Our minds were made up; we could live on one income. We would have to watch our spending and track every penny of it to make it work, but we can make it work. It was decided and my husband turned in his two week notice at his employer.
It now has been almost 3 months since my husband has left his job. Things have been going wonderfully. The kids seem happier. I know I am happier since now I can go into work early and leave earlier. My husband seems happier. He was having some issues with his old job and I can tell he is enjoying being home with the boys. Some days are trying for him, but he handles them and moves on with the day. He definitely has a lot more patience then I do!
We still have some issues to work out on the home maintenance. I need to let go of certain things and let him do it. He needs to step up and just do things without me asking. I have always done the shopping due to my mapped out coupon trips. However now I give him a list and he does our mid week Aldi’s run for milk and other staples.
We still track our monthly spending down to the penny. This actually helps us make better decisions on when we can afford to buy things. We now think twice if we really need to buy something. I often feel guilty about recording foolish purchases on our spreadsheet like I wasted our money.
We changed our thinking about paying for things later rather than now. We still use credit cards and pay the full balance every month because we do not believe in a cash system. We practice self control and having to record every purchase in a spreadsheet keeps us in check. We have now set up accounts to save for future events. We have been contributing to our Christmas Fund through a Smarty Pig account since August so that we will have funds available to us. We have also started a Vacation Fund for our Disney Trip in May. Vacations are non-negotiable to us. We believe in making memories with our children that include family vacations. It is fitting into our budget, so we will have the funds set aside when we make our trip.
Life is about what you are willing to sacrifice to be able to attain other things you truly want. For us, our kids’ happiness and sense of “normal” was top on our list. It took a few sacrifices on our part to achieve this, but really our life is so much more content and fulfilling these days. I truly do not miss eating out as much as we use to, my husband is becoming a good cook experimenting with new recipes. Plus I love arriving home to dinner on the table and everyone seated in their chairs yelling “Hi Mom”!
I hope you enjoyed this series, if you have any additional questions, on how we went from two incomes to one, please leave a comment or drop me an e-mail!
I was so glad to find your posts about this (via the Moneysavingmom.come site)! Our family is working towards making this transistion by the time baby #2 comes in the fall, and I am very overwhelmed with how to map out our budget to figure our true expenses and where we need to cut. I think part of that is that we will also have a 2nd baby by that time, and that's one more thing to account for that isn't in the picture now!
ReplyDeleteThe regular bills are easy, but I would LOVE to know how you plan for "irregular" expenses, like unexpected Dr. visits, when the kids need clothes, the ever changing cost of gas, etc. I'd also love to know more about your spreadsheet tracking system!
Thanks so much for sharing your journey and success!
Betsy
The best way to plan for 'irregular expenses" is to have a rainy day fund of $5000 if you can stockpile that much cash before you go to one income. In this way you have $5,000 when you set out on your path if you have to take some from it for a rainy day then you have time to make it up somewhere (a babysitting job you take on an extra shift from your hubby to pay back the rainy day fund with whatever you can sell and item etc...) If you have $5,000 you can do it. I raised 7 on this alone and did it during tough times and we managed quite well.
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear why you don't believe in a cash system. I struggle with it too.
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