Can You Afford to Be a Stay at Home Mom?

The most important thing for you to figure out when you decide to stay home with your children is whether of not you can afford it. In today’s society, a two-income family is seemingly necessary to pay the bills and provide those extras that you’ve come to expect. The first step in becoming a stay at home mom is making the decision that you will stay home with your kids. The next step is to figure out how you can do that.

Perhaps the biggest expense for the two-income family, when it comes to child rearing, is the cost of daycare. Babysitting, a nanny, or organized daycare center can cost one hundred or more dollars per week per child for full time care. Obviously, becoming a stay at home mom will cut out that expense completely.

There are other costs that will vanish, or at least reduce greatly, when you are no longer going to an outside-the-home job. Transportation costs will get much lower, including gas and car maintenance. No longer grabbing expensive coffee on the way to work, or eating out for lunch, will be great cost savers as well. You also won’t need special clothing for work, or have dry cleaning bills.

After all of these expenses are subtracted from your monthly budget, you may find that you will still need to bring in some income in order to afford to be a stay at home mom.

There are many internet money making and small business ideas that even a busy stay at home mom can earn money from. The first step is to figure out exactly what is the minimum amount you have to earn in order to afford being a stay at home mom. It could very well be less than half of what you were earning at your regular job.

You can further reduce the amount by finding other ways to save around the house. Now that you are a stay at home mom, you might be able to cut out house-cleaning service, or a gardener or pet-sitter. You will have more time to comparison shop at the grocery store and to clip coupons.

Earning a small extra income at home is not difficult on the internet. A stay at home mom can easily get involved with paid programs, surveys, mystery shopping, direct sales companies, or any number of other money-making and small business ideas.