Ladies Who Lunch

I've always aspired to be apart of the Ladies Who Lunch. I see myself sleeping in, working out with a trainer, and going to lunch with my girlfriends while Mary Poppins raises my children.

Let me be clear - even though I stay home now, I couldn't be further from the elusive ladies who lunch.

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, I have gotten a lot of questions about the logistics of going from a two income family to only one. I certainly don't claim to be an expert on the topic, but I have learned a lot in the past year about what works and what doesn't, for us anyway. Recently a college friend messaged me with a few questions about the how-tos of transitioning from working to staying home, so I decided to take some of the information I gave to her and share it with all of you. So whether you want to stay home or you are just curious about if we can even afford to eat anything more substantial than Ramen Noodles (yes, we can) then read on.

As a firm believer that a family's financial situation is private (Father Fred, the accountant, imparted this on me at a very early age) I will not divulge a whole lot of specific numbers; rather I will stick to broader tips and ideas that have worked well for us. That being said, a teacher's salary is public information, so Google if you must.

As for the initial the decision to stay home, it was 100% my idea and it took a lot of convincing on my part. I worked on Ricky for a good six months before he finally agreed, and it took me getting pregnant with the Bulldog to solidify the decision. You don't even want to know what childcare for two children costs, but let's just say it would have been more than our house payment.

He was (understandably) very skeptical, especially because his job wasn't changing at all and he kind of felt like why should things have to change for him just so that I could do what I wanted to do? I tried to stress the benefits of me being home - having a clean house, grocery shopping, making dinner, doing laundry - all things that honestly weren't getting done very well when I was working full time and he had to do half of it, too.

Funnily enough, my house at this moment is not clean, and guess who cooked dinner last night? Ricky. But I did manage to keep the kids fed and alive for the entire day, so I think that counts for something.

Ricky tends to focus on the practical rather than the emotional side of any given issue (unlike myself) so naturally he wanted to know first and foremost how we were going to financially handle living solely on his teaching/coaching salary. After researching medical transcription (seriously) and deciding that was a terrible idea, I tried to convince him (and myself) that I could easily make extra money with a direct consultant business. So I immediately paid my $99 start up fee and became a Scentsy consultant!

This is kind of hilarious because I don't have a single business-minded bone in my entire body. Furthermore, direct sales practically require two things: competent (read, un-awkward) social skills and a passion for meeting and talking to strangers. I have neither. I should've learned my lesson after my brief stint of selling Mary Kay in college. Seriously, that happened.

So anyway, I started selling Scentsy to supplement our income while still working full time. That was during the fall of 2010, and Little Ricky was still an infant. Although it helped a little (okay, a very little) I found that to make enough money to really make a difference for us I needed to put in a lot more time. No thank you.

(By the way, I actually do still sell Scentsy and I swear this will be my one and only plug for the duration of writing this blog. I absolutely love the products, and have turned a few of the Ethels into Scentsy addicts as well. So if you need a warmer or a little wax you can visit my website: ashleyejones.scentsy.us - I know, I'm shameless.)

I am not saying that working for a direct sales company can't work. It works for a lot of people - I have met many very successful Scentsy consultants - but I highly doubt that I will ever make the big bucks selling anything.

Okay, so back to becoming a SAHM. At the risk of sounding incredibly old-fashioned, I have taken the perspective that staying home is my new job. Of course Ricky still helps out at night and on the weekends with the kids, but I don't expect him to maintain things around the house because now that's my job. Honestly though, staying on top of things at home can be tough! Since there are no deadlines and now I'm my own boss, if you will, it's easy to put things off or say "oh, I will just do that later!" I have found that being organized and even delegating certain tasks to specific days keeps me on top of everything. This does not always pan out, but I really am trying. I think Ricky appreciates the things I'm able to take care of now, and hopefully he sees benefits for himself, too.

So how do we manage? Here goes...

We treated my first year at home as a trial year. I convinced Ricky to just give me one year of staying home to see if it would work. I promised him that if things were too tough financially, I would go back to work the following August and at least I would have had that one year at home with LR and the Bulldog. I am coming up on the end of the trial year, and I feel lucky that I am going to be able to stay home a little longer. Again though, we are taking it one school year at a time, and this time next year we will reevaluate the situation. I would like to think I could stay home until all the kidlets go to kindergarten (DO NOT tell Ricky I said that -it will freak him out) but realistically that may not happen.

Before making any big decisions, we took a long, hard look at our income and budget. It was amazing how much extra money we were spending on things we don't really need! We have reduced eating out, shopping trips, and other various extras. Don't worry too much; we still have cable, so I think we're okay.

Other cuts were small but added up quick - we downsized the cable TV package to save about $50 a month, we make coffee at home instead of going to Starbucks, Ricky packs his lunch, yada yada yada.

I also started couponing like a madwoman, and I save tons of money that way. My goal is to save at least 45% each week, and we've had a couple weeks that we've saved up to 65% off our groceries. That includes the expensive stuff we all hate buying - detergent, body wash, cleaning supplies, and even razors. Ugh - razors are the worst. Another perk of couponing: I look really cool with my giant 3-ring binder (with a zipper) that holds my coupons divided into 17 categories. Fabulous, I know! In fact, I was hit on by a 17-year-old cashier at Kroger just this week. Seriously. I make couponing look good!

This is not a couponing post - although I'm obsessed with it - but here are my favorite websites if you are interested:

www.krazycouponlady.com - Start here for beginner tips, the rules, yada yada yada.
www.thegrocerygame.com - This site has a membership fee, but it's relatively small compared to what you save. It's my favorite!

Couponing can take a lot of time, but since I stay home I consider that part of my job. And - nerd alert - it's really fun.

Moving on. Consignment stores and sales are perfect for kids' toys and basic everyday play clothes. You wouldn't believe how often clothes still have the tags on them! Typically, I save new outfits for special occasions or events. And if you're kids are anything like mine, they would rather play with Tupperware or paper plates than actual toys, so I enjoy spending less money on toys through consignment. I don't know why this was hard for me to accept, but they really are the exact same toys you can buy at the store. I promise. Just wash everything you buy - even the stuff with the tags - so it smells like your stuff.

Consignment is like finding a husband  - you have to go through a lot of crap to find the good stuff. But if you look hard enough, it's there.

We still try to do fun things with each other and the kids, but we find cheaper ways to do them. We go to the park (free), go to the movies during the day rather than at night (cheaper), yada yada yada. And in a weird way, we almost have more fun doing those things now because we see things like eating out as a splurge and we enjoy it more than we used to. There are certain things we won't give up - for example, our annual anniversary dinner at III Forks - so we literally keep an envelope in our safe specifically for this event and add to it throughout the year. That way when our anniversary rolls around the money is ready to go!

I can't get around talking about money - it's a necessary evil. We started by looking at our debt. I went through a Dave Ramsey phase in college, and while I'm not a strict devotee I agree with most of what he has to say.

Ricky and I are incredibly lucky to have family in our lives who not only encouraged us to attend college, but who supported us in various ways - not just financially but emotionally as well.

To the Freds and Ethels who contributed to our college educations: Please know that your support, financial and otherwise, does not go unnoticed. We KNOW how lucky we are, and living free of college loan debt is truly making a huge difference in our lives as we raise our own family.

 And thank you, TCU, for the academic scholarship and FREE graduate school. I always knew I was a bad ass, and apparently you knew it, too.

We eliminated all credit card debt as soon as we got married. That may or may not have been mine. Now we only use our debit cards, and if we don't have the money for something already in our bank account we don't buy it. I think that is worth repeating - IF WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY FOR SOMETHING ALREADY IN OUR BANK ACCOUNT WE DO NOT BUY IT!

Our house and car payments are our only debt, and most of our other bills are fixed so we know what's going out each month. After the bills are paid, that's when the real fun begins - compromise! We work together to figure our when/where/how/if to spend whatever is left over.

Building a savings account for our family was very important, as we did not want to feel like we were living paycheck to paycheck. I guess we are doing that, but without worry because our savings is there just in case. Last January we decided to practice living on one income to see if it would work or not. From January through August (my last paycheck) we lived off of Ricky's salary and tried to put most of my paycheck into our savings account. It was great because we were able to learn how to live on less without having to stress when when we made mistakes (and we made plenty of them).

Building our savings was twofold - it gave us a chance to practice our new lifestyle as well as bulk up our savings account. Now when something unexpected comes up that's not in the budget, we have our savings to fall back on. For example, we recently spent $500 to fix Ricky's truck, and yes it sucked to spend the money, but we had it in our savings and we were able to take care of it. Similarly, we were able to set aside money for the Bulldog's hospital bills, so after she was born we were able to pay those medical bills outright. And trust me, now that we've reached our deductible and out-of-pocket maximum, I'm taking full advantage of our "free" healthcare - foot surgery, anyone?

So we did all of this, and things were still a challenge. But then something happened - I think Oprah would call it a God thing. Our nephew needed childcare, and I just happened to be staying home. Since they live only 10 minutes away, he stays with me Monday through Friday, and the extra money from watching him is enough to keep us from having to rely on our savings unless it's an emergency. And I'm already doing kid things all day long, so why not take care of a third?

Want to hear God thing part two? My nephew doesn't need childcare anymore starting in a few weeks, but the newest Ethel - my precious niece - does! Another bonus: Ricky thinks that having a young(er) baby in the house will cure my baby fever.

Why does my baby fever never go away, even when I give birth? I just really love the tiny ones. But don't get any crazy ideas, we aren't adding another Ricardo anytime soon.

Are there days that I still worry about money? Of course. I think about college, and retirement, and all of those other adult-like things and it stresses me out if I let it. But then I think about the benefits of staying home for me, right now, where I am at in my life, and I know everything will turn out okay.

Disclaimer: There are many days when I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing and I question if I'm up for the challenge of staying home and raising children. Who decided I was competent enough to even have them to begin with?! I don't have all of the answers and I make a lot of mistakes, but maybe there's a little something in this post that can help you or someone you know who is thinking about staying home.

And furthermore, I am just as in awe of working mothers as I am of stay-at-home mothers. Being a mother is damn hard. It's also damn worth it. So keep on keepin' on, mamas. I think you are all fantastic.

And I can still dream about becoming a lady who lunches... right?

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