I know a lot of sites advise that for a "transition" the person who is going to be staying at home should continue to work for 3 or 6 months and have their entire paycheck deposited into savings and only live on one income to see if they can make it first. Did anyone here do this? Or did you have another transition plan?

For us, we didnt do that and the transition was hard but we got used to it, we went from bringing home $50,000 a year to take home of about $20,000, it was really hard as we had bought a home with the awesome income and had CC debt but we managed to pull through and cut costs and even though it wasn't easy we did it.

I am sure you know what you can cut down on or cut out entirely. For us we just stopped eating out, buying expensive items, Christmas presents were set at a minimum and birthday's the same.

I wish you the best in whatever you do, you will make it through! :hugz:

I had supported myself and 4 kids on $32,000/yr and we were doing great. All the bills were up to date and I was putting $300/mnth into savings. About 2 yrs after dh and me got together I had Emily and we both wanted me home with the kids. I figured if I could do it on $32,000 while paying a sitter, then we could probably manage on $30,000 if we didn't have those extra work costs. So we just did it.

Although I think in theory the "try it first" idea sounds good, it isn't quite that simple. Since there are costs to working (clothing, transportation, child care, etc.) completely banking one paycheck isn't possible for many people and could make someone who tried that approach think staying home wouldn't work.

What we did was to look at my husband's income, our expected costs (including the increase in health insurance premiums as my company's plan was less expensive than his), and the tax advantage to putting all the exemptions on his income and when we felt comfortable about the amounts, took the plunge. We saved what we could ahead of time, but in no way was it equal to my full pay each month.

I tried to do that, but after the expenses of my working, I was only saving around $100 a month. That was when we both realized that it wasn't worth it. Daycare was so much and I just wasn't making enough and we both wanted me to be home. so at that point I just quit.

L O N G ago when DD was 'expected', we saved my salary for those last few months and pretended we didn't have it. It worked for us.
W

When my hubby and I realized that we were getting in way over our heads we decided to live on just his paycheck (or less when possible) and use every penny I made to pay bills off. We made HUGE dents in our debt...there's still much to go, but it's a lot better than it was! We don't have kids so there were no child care expenses involved so it was easier that way...

Shifting to that...and sticking to it was hard. But we did it! And still are! :D

my dh has supported us (myself & 4 kids) on $40,000 a year. just currently i have started bringing in a income (foster care). when my dh was supporting us, we definetly had to cut down on alot of "extra" things. i didn't drive a new car, we didn't have cable, i didn't have brand new clothes, we didn't eat out, we didn't have a brand new home, but i was able to be a SAHM & thats what was important to me!!!!

Before I had DD#1 we put the money that I was making toward buying the babby stuff we needed and paying down debt. We realized with no doubts that after paying child care it would not be worth it for me to work, so we planned from the beginning for me to stay home. I don't have any idea how we made it work. I know it was very stressful for a while because Dh wasn't making very much money and living expenses where we were are outrageous. But God provided for us!! And now we are debt free to top that off and we are able to do what He wants us to do!

We didn't do it, only because we needed my last paychecks badly for bills - we couldn't put them in savings. But my SO put some in his savings and we were able to make it. Our transition was because I was going to be a stay at home mother.

We just jumped in and everything worked out. Everything always works itself out. You can do it. It is actually kinda fun seeing how little you can live on.

We are jumping in too......... I just quit my job. The stress was awful, I was cranky, and the job was begining to hurt my elbows and arms. We have all our bills paid for Dec and part of Jan. Will take money out of savings to finish and go from there. I have several options for a new job but if we can make it on one income I will stay home with kids.

We are real sure that tomorrow DH will be told he no longer has a job. It was hinted before Christmas but being a "WONDERFUL" company they will wait till after Christmas to tell him!!
What you have to know is I stayed home with DS till 4 yrs ago then I went back to the workplace. Now it may be DH who stays home for a while. He is rethinking what he wants to be when he grows up still so I am ok with that. Our major problem is we were hoping to relocate back to where my family is, which we may still do.
We have one vehicle loan, one cc and regular monthly bills (heat, etc) but we have quite a few medical bills and dental bills for DD. These are what we get behind on. I have started to catch up in Nov and was looking forward to 2007 being a "buy nothing " year, except a new place to live.
I just wonder if we can do it now. Its nice to know that you can just jump in and do it.

Thankfully, we planned on living on one income right from the very beginning (18 years ago!). Our first year, while I was still working, I used my salary to pay off our cars/ccs/etc. As soon as I got pg, I quit working and have not worked since.
Beth

Same here, we always planned(15 years ago!) on me being home with the kids when they came along, so we never really lived beyond that husband o' mine's income--which was very little in the beginning as he was still a pizza-delivering college student.We didn't save as much as we could have, but I also only worked part-time.
Once married, I didn't work outside of home for long, as by our 2nd anniversary we had a 3 month old boy lol.

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