Can You Afford to Stay Home and Raise Your Child?

If you really want to stay home to raise your child you might be able to do so with some budgeting. Calculate out how much money you would save per month by not driving to and from work. Perhaps you could sell your car and purchase a car that you can pay money for so that you don't have a payment on your car. You can also look into switching car insurance to get a better rate and save money. With the money that you save, add all of it up to calculate how much money you are saving. From reducing your car payment and insurance you should be able to save at least $200 a month or so.

Now you will want to look into purchasing a cheaper home. Perhaps your house payment is $3,000 a month. You can sell your home and purchase a house that would cost you $1,500 a month and you will save $1500 every month. This is a $14 an hour job working about 30-35 hours per week which is a lot of money. This alone might be the deciding factor to whether or not you can afford to stay at home. Make sure you have at least an extra $400 left over every month after you pay all of your bills.

Perhaps you can cut down on some habits. If you're a big drinker and you purchase a lot of wine or beer you can cut down on this. If you are a smoker you can stop smoking cigarettes. If you love to shop and you spend a lot of money every month finding good deals and shopping you can cut down on this also. We all have things that we like to do and some of us spend too much money doing so. Calculate how much money you will save from cutting down on these habits.

See how much you will save from not having a babysitter. Also calculate in how much time you will save by staying home to do laundry, dishes and things around the house. Just because you stay home doesn't mean that you can't make money. Perhaps you can watch another child and get a little bit of extra spending cash. You can start your own business and hire somebody to work for you or you can do some things out of your home such as candle light parties or selling items. You can also work for different companies that you find from www.wahm.com.