Ok, I have been working for the past 8 weeks on a goal to stay home. I do not find my career path to be as challenging as it once was and my desire to stay at home and have a simpler life has been growing. My dh is on board with this idea. When the decission was made there were some things that needed to be taken care of financially to make it easier when my pay disappears.
Goal #1 was to pay off dh motorcycle. This was reached in March 2009.
Goal #2 was to wait out the last Ortho payment from the insurance company for dd's braces. (We will not have dental coverage when I leave my job) This payment came yesterday.
Goal #3 is to pay off the cc. It is $4500. This will be the challenge. For some reason I cannot get this done. I am going to have to get creative as it is a doable goal with effort.
When I leave the work force we will still have a mortgage and a car payment. We will be able to add snowball to the car loan and then the mortgage after the credit card is paid off.
We have an EF fund and almost 4 months of expenses put away. This will still be a goal to bring up to 6 months.
I have made this a challenge because I have found in the past that it helps me stick to my goal. This is a big goal and one that I am very dedicated to.
If anyone has any kind of goal they are trying to accomplsh and would like to join me, please do. I love to read other peoples ideas and give them a try. I will update as often as I can.
How wonderful!!!
You have a plan and I commend you...keep working on paying off that $4500 cc.
I wish so much I could also be a stay at home mom....but alas that would be a problem since I have no kids and no other means of support ...since my dog will not seek employment.
Thanks for the support. Today I have hung 2 loads of laundry. I have done 6 but needed to get it done today for the week. I will be working on it during the week so I can hang more to dry. I made 2 loaves of oatmeal honey bread (I hope it tastes OK) and brownies for the dd's lunches. I went to MyPoints and ordered a $25 giftcard for Bass Pro Shop (there is a hat dh would like). I will be starting dinner (Spaghetti & Salad) in about 15 minutes. My major goal for this week is no stops at the grocery store and no eating out. I hope everyone has a great Monday!
I think this is wonderful. When I got pregnant with my son I was doing a heavy lifting type job. It had taken me a year to get pregnant, so I wanted to be careful. I quit my job totally. We got a credit card. I just paid it off in Feb, (three years after getting it). It is difficult to find money when my need diapers and formula and have one less income. I now do about 5 hours in an office (and take my son with me) and do five hours at home. This works out well for me. I make enough to fund the emergency fund and most unseen bills. Good luck!
Just a little background. I have 3 dd's. They are 14, 15 (will be 16 in a couple of weeks) and 1 that is 18. I have noticed that we are all just constantly running. The oldest dd is graduating from high school in June. She has been in a high school here that combines college classes and limited high school classes. Her high school classes (2 this year) are actually on the college campus. The other 3 classes she took this semester are college classes. She goes to her clases, has a job and of course the boyfriend. My other 2 dd's go to a Magnet school (oriented to what they are looking for in a career) and they get up at 4am and are on the bus to school by 5:30. After school and activities (one is involved in student council the other is on the softball team) they get home anywhere between 3:45 and 6pm. Both my husband and I work full time and run around the rest of the time chasing kids. Over the last several weeks I have been observing how we do things. The first thing is no one (except dh) is organized. I should have Danger Zone on the girl's bedroom door's. I have noticed that I buy things for school projects, activities, etc but then I will find the same item (bought on a previous trip to the store) in a closet or drawer. So I have ended up buying things twice. I also no longer think outside the box when things are needed. For a while I had a stock pile of syrup not because it was a good deal and on sale, but because my pantry was in chaos so I kept thinking we needed more (of course for the frozen all ready made waffles because there was no time for cooking them in the perfectly good waffle iron I own).
The other thing I have been noticing is the amount of laundry in this house. We all do laundry so I have no idea how many loads are done a week. I have curbed the wash load with just a couple of items in it when I realized that was going on, but I know we are still doing way to much. So these items are definately money wasters.
I will be observing and starting to change habits over the next several weeks so that I can start to see the savings in the very near future (like the next utility bill or trip to the store). I'm sure there will be grumbles along the way, but the outcome is well worth it.
Today everyone brown bagged lunch and had breakfast and dinner at home. The vegie garden is looking good (I have several Early Girl tomatoes on the vine) and everything else is getting bigger. They are loving the 90+ temps. I can't wait for a fresh tomato. 2 loads of laundry hung to dry.
Do you have a change jar? I was thinking you could put that on your credit card. I am using my change jar for extra on my credit card and also does your state have bottle return? In Maine we do i am also using that for extra to throw on the credit card.
I just reached that goal in February--quit my job for good! It was an awesome feeling, and even better knowing how hard we worked to pay off debts and get to the place we're in now!
I was a negative retoucher for many years which allowed me to work from home to be there with my kiddos and I am so thankful for that even though I hated to retouch negatives(I was great at it so go figure) then when computers took over and I was out of a job dh said "Stay home where you want to be with the kids."
I never looked back. It was the best thing for me, my family, and my home.
You can throw yourself 110% into your job--HOME--and trust me, it is a JOB, and be so satisfied.
I am happy for you that you are going to be able to do what you feel is right for you and your family.
Thanks for the encouragement. I'm waiting for someone to ask me at work what the little x's in the corner of everyday on my desk calendar are for. I am counting the days!
Thanks for the change jar suggestion. We do have one and have been saving change for are vaction this summer. I didn't think to use it for the cc I will discuss it with DH. Every bit helps. I am not aware of can and bottle recycling here, I use to do it when we lived in CA and it was a nice chunck of change each time. It would really be nice right now.
I cannot wait to give 110% to my family and home. I thought when I went back to work 7 years ago after being a SAHM for 5 years, that was what I wanted. I worked hard and moved up and then the company moved its office. I had to move with them or find a new job. So I started a new job 2 years ago. I just don't have the same desire and drive that I did. I also can look back and see how much time and effort I put into the job instead of my family.
I am so thankful that my DH is on board and supportive of the idea, I wouldn't be able to accomplish this otherwise. My youngest dd seems to be the most enthusiastic about the whole idea.
Today I washed hung 1 load of laundry, made muffins for breakfast and a cake for lunches.
Hope everyone has a great day!
Over the last couple of days I have hung laundry, brown bagged lunches, homemade meals at home for breakfast and dinner. I had to have wisdom teeth pulled this morning,not fun! I was happy to hear that it was $60.00 less then they quoted me. The left over amount paid the copay on my RX and DH's 2 RX's. It has been getting warmer here so that means the air is on, so I will have to learn how to use the thermostat. We realized last summer that DD's have figured it out and would just change it when it got to hot for them. There in for a suprise this summer, it is staying at a temp DH and I agree on. Tomorrow is DH's payday so I will do a quick update of what was paid to the cc.
So, in my last post I said I would update on DH's payday which was suppose to have been Saturday. His paycheck was not automatically deposited so had to wait until the office was open today to find out that they didn't hit a button and so he got a check instead. First time in 3 years. Oh well!
It is nice to start seeing that a few changes are working and there is extra money. The main thing so far is the grocery bill. I hope to bring it down even more. I hope to see a little change in the utility bills, but with the heat (air is running) it will probably be about the same. I have been going after lights left on and phantom usage, but I konw I can still improve in this area.
This weekend I baked 2 loaves of bread for the week and made rice krispie treats for lunches. I used strawberry marshmallows, they are GOOD! I also hung all but 1 load of laundry.
I was able to pay $500.00 towards the credit card after paying the other bills. I hope to pay more wednesday when I get paid.
I haven't updated because it will just pretty much be the same thing everyday. Hang Laundry, Brown Bag Lunches, Cooking from scratch. I am starting to notice the bills are going down slowly but surely, so I am very excited about that. I am trying to get down to $75/week for groceries and this week I spent $75.49. That was nice to see. I was able to pay another $500.00 toward the cc when I got paid on wednesday. I have budgeted another $1000.00 when DH and I get paid again in 2 weeks. My biggest fear is that I have forgotten to budget for something. I have gone over the past several budgets and added things like dd's graduatin and other dd turning 16. I just hate suprises, but I guess that if something comes up I have forgotten I will just have to adjust to make it work.
I've been reading your posts and 2 months ago I quit my job to stay at home. I wasn't as organized as you seem to be. I was working long days and every now and again a Saturday. I wasn't enjoying the work environment anymore(it's funny how the change of 1 manager can change everything). Then one day while I was on the 1/2 hour train trip to work at 7 am I decided that I couldn't do it anymore. We only have 1 daughter(6yo) and I was making her go to before and afterschool care 5 days a week. She was at school from 6:30am to 5:30pm. Then it was the mad rush for dinner,bath and school book reading and bed at 7:30 to start again the next day. Her Saturday was taken up with us grocery shopping and house cleaning/washing etc. That only left us Sunday. When she was a baby this didn't seem to bother me but now she wants to try a sport and watch the early morning cartoons her friends talk about at school. So I sent my hubbie an email from work on the Monday morning and said that I had resigned. He was very good about it and since we don't have any debts except for the mortgage which we have been paying off faster than normal we think we can manage it. So far so good. I'm getting better at cooking more cheaply and keeping within the grocery budget because I have that little extra time to work out a meal plan and shopping list. I've even planted some vegies and we've got a couple of fruit trees started. I'm in the process of de-cluttering the house. My DH can now come home and relax and sit with Emma and read with her while I cook. Everything is just less stressful! I still look on the internet to see what jobs are out there and if in a couple of months I see one part-time I might go for it but I'm in no hurry.
DH got paid today and I was able to pay $500 to the cc. I can't seem to get above that amount. I am still doing the daily frugal stuff (cooking from scratch, hanging laundrey, etc). DH and I have started de-cluttering the house. The downstairs is in order, it's the upstairs that's scary. The loft has always been the catch-all room, so that is where we are focusing this weekend. I think the de-cluttering will make life much simpler. We won't be constantly looking for things, or buy something we already have because we can't find it. This should also help the spending. I still feel that there is room for improvement and as we are finding and correcting these areas we are seeing the results. It all takes time, but we are definately seeing the progress. Thank you for your support!
Today I paid bills. I was only able to pay $100 to the cc. The budget includeded extras this 2 weeks. Are middle dd turned 16 and are oldest graduates friday. So I did some gift shopping and party planning as well as dinners out twice. But there was and will not be any charging, so that is good. Things have been a little crazy with the end of the school year so I haven't been as frugal as I should be. I will get back on track this week.
We had a change of heart about my staying home. The more I thought about being home all the time the more I wasn't sure I wanted to. My dd's are 14, 16 and 18. Although I am still needed it really isn't full time so I discussed it with DH and we hashed out the reasons I wanted to really be home. I felt like my home was not getting the proper amount of attention. We have more clutter then we ever had, I always felt rushed and I just plan didn't feel good. We wrote down the pro's and con's of losing my income, plus with the economy, shouldn't I be thankful I have a job!
So we have been decluttering the house, everyone has been helping with the day to day cleaning (we have left the option of having someone come in and clean when school starts) life gets very hectic with everyone's busy schedule. I also went and saw the doctor. I have a had a few health issues that I have been neglecting and I feel much better now that I am taking care of them. The biggest thing was I felt that my pay was being waisted. My husband and I are slowly changing spending habits and working on making up the retirement we lost when the market went down. We still have about $2300.00 left to pay on the credit cards. We had some dental expenses come up that we had not planned on so we weren't able to pay as much as we had hoped. We made quite a dent though and charging is no longer allowed. If we don't have the money we don't buy! I will keep updating my debt reduction on my sig.
I appreciate everyone's support and I am bummed that we still have some debt on the charge card, but we have learned a lot and I am happy with the decission we have made.
Coming from someone unemployed not by choice I might add. Know the SAHM thing. Appreciate it..understand it totally. But really think it thru before you quit. Don't know where you are but here in Florida you can't get a job at Mickey D's. Or a dishwasher. Anything above that is a laugh. I went to apply at Sheriffs Department where I used to work before last job. One opening for dispatcher which is a job NOBODY ever wanted. There were 41 applications. Think twice before you quit. It might not be there if things got bad and you HAD to go back to work.
You talked about dental expenses not planned on and couldn't pay as much as expected...what if that had been AFTER you quit. And having a hard time paying off the credit card. That is with you working.
That's the best way to figure out a plan. Talking about all the pros and cons with your hubby. I am glad you are dealing with your health issues and that eveyone is starting to pitch in around the house. I am glad you are happy with your decision.
No matter what the goal, you need a plan, and you definitely have one and you are doing great! Congrats, and I hope that staying home is all you want it to be! :clap:
Sorry, accidentally hit the enter before finished. I'm not trying to be hard here just realistic. Did you mention ( I could be wrong ) that without you there wouldn't be dental insurance? If so that's big in itself. Especially in light of what just happened.
Please, please think three times before you do this. I would love to have my paycheck back. Hugs to you and know you'll make the right decision for you and your family.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Frugal Village Forums
1.8M posts
47.5K members
Since 2001
A forum community dedicated to the frugal lifestyle and the enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about simple and green living, cost effective tips, life hacks, debt reduction, recycling, gardening, other homesteading techniques, and more!