how long did you "prepare"?

DH and I are thinking of re-locating and him staying home. It makes more sense for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is his health. We are giving ourselves a year to re-locate, but then how long will the "adjustment" take do you think?

I'm hoping to get a job that pays us close to what we both make now (DH doesn't actually make that much so it might be do-able) and we are looking to live somewhere MUCH cheaper, which given the ridiculousness of where we live now shouldn't be much harder either.

But advice?

It would be great to prepare in advance. In our case one day I had a job the next day I didn't.

In the year it takes to relocate, prepare, prepare, prepare. Begin by living on one salary if you can. Pay down any debt you might have (if you do). Make sure you have an emergency fund of at least 6 months. Relocating costs money as do surprises when you relocate.

If you can also have a good stockpile (even relocating).

Don't relocate to the first place you think is nice. Check out everything before you make that move. Once moved, on one income it won't be so easy to relocate again. Does the place you want to move to have all the conveniences you want? Is it close to family (if thats what you want). Will it be a good place for kids (if you have them). Once you have a job, will it be in an income bracket you can live at? Check these all out before you make any move.

Does your dh have something to do at home if he isn't planning on going outside to work. Will he be working from home? If not, does he have a hobby to take up his time? Will he become bored at home?


Plan, plan, plan.

You are very fortunate that you have a year to prepare. Because of health reasons, I gave a 2 week notice and then I was done.

My first suggestion would be to review all your expenses and see what you can eliminate or significantlyl reduce. Then I would work on getting rid of as much credit card debt as possible in 12 months. Credit card debt is a killer to the budget so if you can lose most or all of it, you will be far better off.

Start looking online at Realtor.com to get an idea of housing costs in your new town. Contact a Realtor in the area so that you will have an idea of desirable neighborhoods, proximity to the services that matter most to you, jobs, etc.

You have got some great advice. I wish you all the best in your planning!:smball:

We are also planning on going from two incomes to one in the next 12 months. DH is very unhappy with his job and has been looking to leave for some time. I love my job and have no intention of giving it up. He applied for a new job with the Highways Agency here in the U.K. as a Traffic Officer. The interview and assessment process were grueling, but in the end he got through and was offered a job. The job involved shift work and if an accident occurred 30 minutes before the end of his shift, he could end up working hours and hours overtime. Now, this gets even more confusing because we have been talking about having another baby for the past year or so, actually had a scare back in March which turned out to be negative. DH and I discussed it and he said "given the choice between the job and the baby, I'll take the baby" and he turned down the job and informed me that once we have the baby (which we are hoping, if all goes well, will be around this time next year), when I go back to work, he will quit his job and be a SAHD.

We are planning on spending the next year paying off our cc debts and our car, saving as much money as we can, and finishing the work that needs to be done on the house. Luckily, we don't have a huge mortgage and once our cc's are paid off, we'll have a bit more money in the pot.

Crossing fingers and toes our plan goes ahead!

Cj gave you some great advice.:) Not sure how long things will take to settle down because you are going to be making so many changes. Only advice I can offer is to save as much as you can aead of time & to roll with things. Everything won't be perfect at your new place, things are apt to be bumpy at times but with a united front & positive attitude you guys can get through anything. Lifes an adventure, hang on and enjoy the ride, Mojjo.
Hope his health improves & I wish you the best.:)

Wow! I haven't heard so many people think about having stay-at-home dads! My DH is currently unemployed, and hoping that the radio station that he does volunteer DJing at will pay him eventually. We've talked that ideally, even if it only pays half of what I make, that he can work from home and be a stay-at-home dad. I think its awesome to hear that other families are thinking of the same thing!

We were surprised into it.

We had bought a fixer upper rental property while we were live-in managers at a storage facility.

He had congestive heart failure. We both lost our jobs at the same time.

We ended up moving into the rental property before it got fixed up.

I was making nowhere near what we were and the stress was killing me...I have post traumatic stress disorder but don't want to go on disability for it.

I worked for almost a year before collapsing due to the stress and thank the Lord, he got his disability benefits just in time.

Now, I stay at home, we live on what he gets but our mortgage is under $300 a month.

Until recently, we were paying almost all of our income for his meds. They said he made too much to get Medicaid.

But the biggest blessing with being frugal in the first place is that the house I chose to buy as a rental property had to fit a certain criteria.

It had to be rural (garden, critters, etc.) The payments had to be manageable on minimum wage.

There had to be a well.

We didn't want to go through a finance company and pay points, ect. We went through a land contract.

Our house, Lord willing will be paid off in one more year. The mortgage was for 5 yrs.

After that, we hope to add onto the mobile that we bought by putting a roof-over and pulling the mobile out later and buying some more land that is attached to our property.

We raise our own poultry, garden and pigs. Hope to get rabbits this year and maybe a milk goat.

CJ gave good advice!

When we went from two incomes to one it was because I was laid off from my job and I had about 3 weeks notice. That was in 1997 and I never went back to work.

Good luck to all who are about to take this step or are in the preparation stages!

When I left my job we had about a month to prepare for the possibility that it might happen. I was in a very difficult pregnancy, and the DR had suggested that bedrest might be a very real possibility for me. Turns out, at my next appointment, things had worsened, and I was put on bedrest. The appointment was on a Tuesday, and she told me that I could give my employer until that Friday, and then would be on bedrest til the baby came (which ended-up being about 2.5 months later). So, not much time to prepare. While on bedrest, we figured up the costs of me going back to work (daycare, taxes, extra clothes, gas, and meals out) were just not worth the literally few dollars I would end up bringing home. So I never went back.

Like the others above,

live on one income now, it's going to quickly highlight the "leaks" in the plan, plus you can pay down debt.

Pay down as much debt as possible. Mary Hunt's snoball debt reduction is great. It's in her book Best of the Cheapskate Monthly which you can get from the library. It's a great book btw with lots of good tips.

If you are planning a move (sounds like you are) try to buy a smaller cheaper home in a good neighborhood (near good schools and lower crime rates) which has access to things like

Public transit VERY IMPORTANT CONCEPT (I save a ton by us only having one car!!!) (good for rentals of the rooms too )

Near to WAGE EARNER'S WORKPLACE and shopping, doctor, church, dentist, vet, school or college (this makes for less gasoline used on commuting PLUS MAKES YOU ATTRACTIVE TO THE RENT A ROOM CROWD AT THE COLLEGE)

Try to make sure the house has an extra bedroom or two with a spare bathroom that you can rent out to students. (hot plate fridge and microwave can be added in)

you may be hearing a theme here :D

so here's the next 2 suggestions (big surprise)

rent a room or two to college kids leaving them responsible for their own food (but supply access to fridge, stove etc)

and try to consider owning only one vehicle. I've calculated that over and over and it's the cost of a part time job when all is said and done. Car ownership is expensive.

See if the wage earner can car pool or take transit or bike to work (near work as above) leaving the stay at home with use of the car.

However if that won't work, then stay at home MUST have emergency taxi fare stashed in house, never to be spent on anything else and immediately replaced when used for emergency trips.

Make your house a bit cheaper by buying something smaller and older in a good neighborhood, but in good repair.

DO CHECK THE HEAT AND LIGHT BILLS!!!! BEFORE BUYING SAID HOUSE!!!!!

Running a house is expensive and buying into a problem is the LAST thing you need.

Make sure there are no big repairs coming up or take them out of the offered price and GET THEM DONE

It's no savings if you have to replace a furnace (or the house burns down) or the roof (or watch water damage destroy your equity) or the hot water tank or pay thru the nose for winter heating bills.

If you can, run only one fridge, use a crockpot to cook with a lot of the time, and dry clothes on a line both inside or out to save a lot of electricity.

Save heat by covering windows with plastic in winter, installing a double set back automatic thermostat and cleaning the furnace filter monthly (which is good for asthmatic kids too)

Vacuum out the ducts in your home to help the air move better and reduce the costs of heating, but also make the furnace fan run full time, with or without the heating cycle, it evens the heat out upstairs and down, and saves about 10% on your heating bill.

I learnt that trick from neighbors years back who used to rent basement bedrooms to students. Kept it warm enough that the students didn't use baseboard electric heaters to keep warm

WHICH WILL JACK UP THE COST OF THE ELECTRICITY and eliminate many of your other savings so it's worth doing. (we always felt when we had bsmnet tenants, that keeping them comfy and away from baseboard heaters saved us a ton,

much more than it cost us. (we always had our thermostat set a touch higher than normal even with the furnace fan trick just to be on the safe side with tenants ) (but you can set the theromstat lower during the day when tenants are gone)

shop for a good mtg interest rate by using a mortgage broker. We did that the last few times and it's SAVED US BIG MONEY!!!:D

OH and DO CHECK THE TAX BILL ON THAT HOUSE BEFORE BUYING!!!!

Yup. important. Any time you are into monthly maintaining costs and taxes, heat and light fall into that, pay close attn to what the current owners are paying.

Pay close attention to public transit, crime rates, and schools. talk to people, this isn't something you will get from public officials or even real estate agents (they don't care where you end up as long as you buy something they want to sell you which may be in the high crime neighborhood that locals won't touch!)

Your monthly costs over and above the mortgage will kill you or let you follow your dream.

Nearness to work is a biggy too. Dh and I figure it's saved us a HUGE amount, for such a seemingly small decision. AS gas prices rise, this may be a bigger and bigger factor.

The taxes were the first thing I checked out when we bought this place. It was $27 a yr when we first bought it. The value has gone up a tad because of improvments but it is still under $100.

Look for a place where the owner is motivated to sell and owns it outright. If the owner owns it lock stock and barrel they are more apt to be willing to bargain.

We had $500 cash and the owner wanted 10-15% down on $15,000.

We put the $500 down, paid the rest of the down payment in installments at no interest. Guess who carried the note for the downpayment? The realtor.

wow, you got a good deal there!:D WTG!!!!