Preparing to be a Stay at Home Mom

Why We Decided I Would be a Stay at Home Mom

If you had told me 3 years ago that I was going to be a stay at home mom someday, I would have laughed in your face. I had always imagined I would have children at some point, but I figured that I probably go on maternity leave and then find a day care or nanny while I continued to work, mostly because that's what my mom did and I turned out just fine! I had grown up with two working parents and had gone to a day care for as long as I could remember. I think that for me and my parents, that was the best option. I am an only child and I think I escaped some of the "only child syndrome" symptoms because I was always with other kids so I never really had trouble socializing. I was in a home daycare run by a wonderful woman named Paulette, she cooked lunch for us every day, had arts and crafts time, made sure we cleaned up messes we made, and let us be kids. For me, it wasn't any different than going to my grandmother's house for the day. In fact, Paulette came to my high school graduation party, and to my wedding, and my grandmother still sends Paulette a birthday card every year!

Reality hit once Brendan and I got married and began thinking about starting a family. There were several factors we took into consideration before making the decision that this was what we wanted. I was no longer making what I had been making in New York City, and good childcare would probably cost approximately the same amount of money as I would bring home which would basically mean I was working to send my child to day care. I realized how extremely lucky I was that my parents found the childcare for me that they did. I have heard horror stories of trying to find childcare providers in this area, and no amount of extra money I might bring home is worth putting my child in harm's way. Also, Brendan doesn't have a job where it would really be feasible to assume that he would sometimes be able to pick up Luke if I'm running late at work. We also had to consider that with us moving every 2-3 years, we would have to start all over with childcare providers every time we moved and that would create a lack of stability in having to have our children bond with another day care provider and group of children when moving that often is already going to be tough.The biggest reason why we decided I would stay at home though, is that we believe that the most important role that I have as a wife and mother is my role at home supporting my family there. This is the reason I transitioned earlier this year from working in insurance to working at our church. Life runs smoother when my number one job is taking care of my family.

Preparing Financially for Living on One Income

Once we decided that I would be staying at home once we had children, we knew that living off just Brendan's income would be difficult but do-able so, we decided to do some things to plan ahead. Most of these things are obvious and are probably practiced by tons of couples, but if you haven't thought of some of these, I hope it helps!

1. Putting my income into savings ahead of time. One of the first things that we did was decide that any money I made from my job would go into our savings account. This way, we were already used to seeing only Brendan's paychecks in our checking account so we would not be shell shocked when my checks stopped coming in and we'd have a little bit of a cushion in savings for unexpected expenses.
2. Living below BAH. For those not in the military, BAH stands for basic allotment for housing. Basically what it means, is that if you decide not to live in military housing, and get a place off-post they give you a stipend based on your location, rank and if you have dependents to pay for housing. We try to rent a house about $200 below the total amount we are given every month so that we can use the remainder to pay for utilities and internet. Even if you aren't in the military, I suggest setting a reasonable budget for your living expenses. Keeping up with the Jones is overrated if you spend all of your money doing it.
3. Nixing Cable and reading more books. When we lived in Georgia, cable and internet were included in our monthly rent and we spent way too much time watching re-runs of NCIS. When we moved to North Carolina we decided we didn't really need cable so we just got internet saving ourselves a few hundred dollars a year. We might decide to get cable once the baby comes mostly to keep me from going insane and to distract the baby if i need to take a shower or clean, but it was actually a really great thing. Brendan doesn't have a ton of time at night anyways and I felt more valued not having to split time between him quality time with me and us staring at a TV.
4. Aggressively getting rid of debt. Brendan and I are both lucky that we don't have any student loans and for a young married couple we started off relatively debt free. The only debts that we had were a loan that Brendan took out his junior year at West Point and a small loan for my car. Every month, we would make payments that were over the amount we needed to pay on the car while we had the extra cash to beat the interest, and we actually decided to this month to take money out of our savings and completely pay off my car to lower our monthly expenses. We also usually use our debit cards for everything except major expenses like new tires or plane tickets so we aren't spending money we don't have.
5. Committing to cost effective care strategies for the first few years of our children's life. When I first found out we were pregnant, I looked into ways to save money on the cost of the first few years of Luke's life such as cloth diapering, breast feeding and making our own baby food, and decided to commit to doing these things. While we would be saving extensively especially on formula and diapers, through our research we also found out that most of those are also more beneficial to Luke's well-being.
6. Spreading out costs of stocking up on baby items over the span of my pregnancy. Although cloth diapers in the long run are less expensive at about $500 from birth until potty training, they are expensive to purchase at between $10-25 a diaper and from research, a good amount to have is about 25-30 diapers. While I registered for some diapers, I have also been buying 2 or 3 a month at our local cloth diapering store. They have a 10% military discount two times a month, so I try to make sure I purchase them then. I also go to consignment sales that they have in the area every once in a while to see if there is anything I can pick up from those, although I haven't purchased anything yet because I always feel overwhelmed when I go in because I don't even know what I will need.
7. Purchasing less expensive items for the baby room and re-purposing pieces of furniture. Instead of purchasing an entire bedroom set, we decided to only purchase a crib. We went on consumer reports and found that the 3rd ranked crib as far as safety was extremely reasonably priced at about $160. Since we move so often, it didn't make sense to us to spend a ton of money on an furniture set that could get dinged up or damaged, so we decided to use and re-purpose some items we already had so we would be able to use the money we would have spent on that for more important items.
8. Finding a small part-time job that I can continue to do from home after the baby is born. At the same time I started at my church, my pastor's wife also approached me about a position that she previously had but could no longer do at an IT firm basically entering their receipts and reconciling their checking and credit card statements. It's only a few hours a week, and I can do it from home. I don't know how else to put it other than to say that I was extremely blessed to have this opportunity. I told my boss I was pregnant when I was hired and he had no problems with hiring me anyways even though I told him I understood if he would prefer to hire someone else. It's not a lot of extra money, but it will help with groceries or continuing to grow our savings once I stop working full time.

Mentally preparing to be a Stay at Home Mom

Staying at home will not only be financially straining, but I anticipate it being emotionally taxing for many reasons. Motherhood will be overwhelming and without having the support of family being close by and Brendan having long work hours, I know there are some days where I am going to end up completely drained. Also, I have always found value in having a job and have liked working, and worry that I might struggle adjusting to feeling guilty because I am not contributing monetarily. While there are few things that I can do to actually prepare me to begin this new stage in my life and know that no amount of preparation will truly prepare me, I have found a few things to be very helpful.

1. Reading and meditating over Scripture that reinforces the importance of my role at home. Verses such as Genesis 2:18, Proverbs 31:10-31, Ephesians 5:22-23, Titus 2: 2-5 have been uplifting and inspiring for me knowing that I was designed by God for this role. It has lifted some anxiety and I spend time every night praying that I will find contentment and fulfillment in knowing that I am doing what God created me to do.
2. Talking with other stay at home moms. I have several friends in this area who are also stay at home moms. By talking to them and listening to their struggles and successes I have been able to prepare myself for some situations I didn't even think about. Also, seeing these women serving their families selflessly day in and day out and the impact it has had on their children has encouraged me that this is, in fact, how I want to raise my child.
3. Talking with Brendan about our expectations. We need to continuously have a dialogue and discuss what he needs help with and what I need help with and how that will change once a baby comes into the picture is something that is so important. If our expectations don't match up, then one or both of us will end up very disappointed and frustrated.
4. Reading parenting blogs and articles. I find myself on Pinterest or going through Parenting magazines trying to read up on what to expect once the baby comes home. I know that everyone has different experiences, but I feel that the more I read, the less surprised I will be when something unexpected happens to us!

This post is not exhaustive and I'm sure that I will discover more things along the way, but these are the things that have helped me ease my anxiety and joyfully anticipate my new role. If other moms have any other tips, I would love to hear them!

Disclaimer: This post is filled with our personal reasons along with how we are preparing for the decision we made for me to be a say at home mom. This post is in no way intended to be condescending to those who have chosen to raise their children different ways. Every family has different dynamics, and every parent must do what is best for their family relative to their specific circumstances. My intent is to clarify our reasons, and give helpful information and suggestions to other parents who are considering doing the same thing.