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What I Wouldn’t Trade for Anything
March 30th, 2008 | 
Author: March 30 is the official one year anniversary of my last day in the “real” workforce. Woo-hoo! “Real” meaning the daily stressful 8 to 5 grind of working outside my house. To some, that is the only respectable workforce, and if you are one of those “some,” I’m sorry. 
After one year of working from home, I wouldn’t trade my life for a million dollars. Seriously! No amount of money could convince me to return to the “real” workforce. If you are considering becoming a stay-at-home wife or stay-at-home mother, make the plunge and do it. You won’t regret it! Initially, you will probably miss the daily socialization with others and the routine of your job, but over time the value of being at home far exceeds those things.
I am a stay-at-home wife (meaning no children) in my early 30s and am perfectly content with what I have. In fact, I’m enjoying life in ways that some women have to wait until they are in their 60s and retired to do. I don’t make as much money now as I did in the “real” workforce, but I save money in other ways making us have more money now than before. Does that make sense? Let me explain.
In the “real” workforce, I made about $1300 a month before taxes, give or take depending on the workload. I worked an 8 to 5 (sometimes later) job, drove about 35-45 minutes to work (getting home anywhere from 6-7 p.m.), made unhealthy meals for dinner because speed was a priority, shopped exclusively at Wal-Mart buying generic products because I didn’t know that deals and coupons made the brand names much cheaper. And so much more. (Now, it is possible to work an 8 to 5 job and shop elsewhere and clip coupons and all that stuff, but those things never occurred to me because I didn’t have time to think of them!) Most months it seemed like we barely had two pennies to scrape together by the end of the month.
Until recently, my work-at-home income averaged about $700 a month before taxes. We lived off of that income and less for almost a whole year! Did we lack anything? Initially, yes, until I started researching how to stretch our money. I learned how to shop at CVS, how to clip coupons, how to find the good deals, how to stock up on sale items and more. Once we started being frugal with our money, we were able to get the things we needed when we needed them. In fact, my kitchen cupboards are overflowing. We also completely paid for our Christmas shopping (about $300) with cash, no debt whatsoever. In the past year, we’ve also taken at least 3 trips out-of-state (two to visit family and one for business). Lest you think we were rolling in money, last summer we did have to borrow about $500 to replace a car windshield and purchase tires so the car would pass inspection. We paid that back within the following months.
Is it possible to live off of one income? Most definitely! Does that income have to be extravagant? Not at all. Realize it’s only 2 of us in our home, and if we had kids, we would need a slightly higher income, but for the particular season in our lives, we did what we had to. The sacrifices we made were well worth the blessings we gained.
I mentioned to my DH that it had been one year since I left the newspaper and started staying at home. I asked if he wanted me to go back to work. He very adamantly said, “Absolutely not.” He also expressed how much better our relationship is now (not that it was awful or anything before). His comments made me think of the Proverbs 31 lady and how she took care of her home, causing her husband to call her blessed. I don’t even begin to compare to the Proverbs 31 lady, but in little ways, I’m able to spend the time now to implement the things she did to make my home what it needs to be. Would I go back to the “real” workforce now? Absolutely not, unless a dire emergency required me to.
After one year of working from home, I wouldn’t trade my life for a million dollars. Seriously! No amount of money could convince me to return to the “real” workforce. If you are considering becoming a stay-at-home wife or stay-at-home mother, make the plunge and do it. You won’t regret it! Initially, you will probably miss the daily socialization with others and the routine of your job, but over time the value of being at home far exceeds those things.
I am a stay-at-home wife (meaning no children) in my early 30s and am perfectly content with what I have. In fact, I’m enjoying life in ways that some women have to wait until they are in their 60s and retired to do. I don’t make as much money now as I did in the “real” workforce, but I save money in other ways making us have more money now than before. Does that make sense? Let me explain.
In the “real” workforce, I made about $1300 a month before taxes, give or take depending on the workload. I worked an 8 to 5 (sometimes later) job, drove about 35-45 minutes to work (getting home anywhere from 6-7 p.m.), made unhealthy meals for dinner because speed was a priority, shopped exclusively at Wal-Mart buying generic products because I didn’t know that deals and coupons made the brand names much cheaper. And so much more. (Now, it is possible to work an 8 to 5 job and shop elsewhere and clip coupons and all that stuff, but those things never occurred to me because I didn’t have time to think of them!) Most months it seemed like we barely had two pennies to scrape together by the end of the month.
Until recently, my work-at-home income averaged about $700 a month before taxes. We lived off of that income and less for almost a whole year! Did we lack anything? Initially, yes, until I started researching how to stretch our money. I learned how to shop at CVS, how to clip coupons, how to find the good deals, how to stock up on sale items and more. Once we started being frugal with our money, we were able to get the things we needed when we needed them. In fact, my kitchen cupboards are overflowing. We also completely paid for our Christmas shopping (about $300) with cash, no debt whatsoever. In the past year, we’ve also taken at least 3 trips out-of-state (two to visit family and one for business). Lest you think we were rolling in money, last summer we did have to borrow about $500 to replace a car windshield and purchase tires so the car would pass inspection. We paid that back within the following months.
Is it possible to live off of one income? Most definitely! Does that income have to be extravagant? Not at all. Realize it’s only 2 of us in our home, and if we had kids, we would need a slightly higher income, but for the particular season in our lives, we did what we had to. The sacrifices we made were well worth the blessings we gained.
I mentioned to my DH that it had been one year since I left the newspaper and started staying at home. I asked if he wanted me to go back to work. He very adamantly said, “Absolutely not.” He also expressed how much better our relationship is now (not that it was awful or anything before). His comments made me think of the Proverbs 31 lady and how she took care of her home, causing her husband to call her blessed. I don’t even begin to compare to the Proverbs 31 lady, but in little ways, I’m able to spend the time now to implement the things she did to make my home what it needs to be. Would I go back to the “real” workforce now? Absolutely not, unless a dire emergency required me to.
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