Friday, April 21, 2006

As a stay at home mom, I can't stop thinking about finances.
Since deciding that staying at home was the best for Logan, we've made a lot of sacrifices to make it happen. We have one car. We get concerned about the skyrocketing prices of gas. We don't go out & we rarely eat out. We choose to do outdoor activities, not only because they are fun & it gets us moving & active, but it's cheap. We don't travel & I'm hoping that Bill gets a bonus at the end of the month so Logan & I can go to Portland to visit my sisters. I don't remember the last time I actually bought clothes (real, not maternity) for myself & we just don't spend money unless it's for the mortgage & utilities.

Now, we haven't reached the point of living on the starving student/top ramen diet yet. But deep in the back of my head, it's a big fear. What if this won't work out? What if I have to go back to work? There is no humanly possible way that I could go back to what I was doing before. I would never see Logan again. He would be raised by child care providers & I would probably die from a broken, guilty heart.

So for the last few months I've been brainstorming on ways to increase our income & stay home if it comes down to that. Just to be prepared. I've thought about making some kind of organic baked good to sell at the farmers market. Logan & I could hang out on the weekend & I'm sure his cuteness would bring in a few bucks. I've thought about consulting with chiropractic offices to increase business & retain current patients. I've thought about training a few people again, but I'm not quite sure how that would workout with Logan. I've thought about making the "six pack abs" nutrition plan into a CD kind of thing, but I'm not that computer savvy. Then I thought about writing a Mommy & Baby workout book. Include the nutrition plan, a workout that moms can do with their babies (that can start when the baby is 6 weeks old rather than 4 months like other workouts) & then also include the baby workouts that Logan does. I have never seen a workout routine, let alone a book for infant workouts. So that might be a good idea.

I have all of these ideas in my head, keeping them filed away, just in case. It's kind of a scary thought, but it's life. It never goes as planned. I do this thinking that I'll be able to sleep at night knowing that I have a plan B, C, or even plan X. I don't want to go work for someone else again, but I guess if all else fails, there's always Starbucks. At least I would get free coffee.

5 comments:

Canadian Mommy said...

Hey, you would be shocked to see how little money we have! We own our house too, have one car, and DH is still in school! It'll work out I promise!
Oh, and I would be totally interested in a book for workouts (baby and mom) starting at 6 weeks! You may be onto soemthing there!

the boyd girls.... said...

I would buy a workout book.....We need to be a little more careful then we used to, but I am a SHOPAHOLIC~I can't help it....You have such great ideas.....

Anonymous said...

i think your idea about the mommy/baby workout is a great idea! It would help with a lot of the depression after birth too. Keep up the great ideas! I would definitely be interested in something like that!

Jezer said...

Hee! Let the other mommies buy the workout book--I would totally buy the baked goods!

Don't worry. I have a friend who is a SAHM after working for several years before kids. She said that because they started paying more attention to their spending habits and got creative with entertainment options, they seemed to have MORE than enough money to pay the bills. I'm sure you'll be fine.

the stefanie formerly known as stefanierj said...

We have both been in school, living on one grad student income, and it has sucked, but you can do it. We did cloth dipes and BF as much as possible, and then the Super Baby Food book that another commenter mentioned on a later post was also a HUGE moneysaver. Do you have a kid to kid there, too? They buy maternity and kids' clothes and sell used. It has been a big help here!