

[Gunter]

we sold our house and bought a less expensive house...that just happened to be solar and on an acre closer to work!

[AuntLavender]

You yourself have determined hw you can SAH

Originally Posted by hannahi

However, my DH and I have built up a lifestyle that requires two paychecks.

You will have to change this in order to SAH. You can do it! Your children are worth it!

Sincerely,
Debra, homeschooling mom of 4 ages 10 (AS), 9, 7, and 43 mos (Autism)

[Sonnenwende]

I would sell it and downgrade, but not refinance it.

[koru]

Originally Posted by AuntLavender

You will have to change this in order to SAH. You can do it! Your children are worth it!

Sincerely,
Debra, homeschooling mom of 4 ages 10 (AS), 9, 7, and 43 mos (Autism)

ditto! before we had kids we were making good money with two full-time incomes & had a lot of fun. big vacations, hosted lots of parties, went out a lot, etc. when dd#1 came along i really wanted to SAH but thought it was impossible. she had other plans, though. she would not take a bottle & i panicked. but you know what? we just stopped taking big vacations & eating out & downsized our everyday lives without having to move. we've recently moved to be closer to dh's work and still have quite a mortgage payment but our lives have been so dramatically downsized & simplified that we decided to live in a good location & spend a bit more money on a house because we knew we could do it. and we're making it just fine!

[*Lindsey*]

We sold my car. I cook from scratch (almost everything!). We're getting chickens for eggs & meat. We don't go out to eat very often, or buy things we don't NEED.

It's hard somedays, but it's SO worth it!!

Good luck!

[jkpmomtoboys]

Before we decided to have me stay at home, dh ran a spreadsheet that showed our expenses to date, his salary and expected projection (Cost of Living increases and things like that) and how much we would have to cut year to year as his salary increased.

It was that sort of detailed planning which made us realize that even if it was goign to be tight at first, we could sort of realistically plan on it only being tight for a few years.

Maybe once you go over your #'s, and look at your budget as a whole, you can see that refinancing your house will give you the extra $$ you need or maybe you also need to get rid of vacations for awhile. Or maybe it will be really tight for a year but you could make that work if it's only a year and then things will relax.

Anyway, if it's just a choice between remodelling and moving, I say stay put if you can because between closing costs, realtor costs and property tax issues, it might be worth it to be tight for awhile but stay in the same house...

Good luck!

[airmide_m]

We're still TTC for the first time, but right now I'm already a staying home and plan to continue that when we have kids. I've always been pretty economical with stuff so nothing seems like that much of a sacrifice, but I could probably cut corners a little more if we needed to.

Here's some of the things we do, or are planning to do:

Living in a nice apartment that we got into when the economy was down so rent isn't too bad, planning to stay here for another year or so and save up for a moderate house in a decent area (hoping housing prices drop in the next couple years)

Shopping at the cheapest grocery store for most items, and price comparing, buying store brand and bulk on a lot of stuff.

Buying baby clothes and some adult clothes at resale stores. Shopping clearance sales and discount stores, not buying new clothes very often.

No magazine subscriptions - you'd be surprised how much they can add up to!

Going to the library or used bookstores. Libraries often have a great selection of CD's, videos, DVD's and magazines as well as books. If they don't have what you're looking for you can often put a hold on something and have it transfered to the location nearest you.

Limit or eliminate CD purchases

Using a car broker to get the BEST price and financing on a car with the highest reliability, gas mileage, safety standards and resale value.

Switching to cheaper and more natural beauty products (the cheapest conditioners are actually the best for your hair!)

Growing our own garden - this can even be done in an apartment if you have a porch.

Cloth diapering

Breast feeding

Making our own baby food

Cooking from scratch as much as possible (healthier too!)

Drink more water, eliminate soda.

Learn to make smoothies and yummy coffee or tea or hot chocolate drinks at home rather than being dependent on Starbucks type places.

Use warm clothes, warm blankets and hot water bottles and keep the heat down (we don't even turn the heat on in the bedroom at all)

Reduce alcohol consumption, especially when going out.

No smoking - obviously for health reasons but it can be SO expensive too!

Find free or inexpensive entertainment options - check local event calenders for free concerts, have picnics (even car picnics can be fun)

Find friends who will support your budgeting goals so you won't feel pressured to spend extra money on going out for dinner, drinks, shows or shopping.