I am sure this is all been said-
Try living on your husbands salary. Try and put ALL of yours in savings and see how you do- you may need to cut things out that you really do not need to do this. If you can save yours then do it until you have the next baby.

I second BlueJay's advice. Live on just your husband's income. Use your income to pay off credit card debt, car payments, etc.

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~Jeweled

everybody is right these are all great tips... once you crunch the numbers and see where you are at remember this is a choice and like my dh and i we gave up alot for me to stay home we do not eat out go to movies or even rarely rent them...we did not have a cell phone for a long time (just got one after we had a car accident) we got one with my inlaws to have in an emergency at a fraction of the cost if we would have went and got one..so in order to pay for that and we are getting direct tv i'm going to be donating plasma twice a week that will bring in 240.oo it will pay for the cable tv,cellphone,our life insurance and internet and home phone so by bringing in a little extra money(in the evening when dh is home) we can now have a few minor fun things.. so think outside the box when it comes to misc items...if you can swing it the lifestlye change will be well worth it in the end...good luck..

Read Miserly Moms by Jonni McCoy. She also has a book called Miserly Meals.

These are all great ideas! I am in a similar situation, I have a 4 year old and a 10 1/2 month old. My husband is a teacher and I just resigned from teaching to stay at home. In addition you could think about doing a home based business. That's what we did and it has far replaced my salary teaching. Just another thought.

What kind of home based business are you doing? I have looked into a few, but so far I haven't found anything that brings in a steady income and that scares me.

I am with a company called Arbonne. It is a 26 year old health and wellness company. I was extremely skeptical at first but I loved the products so I signed up for the discount(it was only $29 to sign up so I figured why not). When I found out that I was pregnant I decided that I was going to want to stay at home so I decided to "try" (I say try like that because I was still skeptical) it as a business and I have been blown away by this company. It is amazing.

Okay, I've actually been approached about this company. It seems like everyone I know who had tried it has done well with it. Maybe I will do some more checking into it. It's just one of those things that makes me nervous that it is not always a steady income. Thanks!

Good ideas, ladies. I am struggling to continue being a stay at home mom, and these ideas help a lot.

As far as a home based business. If you go with a company like Arbonne, make sure you believe in the product (Unfortunately, I tried it and had a bad skin reaction) and make sure you want to be selling things.

HTH and good luck!

These are great ideas. I second the living on your dh's income for a while to see if you can do it. I've been a sahm for four years. We did horribly with 2 incomes and I almost had a nervous breakdown when I was working because of the stress. I knew we could make it on his income because I had been home for 1 1/2 years before I went to work. To us it wasn't worth it for me to work, but then again we didn't (and still don't own a house). I'm much happier being home because we were able to have another child and now I'm enjoying the toddler years with my 2nd dd that I missed with the first. Also my other dd who is almost 8 has lots of trouble in school and I'm able to be there after school for her to help with her homework. I wouldn't be able to do this if I was working.

We probably won't ever be able to buy a house until I work (at least part time), but to me it's definetly worth the sacrifice and I'm sure you'll feel the same.

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