In an attempt to keep topics separate, here is a comment left by someone hoping for feedback. For the full comment check the last post. Thanks!!
"I'm a fairly young mom by today's standards. I'll be 27 in December, and I'll have a 20 month little girl and a newborn baby boy by that time. Now I'm struggling to put together a budget that will somehow allow me to keep staying home with my kids, and still keep us sheltered, clothed and fed. And the repercussions of my potential failure to squeeze the life out of husband's salary mean that I might have to step out of my kids' lives for 10 hours a day and let someone else be the one who cares for them. I just feel so burdened lately with the weight of that. Being a stay at home mom is difficult, and I don't mean the at home with the kids part. But trusting God to provide when our needs are very real is frightening. I guess I've always trusted in my ability to make money, or in the amount of money I have socked away in savings. Both of those aren't very reassuring right now. I have been working from home, but the arrival of a newborn is going to really force me to reevaluate that situation.
So I guess one question to the other moms who read this is how do you deal with these issues? Particularly if you stay at home, on a practical level, how do you make your money stretch? I know I'm not the only one feeling the pinch of a lost salary...or maybe I am :) How do you deal with convincing your husbands that some luxuries have to be done away with? Do you feel that, despite not working, you're the one in charge of figuring out everything about how to keep your family afloat? Anyone else want to vent? :)"
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3 comments:
Well, I feel like these may be things we have discussed before, but here are a few ways that Justin and i do to make things work.
1--We pay our bills first, tithe, and then try to avoid frivolous spending which includes eating out or impulse buys. They do happen sometimes, but often these items go right back to the store.
2--We take advantage of government programs, like WIC. This really helps with grocery shopping. We probably save $40 per month in groceries or more this way.
3--Beyond that, we buy a lot of items at Aldi. Their produce and meat is often much cheaper and higher quality than Wal-mart or Kroger. Beyond that I shop with coupons according to sales at Kroger. I have to avoid Wal-mart because it seems like every time I go there i spend close to $100. I make out a list of the next 14 meals we will have and buy those items. Often that will take us through more than 3 weeks worth of meals including leftovers.
4--We try not to buy things we need if there is a birthday coming up or Christmas (esp. for Lewis). We may as well get our family to buy things we actually need to alleviate the strain of buying these things ourselves. Otherwise we end up with stuff we may want or use.
It has been easier for us, in a way, because we only had 2 salaries for 7 months of our 4 year marriage. Things have always been tight which has allowed us to keep our boundaries within a small but liveable range. A low house payment makes all the difference for us too. We sacrifice some comfort for less financial strain each month.
--Oh and we pray for God to continue to provide the way that he has. He really has given us unity on this issue (wanting to stay home with our kid(s)). That makes it much easier to trust Him to provide, while still making the effort to keep our lives fairly simple. Hope that is helpful!
Hopefully some others will want to comment on this too, but since i forgot about the venting part when I made my first comment, here's a little more.
My husband is wonderful, but saving money is not his strength. So i absolutely understand and feel the burden to make everything work in our family financially. It can be frustrating at times, but Justin is pretty good at taking my suggestions when we need to hold back on spending. By focusing on the positive (I would tell him "by saving now, we'll be able to pay the car off and then we'll have $300 more per month," etc.), he is more likely to see the benefit and save today.
However, the real problem comes when I have a weak moment, and Justin's tendency is to cheer me on to spend in hopes that he'll get to splurge on something himself. That puts the burden back on me.
So while we do have a fairly good system in place, it does break down, and I am the one who must hold it all together somehow. It isn't easy!
On a positive note-it is much easier to take joy in helping to save Justin's income than when I was both earning the money (which was a chunk of time) AND monitoring the spending. That was an incredible burden. Now I view this as part of my "job," and the part that allows me to stay home with Lewis. Quite a good motivation for self-control, and patience with my provider husband. :)
I hesitated to put in my '2 cents worth', but after reading Shelly's words, I have to say that those are great comments!
As a mom raising kids in the 70's-it was tough, also. Lots of pressure to be a superwoman with a wonderful career AND take care of the family! To be a stay-at-home mom and live on one salary was radical back then too! At that time the economy wasn't good, jobs were hard to find- Carter was President with gas rationing, mortgage rates around 12%(or higher),inflation, etc. Groceries were so high I bought powdered milk from the food co-op for the 3 kids (not sure if Carrie will remember that) as one way of surviving!
As Shelly mentioned- considering it my 'job' to make the $s go as far as I could- helped a lot. It became a lifestyle for me-perhaps not too surprisingly as I am naturally a penny pincher!
My husband is much more of a spender than I am and I DID have to be the one to control spending for many years. It was tough to do that! But thanks to much prayer, eventually(after 20 years of marriage) he decided we should go to a CROWN Bible study at church. There they taught godly principles on managing money and since then he has been 'on board' with me! He didn't appreciate my money managing style back in the 'tough' days-but now will often tell me that it was because of my penny pinching that we made it thru those years of financial hardship. Those compliments are nice to hear!
So keep on the doing what you are doing! God will take care of you and your families. I continue to pray for you.
Linda Peterson
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