There’s a lot of conversation on the topic of how to live on one income. Being a stay at home mom in a country designed for dual income comes with sacrifices!
If you stay home, you have to decide what it is you’re willing to sacrifice for the lifestyle you want for your kids!
If you want to be a stay at home mom you have to decide what it is you want: less than that.
Hi! I’m Meghan and this is my blog AR Bound where I discuss life as a stay at home mom, military life, and homemaking. I am so glad you’re here!
Today I’m going to share some of the lifestyle changes my family has made so that I can be a stay at home mom and adjust to the pay cut!
How to Live on One Income Lifestyle Change #1: Haircuts at home
I cut my husband’s hair once every week. He is in the service so he has to have his hair cut even more regularly than your average guy to stay within the regulations!
His haircuts have always really added up for us! This is a skill I was intimidated by but after a few youtube videos and some practice I feel like I’m giving him a superior-to-Supercuts haircut every time.
If I can learn this skill so can you! I did order some mid range price clippers that are nice and make my haircuts come out much better than your average set would.
They are also wireless/rechargeable which is really worth the extra investment. I can take my husband out to the yard and do his haircut to spare us the indoor cleanup which is a nice feature!
Me taking on this role saves us $40 every week. Monthly that saves us $160! Annually that adds up to $2,080. I mean wow! I’d so much rather put that money elsewhere.
How to Live on One Income Lifestyle Change #2: Eat at Home
Eating out can be one of the biggest drains on your income. And in our house we LOVE to eat out.
Despite our enjoyment of the restaurant experience, I cook most nights and I pack my husband’s lunches.
This keeps us from giving our valuable money away to someone else.
Most lunches out cost about $10 per meal, that’s in the realm of fast foods, and most dinners out cost about $20 a plate when you average in beverages and appetizers.
We could easily eat out 4 nights a week when I was working full time. Matthew could eat out 5 days a week for lunch as well.
Just skipping the lunches alone saves an average of $50 every week: that equates to $200 a month, or $2,600 a year.
Reducing eating out from 4 times a week to once a week saves $120 every week! That equates to savings of $480 monthly and $6,240 annually.
You can provide so much value to your family by being a stay at home mom! There are so many creative ways to live on one income.
I want to point out that just because it’s a make at home meal doesn’t mean it’s more affordable.
If you are a stay at home mom who’s wondering why the grocery bill is outrageous, ask yourself how many frozen dinners and pre-chopped items you’re purchasing at the store!
All outsourcing of work will cost you valuable money. If you’re outsourcing breads and soups and etc that will cost you! Everything you can make from scratch will reel in additional savings.
Hint: It tastes better, too.
Lifestyle Change #3: Cloth Diapering
Now what?
Sure the home cooking and the haircuts but you’re telling me that even with the diapering you save money?! Well, yep.
I cloth diaper my little boy. I truly think its worth the time and effort.
It is not as hard as people seem to think. I bought 28 diapers for our baby.
Some of these I did get from family at our baby shower as well, but say I hadn’t and I bought them all myself. I own 18 Nora’s Nursery diapers ($180), 6 Alva baby diapers ($30), and 4 Bum Genius Diapers ($80).
I also purchased 5 hemp inserts ($50) for night time use as well as 18 flour sack towels ($18) for add-ins.
This means I spent a total of $358 on diapers for my baby.
I buy a container of Tide powder detergent once every two months from Sam’s club for $32.88. If you diaper for two years that is $394.56.
For one year of disposable diapering you can expect to spend $1,800-3,300 on average.
For year one of cloth diapering you can expect to spend $555.28. This means your first year you save $1,244.72. In the second year this habit can save you $1,639.28.
If you use your supply with your next child, here’s where it gets really good.
You’ll be saving $1,639.28 every year you have a child in diapers!
If you have three children, in the lifetime of their diapering you can save $1,244.72 + (5 * $1,639.28) = $9,441.12.
That’s not nothing mommas! In fact, I’m certain I could spend that money better elsewhere.
ESAs anyone?
How to Live on One Income Lifestyle Change #4: Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is also a major way to save your family money as a stay at home mom. I know there are circumstances where women can’t (I had to stop at 8 months because my body dried up my milk supply when I got into my second trimester of pregnancy, this is a normal and expected change), but if you’re able, there’s no disputing that it is more affordable.
Especially if you are trying to figure out how to live on one income.
Formula can cost anywhere between $4,927.50 and $10,493.75 in one year depending on what you buy. I purchased one bra to pump with ($29.99), breast milk storage bags ($32), and a manual pump ($28.72). My insurance covered the electric pump. I was also gifted a boppy pillow but I would consider this a non-essential item and for that reason it is not included in my calculation.
This means breast feeding would have saved us (if I had been able to do a full year) between $4,836.79 and $10,371.04 in formula expenses alone.
Talk about bringing value in your home.
It actually still saved us (on the low end!) approximately $3,000 that I breastfed as long as I did! That is an absolutely incredible amount of savings!
How to Live on One Income Lifestyle Change #5: Doing my own Hair Color
I recently decided that it was time to let go of my high maintenance hair. Which is funny to say because, I am extremely easy with hair.
I would go in for a balayage and wait three months to go back in to get it freshened up.
But! I finally decided that this pattern wasn’t keeping my hair looking its best, so I needed a change.
Often between visits I felt it needed to be toned because it was getting too yellow etc etc. Finally though, I concluded that with a baby, going in for a 3 hour appointment just wasn’t feasible.
I finally decided it was time to go to Sally’s, get some of the least damaging hair color I could, and do it myself. All one color.
This has been a long time coming but once my husband started letting me do his hair, I started to become less intimidated by it.
I still go to the salon for cuts, but this is a whole lot cheaper, and a whole lot more doable with my baby.
I’m just not willing to sacrifice a Saturday and $200-300 just to keep me in a cycle of dissatisfaction with my hair. $800-1200 for dissatisfaction is just too much money.
Now, I can get a cut for about $50 every three months and feel a lot more satisfied. Plus spending about $50 a year at Sally’s for color. This saves us $550-950 a year but it also saves me the time I was missing with my family.
Lifestyle Change #6: No more mani/pedi
I typically go for two mani/pedis annually. It’s a good reset for any cuticle and dead skin build up that may occur over a year!
Otherwise, I do anything else that may need like painting my nails and filing them at home! It saves us about $120 per month if not more.
This means annually I’ve cut back $1,440 of expenditure that once again just keeps me dissatisfied with my nails.
How to Live on One Income Lifestyle change #7: I pluck my own eyebrows
I feel confident in my ability to pluck outside my designated brow line!
But, I don’t trust that someone else always knows what that is.
That’s why I’ve done my own brows for years. This saves us $20 every two weeks! This saves us $520 every year!
Whatever your financial situation is I know that you can lower your expenses and become a valuable homemaker! I added up our savings for the services I provide for our family, and it was upwards of $17,000!
That’s a little under a third of my former salary just added back to our pockets! When you consider the cost of child care, your stay at home mom gig just became worth it!
This is why I believe anyone who truly wants to can be a stay at home mom with the right mindset!
You’re able to do whatever you want momma!
For more cloth diapering tips, click here! If you want to read more about finances, click here to read our debt payoff journey!
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