Being Purpose Driven

Before we got married, my husband and I decided that if possible, I would stay home with our children. We felt God calling us to do this and that is was the best decision to make. After having our first child, we knew that staying home with her was the only option for us. Unless a person is very well off, I don't think anyone can "afford" to stay home. It must be a decision where a person knows there will have to be many sacrifices made in order to achieve that goal. When we had our daughter I was currently a Kindergarten teacher. I took about 3 months off and then had to return to work for 3 more months to finish off the school year. In a way it was beneficial to have to return to work so that we would know if staying at home was the best option for us. Those 3 months I returned to work were the hardest and longest days. I felt like I never saw my daughter and I started to feel as if she didn't know who I was anymore. Thankfully she was 3 months when I returned to work so she wasn't as aware as a one year old might be. Nevertheless, it was extremely challenging and hard on both my husband and I. There were many tears shed, on both our parts, and many heart aches for one of us to be with her during the day. We were blessed enough to have family or close friends taking care of her, but even that wouldn't suffice what we wanted for our family. I hoped that those 3 months would pass quickly and that I would not have to return to work again. We prayed for God's direction and hoped that his answer would be what we longed for as well.


After praying and looking at our budget, we decided to take a huge leap of faith. The answer was easy yet came with sacrifices--I would stay at home with our little girl. We looked at where we could make cuts in our monthly budget and where we might come up short for money. My husband works two jobs right now but one is a temporary job so we needed to figure out how much we would have when he wasn't getting a second paycheck.  We discussed that some huge cuts would need to be made. First, our grocery bill needed to be cut in half. I wasn't good about making a list or shopping the ads or cutting coupons. This would have to change. Next, we looked at what we could do without. Cable? Phone bill? Eating out? We decided to get rid of cable, cut the minutes in our phone plan & be strict about how much we ate out. Last, pay off any bills that we could.  Debt is not something we like. Debt stresses people out & can do tremendous damage to a marriage. We do not have credit cards for this reason. We did however, have medical bills that caused us stress and huge chunks of money each month. In an effort to cut money spent in our monthly budget, we decided to try to pay off all of our medical bills before I received my last paycheck. It's only by God's faithfulness that we were able to accomplish this. I still cannot believe we were able to do this! After we had made cuts across the board, we still needed a small sum of money each month to meet all of our financial needs, but it was much smaller than when we had started.


In order to stay at home, without having to have a full-time job, we would also need to look at other ways to save money. I started looking at various ways to save money when buying groceries and baby items since those two things cost the most amount of money. I began shopping the weekly ads, finding coupons & looking for recipes that called for items I already had in the cupboard.  Instead of making several trips to the grocery store each week, I began only going once a week, with a list and budget in mind. I also started writing out the meals I was going to make each week & decided to only use meat in 2 or 3 meals. In the remaining meals I would use tuna, eggs or we would eat cereal.  When buying baby items I began to look more closely at clearance items & consignment stores. These are things I already did, but now I began to think futuristic instead of just the immediate now. I also looked online for deals & bargains.


All of these things I began to do in an effort to remain a stay at home mom. There was a purpose in mind--my daughter--and I never will forget that. The journey is only just beginning, this is the last month I receive a paycheck, but I am praying & putting my faith in God to provide. I am aware of the sacrifices, tears & hardship that lies ahead for us, but when I look at my daughter I know that it will all be completely worth it. God has given me this great blessing of having and raising a child and I want to ensure that she receives the love, care and attention she needs. I created this blog to share my ideas, tips, resources & thoughts so that other moms might be able to stay at home with their children as well. Staying at home is a decision that calls for faith. We are stepping out in faith & trusting in the Lord to provide as he has said he will. Please check back for ideas, tips and resources on saving money--one of my favorite things to do!