How to Afford Being a Stay-At-Home Mom
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Just like any other mother, the last day of maternity leave was an emotional day. I did end up going back to work for a little bit, but I knew I needed to be home taking care of my babies. All of a sudden, the plan for me to return to work that my husband and I discussed before we even had babies didn’t make sense anymore. Daycare costs were expensive, and I wanted to stay at home and give my children extra attention while they are still young. The decision to be a stay-at-home mom for my family was easy, but I have to be honest, quitting my job was scary. I’ve had the same career for about a decade and I really didn’t know how to do anything else. Not to mention losing half of our family’s income is a scary thought when you have 2 more mouths to feed. Over a year out from making that decision to be a stay-at-home mom, I’m happy to say, we’re all fed, and we’ve found a way to live under one income comfortably. Here are 11 lifestyle changes that I made that can help you afford being a stay-at-home mom.
Pay Attention to Your Spending
Honestly, I was not much of a budgeter before I had kids. I just always knew that I spent less than I made, so I didn’t always pay close attention to what I was spending on. When we dropped to one income, we needed to really examine our spending habits to know what and if we needed to trim expenses in certain areas. My husband and I initially used the Mint App, however we have switched over to the Empower Personal Dashboard app, which is free and does an adequate job at laying out your finances. It helps both of us see what our monthly spending looks like so we can really see where we are spending the most and if we can afford to spend less in those areas. This awareness of our income really helps to motivate you to stay under budget and meet financial goals no matter what income you make. I highly recommend tracking your spending habits as a first step in saving or budgeting money in general.
Cook At Home
Cooking at home is probably the most important thing to do to impact how much money you are able to save. Yes, the cost of groceries have skyrocketed over the past few years, but it is still so much more affordable than eating out. Cooking at home takes more time, effort and planning, but once you get the hang of it, cooking at home will be worth it. This is not something that people are comfortable doing overnight, but that is why practicing makes perfect. Have grace with yourself, make notes on how you can improve dishes. If you are not yet comfortable with cooking, I would start with recipes that are easy, quick, or done in a crock pot while you have small children. As you gain confidence, you can add more to your repertoire of recipes and meal planning will get so much easier. Cooking at home will leave you with tons of food that will last for more than just one meal for your family. In the long run, you’ll see an increase in your grocery bill, but you will also start to see an overall decrease in food costs.
Meal Plan, Be Purposeful with Grocery Shopping
Not meal planning can cost you an arm and a leg when you are trying to save money by cooking at home. Each grocery shopping session should be purposeful. I start by writing down what food I am planning to make, what ingredients are needed for those meals, and then I shop my pantry before adding it to my shopping list. If you see ingredients in your pantry that are not being used, make a note to yourself of how you can use it and make an effort to try to prepare something using that ingredient the next time you are meal prepping. Being purposeful with grocery shopping decreases the amount of food waste you produce.
Utilize Grocery Delivery Services
Shopping with the Safeway app has saved me a lot of money and time over the years. It sounds counterintuitive with the cost of delivery, but I’m able to keep track of the running total, and really see if I’m going way over budget. This is great because I get to really think about each item's necessity before purchase. Plus it gives me a chance to coupon and use rewards points when I used to rush and do that step in line at the register. Buying online also helps to cut down on spontaneous purchases. Sometimes it is hard to pass up an unplanned pack of donuts when you pass it at the store or other items that are advertised on sale, but you were never planning to buy in the first place.
Don’t Waste Food!
Wasting food is like throwing money in the trash. I know it is easier said than done, and there are times where nothing will save that piece of produce in the fridge that you swore you’d use, but just didn’t get to it. I found that I’ve gotten better at getting creative with food that’s about to go bad. Sometimes, I’ll add a roasted vegetable side dish when I have extra vegetables or if bananas are about to go bad, I’ve mashed them up, then I would freeze them in airtight freezer bags so they were ready for the next time I bake zucchini bread. You can also save already cooked food or baked goods after a couple days by just sticking them in airtight bags and freezing them. Then you don’t have to feel rushed to eat your food before your meals go bad or risk having your cookies get stale. Not wasting food is easier said than done, but we try our best. You’d be surprised by how much you can save by doing this.
Buy in Bulk
Sometimes buying in bulk will save you the most. Now that we’re a family of four, we shop at Costco more than ever. This is where we buy diapers, wipes, baby essentials, meat, some of the kids favorite snacks and the list goes on. I compared prices for snacks, and they are so much cheaper at Costco. It became more important to know the cost per unit vs the overall cost of the shopping trip. It also becomes important to plan ahead when buying in bulk as to not waste food or other supplies. For example, oftentimes, I will cut the large portions of meat into smaller chunks and freeze them in freezer bags to be used at a later date. Shopping at Costco has saved us so much money when we became a family of four. It is definitely worth the cost of the yearly membership fee. If you are interested in what freezer bags we use for bulk meats, I personally love the Foodsaver brand because it prevents my meats from getting freezer burn.
Make Shopping Lists
It seems like the overall theme of this blog post is being purposeful with your spending. One way to do so is making a shopping list whenever you go into a store. If you’re going into Target for the purpose of buying a gift and diaper cream, that you don’t leave with a bunch of extra stuff. Always make a list for any store or online store that you’re shopping at to keep from overspending. Making a list keeps you on task. It also gives you a chance to be thoughtful about each item you are planning to purchase.
Accept Free Things!
Hand me downs are great! Friends and family are always willing to give away big furniture items that are otherwise difficult to get rid of, such as cribs and changing tables or kids clothes. A lot of these big furniture items are not always accepted at second hand stores, so you’d either have to sell it or throw it away at the dump. Almost all of our big nursery furniture items were hand-me-downs, from the crib to the rocking chair. We were able to pass down these items from one child to our next child. We feel incredibly lucky that we had friends and family that passed on these precious items for our little ones. It saved us a ton of money. I’m not saying you should take every single item that anyone tries to give you, try to just take items that you need. Likewise with used clothes. You don’t need to take a mountain of used clothes, but kids do grow fast when they’re young. Not only did we accept a lot of used clothes from friends for our son, we were able to save some of our son’s old clothes and shoes for our daughter since he only wore them for a short time.
Free Activities
When you have children, it is hard not to want to provide experiences for them to have fun and bond as a family. Another way that we save money with one income and still fulfill that need is attending free community activities, taking our kids to playgrounds, community spray parks, or having picnics. We do really enjoy going to places like the zoo occasionally, but we are not regulars. I try to look up free events that are held by our community, such as the yearly town square Christmas tree lighting, free local “Touch a Truck” events, or similar events that don’t require you to pay an entrance fee. Our children are still very young. They mostly love spending time with us no matter what we are doing, even if it is just visiting a different playground. Most of the time, we can have fun and spend quality time together for free.
Develop a Basic Capsule Wardrobe
When I became a mom, my style became very basic. Most of the time, you will catch me wearing basic solid t-shirts with a comfortable pair of stretchy pants. I didn’t get rid of my pre-pregnancy clothes that still do not fit the same, just in case I lose weight, but anything new that joined my wardrobe was mostly solid, neutral, stretchy and affordable. During this time, I needed clothes that were easy to wash because you know that you will get dirty when you have children, easy to mix and match, and comfortable while your weight fluctuates over the next few months or years. Over the past 3 years, I was able to build a basic capsule wardrobe. I found that you only need a few basic clothing items to mix and match so many outfits, I didn’t really need to buy a lot of new clothes. Yes, these outfits don’t always keep up with the style of the time, but they are what I feel comfortable in during this season of life and it is a good way to save money.
Start a Side Hustle
I’m not going to tell everyone out there that you have to start a side hustle to be a stay-at-home-mom. You can if you want, but typically a successful side hustle is something that requires a lot of time to be successful, which in most cases, when you are starting out taking care of small children, you won’t have much of. We were lucky enough to have started a small side hustle prior to getting pregnant the first time. We do have a FIlipino food blog that started making a small amount of passive income. Here comes a shameless plug; if you haven’t already seen our blog or YouTube, check out nicandrei.com. It helps a little, but it does not make nearly enough to survive solely off of. During my early postpartum days, when my free time was scarce, I chose to focus more on the previously mentioned advice on how to cut costs and budget with children. As children become more independent, and you feel like you have more time to yourself, even just 30 minutes a day, you can try to start a side hustle with adjusted expectations that these things do take time to really take off. A successful side hustle will make you feel accomplished and it can provide a cushion (or more) for your family.
When you pay attention to your budget, and make appropriate lifestyle changes for your family, you’ll find that sometimes, you might have more wiggle room than you originally thought. In turn, that uncomfortable feeling I had when I initially quit my job, all the doubt I had about being able to keep my family afloat with a large pay cut, it all disappeared. With that said, I know it isn’t always that easy and every family’s situation is unique. We realize that we are fortunate to be able to do this and still live a comfortable lifestyle. Sometimes, doing these suggestions are not enough to quit your job completely or partially, but they are still good habits if you are wanting to save some money when your budget is tight. This is when it becomes important for each person to assess their own financial situation and do what is best for their family. Though we are not making as much money as we did when we were earning 2 incomes, I’m living life, with my husband and children, the way I want to and I’m so happy. Who could ask for more? And that is something I will never regret.
