Our Unorthodox Cost-Cutting

Several mothers tell me that they would love to be a stay-at-home mother if only they could afford it. I am far from a financial expert (in fact, my husband would die before he left me in charge of the checkbook) but I do want to help the many women out there who would love to be with their children full-time.

On top of encouraging you to check out the wonderful post by mompreneur Roz Walker about How To Afford to Be a Stay at Home Mom, I wanted to share with you my personal experience of sacrifices in order to make it work in my life.

When I first told my husband that I did not want to work anymore, he was incredibly supportive but, as an accountant, slightly nervous. We both felt it was very important for me to remain with the children full-time so we were ready to sacrifice quite a bit to make that possible. As I left my job, we purchased our first home, a foreclosure that needed a bit of work. The financial strain was a little overwhelming and we were both very stressed at the idea of only one income when we now had a mortgage, college debts, credit cards, and not as much in savings as we would have liked.

Needless to say, we had to cut out a lot of expenses. Despite the cultural pressures to live a specific lifestyle we got rid of quite a few standard amenities for people of our age group. Cutting out the following items made it possible for me to be with the children, and that was all that mattered:

• A second car. Right before my son was born, one of our cars died. A few months after his birth, the second car died. All we could afford was one car which we proudly bought used. Since my husband works an hour away from our house, I was stranded at home without a vehicle every day. On rare occasions when I needed a vehicle, I would have to load up the kids and drive him to work and pick him up so I could have the car for the day. It was inconvenient, but it was completely workable and saved us the cost of a second vehicle. It also saved in gas money because we had to be very conscious of scheduling our outings.
• Television. We did not have any cable or satellite TV. In fact, since our television is an old tube set, we could not even pick up the local digital channels without a digital converter, and that was an expense that we did not feel was necessary. Thus, we had no television whatsoever. Just some DVDs.
• Internet. The internet was another expense we could not justify. It did not make an appearance in our home for some time. My husband would use the internet at his office and I would occasionally go to my parents' house if I had a need for the world wide web. Our old desktop computer was good for tracking finances and playing solitaire. It wasn't used for much else.
• Clothes. Since I was not working and left the house less than once a week, I had no need for new clothes. I wore the same few outfits until they were almost unwearable saving the few nice things I had for church and doctor's appointments. My son only received new clothes when he outgrew his, and then they were only from Goodwill or hand-me-downs from family members. My husband needed to look nice for work so I would ransack Goodwill anytime I left the house and looked for amazing deals on holidays. Our clothes budget was almost nothing, but we made it work.

This may seem like quite a few major cutbacks, but we still needed to save more in order for me to stay at home with the children. Stay tuned tomorrow for more unorthodox areas in which we cut finances to make our dream come true.

For more great homemaking tips, check out: Far Above Rubies, Don't Waste Your Homemaking, Growing Home, Time Warp Wife and Mom's the Word.