If you’ve ever wondered how to financially be a stay-at-home mom, you’re in the right place. You can actually live well while staying home. I know, this economy makes it hard. Sometimes, it seems completely out of reach to live on one full-time income. But it IS possible.
And there are multiple ways to ensure you can be the one to raise your own babies. Because me personally, I couldn’t go another week of only seeing my daughter 10 hours total for the whole week. Fast forward five years and I’ve add two more kids to the mix and still manage to stay at home. Here’s how I do it.
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How to Afford Being a Stay At Home Mom
The answer for how to financially be a stay at home mom will be different for everyone. You might be able to do multiple options listed below, or maybe just one. It’s really up to you, your current lifestyle (or the lifestyle you want to have), and even what your skill set is.
But anything you can do to afford staying at home with your kids is something you won’t regret. I’ve personally never heard anyone say they wish they would’ve worked instead of being a stay at home mom. It does come with some sacrifices, but for us they’re worth it.
We live a pretty frugal life to begin with, and my skillset includes a background in the financial industry. I worked at a bank for over a decade throughout my college years and also at the start of my career in marketing and graphic design. So I learned some things about investing.
Also because I work in marketing and design, which can easily be done remotely, I’ve been fortunate enough to work freelance for added income. But I’ve also done quite a few other things to be able to afford this lifestyle. I’ll detail both below.
Related Article: Leaving Your 9-5: What to Consider Before Starting Your Mompreneur Journey
Best Coupon Sites for Groceries
You can save quite a bit of money simply using digital coupons and rebates apps. It’s simple and easy to use, and it helps reduce your monthly grocery bill and every little bit helps. I follow a few creators on social media for some ideas on groceries deals to get each week. Find a creator, or a few creators, that you like and get some deal ideas, then buy only what you need.
I follow Couponing with Megan on Facebook for deal options each week. She creates deals for a variety of stores and finds great diaper deals if you have young kids. Follow Bree the Coupon Queen on YouTube for deal videos.
And also checkout the Ibotta Friends and Bonuses Facebook group for great deal ideas from people in the community. A great way to see a mix of store and grocery options.
Here are a few of my favorite grocery rebate apps:
- Ibotta – You can sign up for Ibotta and get $5 when you make your first purchase. This is the one that gives me the most cash back, quickly.
- Fetch – I also use Fetch, which is great for new couponers because you can scan any and all receipts and get 25 pointes for every receipt no matter what. You can also get bonus points for specific deals on brands. Sign up and get 1,000 points.
- Shopmium – Cash back that you can send directly to Venmo and your bank account.
- Swagbucks – Get coupons for the things you’re already buying and use the cash back for gift cards to your favorite places. We use this one to get gift cards to eat out each month. Sign up and get
Related Article: Money-saving Tips – Financial Freedom for Stay at Home Moms and Working Moms for more couponing ideas and cash back options. See the apps I currently use, and get some money just for signing up and using them.
Best Cash Back Rewards Credit Card
This one is great, IF you know how to budget and keep track of your spending. If you keep track of it all, so you aren’t blindsided at the end of the month, you’ll be able to rack up some serious points. Especially if you use your credit card to pay for your monthly bills like utilities, those super costly groceries, and more.
Great travel credit cards include Capitol One’s Venture card. It does have an annual fee, but you can downgrade the account before the year is up to avoid the fee for the next year. This works best if you sign up when they offer bonus points for new members. Then, you can downgrade after the year is up and keep your points. The offer right now is 75,000 travel points when you spend $6,000 in the first 3 months.
Another option is cash back or gift cards. Check out Capitol One Quicksilver card for 1.5% cash back on all purchases. Plus, right now they’re offering a one-time $200 cash back bonus. If you’re approved, and spend $500 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, you’ll get your $200.
Related Article: Rise of the Mompreneur – How to Balance Motherhood and Entrepreneurship
Start a Side-Hustle Today
This is the one I can help you with personally because I’ve started my own business. First as a freelance graphic designer and marketing consultant. I started this back in 2018 to stay home with my oldest daughter.
And after 5 years of working this way, I decided to start a business blog and digital product shop to help online female entrepreneurs market their businesses with easier and less stressful marketing strategies. Because when you use strategy, you’re working smarter not harder.
Let your content do the selling for you. So you can do more of what you love.
Learn more about me, shop marketing templates in the Taylored Content Shop, or learn for free on this blog. More articles listed below this one.
Christian Health Care Options
If you’re a self-employed female entrepreneur or stay at home mom with a husband that’s also self-employed, then health insurance might be the biggest factor keeping you in your corporate job.
Health insurance is definitely what was holding me back from quitting my corporate job to stay at home with my kids.
But then I found two great options to help in this area.
- Christian Health Care
- Pediatric Telemedicine Options
First is Christian Healthcare. There are actually a couple of options for you in the Christian Health Care arena, but the option that I found to be the most affordable is Samaritan Ministries.
Here’s a quick run down of how it works. It isn’t health insurance, but instead it’s healthcare. You pay a monthly share, which is like your monthly premium with regular health insurance. These monthly shares go directly to others to pay their medical bills. When you have a need, you submit it to Samaritan and you’ll get reimbursed with the shares that others pay.
They have two options to choose from. Both are great options. One has a higher monthly share, so a higher monthly premium. With a lower out of pocket amount, so a lower deductible. The other is lower monthly share with a higher out of pocket amount.
If you choose Samaritan Ministries, give them our names Drew and Jacquelyn Taylor for $100 off of your first month’s bill. We’ll get $100 too, and we would be so grateful!
The second option is a great add on. It’s actually separate from Samaritan Ministries, and it’s great for anyone really, not just those in need of health insurance to be a stay at home mom.
It’s called Blueberry Pediatrics. You can pay monthly or yearly. Paying yearly gives you a slight discount.
It’s a group of pediatricians available 24/7, 365 days a year. With your paid membership, you can get telemedicine help for all of your children. One price for all of your children, which is great! You can use it as much or as little as you want, so once a month set fee or one yearly fee and you can have as many televisits as you need.
This is especially helpful when you have a sick kid on the weekend or after hours, which is usually when those sicknesses pop up. You can skip the urgent care visit and submit a ticket with Blueberry in their app. They’ll review the images and/or videos you sent in. It walks you through everything that you need to submit based on your child’s symptoms.
And the best part, they send the prescription right to your pharmacy for you and send you a text when it’s ready. My daughter recently told me her ear hurt at 4.50pm. I immediately submitted a visit for her, they called me within 5 minutes of submitting it. I could even tell from the video of her ear that it was infected, it was that red.
Then they sent the prescription for her ear infection to the pharmacy and I was able to go pick it up before the pharmacy closed. By the way, this all happened on a Friday, so it would’ve been a long weekend, or more likely an urgent care visit.
Plus, part of your membership means you’ll get a kit that includes a thermometer, otoscope for taking videos of your child’s ear, and pulse oximeter. The cost for the kit is $100, but they usually run deals where you can get the kit for free.
If you have a high deductible or pay your normal office visits out of pocket like we do, this can be a huge money-saver.
Build a stock-pile of your own food
We grow, can and freeze many of our own fruits and vegetables to eat throughout the winter months. We also raise our own cows, so we have a meat source as well. I know cows aren’t something that everyone can have, but growing your own garden can easily be attained.
Even if it’s a small garden in your backyard or containers on the balcony of your apartment. My motto is every little bit helps.
Also, if you go this route, you don’t have to make it aesthetic like the ones you see on Instagram. Those generally cost more than they bring in. And what they don’t tell you, or maybe don’t know because they grew veggies one summer and now act like they’re experts (I digress), is that raised gardens are harder to keep up. Gravity plays a huge role. Those raised beds will need watered twice as much. And over time the soil breaks down and it looks like you ran out of soil. You have to constantly keep adding.
They’re also harder to weed. With a regular garden right in the ground, you can use a tiller to speed up the process. In raised beds, you have to use your hands. No room for a tiller.
Some great blogs to check out for vegetable gardening and canning include:
The Seasonal Homestead – You can also look them up on YouTube.
Red Feather Farm – I like to follow her on Facebook for reels of everything she’s doing.
There are so many more, but these are two of my favorites. And best of all, we can help other creators online with our traffic or even buy something from them! This is how we all win.
Make your money make money
Using the money you have on hand to make money is a great way to grow your total wealth and this come in a few different forms. You could buy real estate as an investment, like a second home that you AirBNB. Apartments or a house that you rent out, so someone else pays the mortgage for you.
Other ways, and more simple ways, are to invest your money in stocks or put it in a high-yields savings account. This is the route my husband and I have taken so far.
High Yield Savings Account
A high-yield savings account is just like your normal savings account, but instead of earning .01% and literal pennies you can earn a much higher rate. Right now, many rates are in the 4-5% range, which is higher than some mortgage rates. That is if you’re one of the lucky ones that have a mortgage interest rate lower than 3%.
You can Google High Yield Savings Account and look for the best rate right now. For me, I wanted to do a little research, so I kept track of high yield saving account rates for a few months before picking. (Again, I worked at a bank for many years in college and after in the marketing department. I’m a bit of a money nerd now.)
I ended up picking Marcus by Goldman Sachs. I found it to have the highest rate overall because it was always in the top three for interest rates, even if it wasn’t always the absolute highest. Some banks offered higher rates, but then lowered them after a month. I wanted the rate that was consistently one of the highest. You can get your own Marcus Goldman Sachs High-yield Savings account, or again, Google and find the bank that you trust the most and has the best rate for you.
If you use the link above for Marcus, you’ll get an extra 1.00% added to your account for the first three months, and I will as well. A win for us both. But at the end of the day, get the account that you feel fits your family best.
Invest in Low Cost Index Funds
I know this one can sound scary. And I wouldn’t put your savings account in the stock market, especially not your emergency savings account. Again, follow Dave Ramsey if you don’t know what that is.
But you can put money into a low cost index fund that tracks the S&P 500. Just open a brokerage account. It’s just like a normal savings account with your local bank, but it’s with a brokerage firm like Fidelity, Vanguard, or Charles Schwab. You can open the account online and transfer money from your bank.
Once you do this, it’s in your holding account. Now, you simply pick the stock you want to buy. Fidelity offers low cost or even no cost (meaning low or no fees) index funds.
Check out FXAIX as a possible option for you. And if you’re very nervous to try investing on your own, you can call Fidelity (or any other brokerage and ask for help).
You can also find a local Wealth Management Advisor or Financial Advisor and ask for guidance with your accounts. They can help manage your accounts for you and answer any questions you may have.
Related Article: Rise of the Mompreneur – How to Balance Motherhood and Entrepreneurship
Stay At Home Mom Benefits
If you’ve found this blog post, chances are you already know that biggest benefit. More time at home with your kids. This is time you simply can’t get back.
Whether you’re wanting to stay at home with them while they’re little before school. Or you want to stay home and homeschool too, it’s a lifestyle that can be achieved with a little sacrifice. And small changes along the way. Like the gardening option. It won’t happen overnight, but try some small containers. If you like it, then try a little bit bigger garden right in the ground.
Investing, you might not start with thousands and thousands of dollars right away, but starting and getting money in the market can help you grow your overall wealth. $50 per month, at a conservative rate of 8%, over 30 years and compounding interest (means your interest can earn interest), you’ll end up having $74,517.97. I used 8% because the SP 500 averages 10% per year. So I was conservative and used 8%. Just to give you an idea how investing can work.
Check out NerdWallet’s Compound Interest Calculator. I find it to be the best one and easiest to use.
It all comes down to being frugal with your money. Which doesn’t mean being cheap, but simply making sure you’re spending the money you have on the necessities first. Creating that monthly budget and sticking to it. Living with things you need and not trying to keep up with the Joneses.
Other benefits are a lifestyle that’s more relaxed and offers more freedom and flexibility in your schedule. My husband’s a farmer, which means his schedule is very irregular from a normal 9-5 job. Quitting my own corporate job to be a stay at home mom meant I was able to have more flexibility to do more things when he was busy. Like take care of all our animals, the garden, and of course my normal duties the house and kids.
It also meant I have more time for last minute vacations or long weekends when he isn’t as busy. I no longer had to schedule my time off way in advance to be able to ask my boss for that time off.
I can take work with me on a laptop if needed, don’t have to worry about PTO time, and I can rearrange my schedule to fit the needs of my family. All benefits that make it worth any sacrifice that I might have to make to stay at home with my kids.
Related Article: Leaving Your 9-5: What to Consider Before Starting Your Mompreneur Journey
How to Financially Be a Stay At Home Mom
There you have it, a few of the things I’ve personally implemented to be able to be a stay at home mom and still be financially successful as a family. To be able to budget and do small things that add up to big savings is all it takes to financially make it as a stay at home mom and wife.
You can do it, but just know that it will take some sacrifice. And it’ll take a budget that you stick to and update as you go. Create a budget with your spouse first. Then, find ways to save money to make that budget last longer. And if possible, start a side hustle for added income.
And finally, find ways to make the money that you do have stretch further. Let it work for you. This can be in the form of interest or dividend payments. Here’s to hoping you’re able to financially be a stay at home mom, no matter what the economy is doing.
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