One Income Money Management

The blogosphere seems to be abuzz today with the whole SAHM vs. Working Mom debate yet again. Apparently Anderson Cooper did a piece about the tired old battle on his show, and there was recently an article published that stated that a recent study found that working moms are healthier than SAHMs. I'd seen links to the article on a couple of friends' Facebook pages, and had simply scrolled right by it, because really? It's such an old, tiresome battle. And it will never end. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm beyond over it.

You work outside of the home? Super!
You stay at home with your children? Wonderful!

I'm not judging, either way.

Instead, all of this led me to think of the many ways our lives have changed since Matt and I made the decision that I would stay home with Camden.

There are the obvious ways: I no longer wake up to a beeping alarm, hop in the shower, and head out the door in a business suit 45 minutes later. (Instead, I wake up to a "Mommy?", throw on a sweatshirt, and get breakfast started.)

Rather than sitting at a desk discussing job opportunities and benefits with candidates, I sit at the kitchen table and discuss Yo Gabba Gabba and the various colors of Play-doh with a small blonde boy.

And for me personally? I wouldn't have it any other way. I am happiest when I'm with my son.

There are less obvious ways our lives have changed, too. Like our finances, for example. Cutting an entire salary out of our budget was nerve-wracking, to say the least. And not only did we cut a salary, but we added a kid, and all of the expenses that come along with that kid. So, we needed to find ways to stretch our money, to get the most for our dollar. (And yes- not having to pay for daycare is a big help.)

Matt is the money manager in our family. He's much more frugal than I am, and he's just better at money management in general (hence, the career in banking). We've implemented several money saving strategies since becoming a one income household:

• We use one credit card for everything: groceries, gas, bills, novelty purchases. We never pay cash and we rarely write checks. And then? We pay off the credit card bill at the end of each month. So, our balance is always $0 but we still get our rewards points for using our card.
• We use coupons. We are far from extreme couponers (though I really think Matt missed his calling there...), but we never go to the grocery store without being armed with a stack of coupons (the cashiers love us!). Also? We try to exclusively buy food items that are on sale.
• We don't eat out a lot. And when we do eat out, you can bet we have a coupon. This has forced me to learn how to cook-- a work in progress, for sure (I heart my crockpot).
• Matt takes a lunch from home to work every day. Cutting out his daily lunch expenses saves us $40-50 a week.
• We buy in bulk. Not everything, of course. But it makes sense to buy paper towels, napkins, and toilet paper in bulk. We have a membership to BJs and it is well worth the membership fee.
• We shop at Kid to Kid! You probably have a similar children's consignment shop in you area. Of course, Camden has some new clothes too, but you really can't beat $4 pajamas.
• We eliminate debt. We just bought a new car, after having no car payments for several years (due to 2 paid off cars). We will be paying this car off as quickly as we can so we can be as debt free as possible.
• We SAVE, SAVE, SAVE.  We maintain a certain balance in our savings account at all times, and any extra money we come across goes into savings. Matt rolls coins and puts that money into our savings account (he's also been known to pick up pennies in parking lots, but I didn't tell you that). We have a college savings account for Camden, too.

And there you have it: our secrets for staying afloat while living on one income. We're no Dave Ramsey or Clark Howard, but this works for us.