Do you struggle with finding ways to save money so you can be a stay-at-home-mom? I know I do, and I've been at it for nearly 8 years! Luckily for us, my friend Jaimi has put together a lovely roundup of over 30 blog posts on the topic of living on one income so you can be a stay-at-home-mom. It's part of the Complete Guide for Stay-at-Home-Moms. On the Living on One Income section of the Complete Guide for SAHMs, I collaborated with 11 other bloggers to share TONS of information on the topic of living on one income. Single Income Family Tips Click here to access all of the Keep Reading
New Baby Tax Deductions, Credits & Exemptions – Tax Info for Parents
Welcoming a new baby to the family is a joyous occasion. It’s a year full of celebration, milestones, and firsts. My husband I used to joke that the kids were totally worth it for the tax deductions they got us. Just kidding….we probably woulda had them anyway. :) And yes, we 100% put our first born child in this tax deduction onesie! As a tax accountant, it was my solemn sworn duty! The New Baby Tax Deduction Scramble Jokes aside, newborn babies do come with tax implications. If you have a January through spring baby, you have a little bit of time to research new baby tax Keep Reading
These 5 words will save you AT LEAST $1,000 this year!
I have a habit of attaching catchy phrases to situations in my life where decisions are required. These little phrases help me stay on track without having to over think my decision. I don't know about you, but I really don’t like the feeling of buying something and later realizing it was a waste of money. Truthfully, I regret the small useless purchases as well as the larger ones. I look at that $4 I spent unnecessarily at Starbucks and see thousands that I spent the same way over the years because, at the time, $4 didn't seem like a big deal. But it really adds Keep Reading
Living on One Income – Tips & Inspiration from Real People
When I left my full-time job as a corporate tax accountant to became a stay-at-home-mom seven years ago, I was scared out of my mind. I was so worried we wouldn't be able to survive on one income after living (and spending most of) two equivalent incomes for years. I knew our lives were about to change in a crazy way when our income was all of a sudden cut in half. I know now that going from two incomes to one is TOUGH, but also DOABLE with the right attitude and preparedness. I’ve shared my story before, but I thought it would be neat to see how others approach the task of Keep Reading
100+ Ideas for Saving Money
As a stay-at-home-mom who used to work full-time, I often get asked how we went from two incomes to one. It wasn't easy! When you're used to living on two incomes, eliminating one is painful. If you're currently doing that but want to be able to live on one income so you can stay at home, I put together a Pinterest board just for you. It's called 100+ Ways to Save Money Before Quitting Your Job to Stay at Home with Your Kids This board contains tons of ideas for ways to save money, so make sure to follow along. In reality, I have pinned WAY MORE than 100 ideas for saving money and 13 Keep Reading
7 Family Christmas Tradition Ideas That Won’t Break Your Budget
As my children move out of the toddler stage, I'm conscious of the need to make recurring memories as a family that they can look back on with fondness later in life. So I've been thinking of family Christmas tradition ideas that I might like to incorporate this year. I also have a penchant for keeping costs low when it comes to family fun, unless we're going on a destination vacation like Disneyworld or the beach. So I came up with a list of 7 inexpensive family Christmas traditions that are low on cost yet high on the potential to stick and becoming a recurring tradition in my Keep Reading
Free Christmas Budget Worksheet
Download the free Christmas budget worksheet to control your holiday spending! If you’re anything like me, the approach of Thanksgiving means one thing – stressing out about Christmas shopping! LOL I don’t know why, but I always have a hard time just enjoying Thanksgiving for what it is. I just can’t get all my Christmas to-dos out of my mind. Maybe it’s because of all the commercialization behind Black Friday. I don’t know. At any rate, I thought the week before Thanksgiving would be the perfect time to nail down my holiday budget. Being a lover of all things Excel, of Keep Reading
How to Create a Budget
On WhatMommyDoes, I’ve talked at length about where to find Excel budgeting spreadsheets and ways to cut down on expenses. But what I haven’t ever done is back up and explain how you can create a budget in the first place. I figure it’s about time I do that. Once you know the overall purpose of a budget plan, you’ll be better equipped to actually create a budget in Excel or use a software like Quicken to track your spending. Every family’s priorities, wants, and needs differ, so one single budgeting plan will not work for everyone. However, everyone can follow the same overall Keep Reading
Free Sample Monthly Budget Templates
One of the first steps toward getting a handle on personal finances is to develop a budget. Over the years, I’ve tracked household expenses in everything from simple Excel budget templates that print on one sheet to elaborate income and expense worksheets with many tabs. One of the best monthly budget templates I've ever seen can be downloaded for free from Vertex42.com. Free Sample Monthly Budget Template This worksheet can be used with Open Office, Google Docs, or Microsoft Excel versions 2002 (XP) or later. This simple budgeting template is visually appealing and easy to Keep Reading
How to Be Frugal – Advice from an Expert
In need of tips to be frugal in life? Read on to discover nine helpful hints from an expert herself! Expert Advice on Frugality Amy Dunn, frugal newspaper blogger, shared her advice on how to be thrifty with me years ago. The online magazine that published this interview no longer has this posted, so I wanted to raise this post from the ashes to share with my WhatMommyDoes readers Read below for Amy's best penny-pinching tips and sound advice for saving money on purchases. How to Be Frugal - Saving Money Way of Life When asked what it means to be conservative with money, Amy Keep Reading
77 Days of Saving Challenge ~ Spend Less, Save More, Enjoy Life & Possibly Win $100 Cash!!
Today I am joining several other personal finance bloggers in a $100 cash giveaway! The giveaway entry form appears at the bottom of this post. You may enter multiple times for many different chances at winning! **If you don't mind, please make the WhatMommyDoes Twitter entry option your first stopping point!** The giveaway's theme is "Finances in the New Year." To kick off the new year, I am going to challenge myself and YOU to be better about saving money. If you are interested in joining me, please read on for more information, comment below, and enter the contest Keep Reading
7 Things You Don’t Really Need But Buy Anyway
Recently, as I was shopping at Target and buying yet another round of products to keep our household running, it occurred to me that I could easily stop spending money on things that we don't really need but are simply conditioned to buy. What first got me thinking about this were the dryer sheets I paid $4.99 for. Really? Do we really need little sheets of fabric softener to make our clothes smell and feel nice? I grew up hanging my family's clothes on the clothes line in the back yard. The clothes often ended up smelling like grass, fresh air, or even mildew if I accidentally Keep Reading
Ultimate List of Ways to Save Money
Use these 100 Ways to Save Money to reduce your expenses! At WhatMommyDoes, you'll find lots of posts about saving money. If you've been here since the beginning, it's possible you've seen every single post and remember every single way to save. Realistically, you only know about the savings tips we wrote about in our latest blog posts featured on the home page. I want one place to corral all the ways to save money that have ever been discussed or ever will be discussed on WhatMommyDoes. So below is my awesome ultimate list of ways to save money with links to related blog Keep Reading
Sample Monthly Expenses Spreadsheet
When I first decided to start budgeting before the birth of our first child, I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t know how much money we spent, and I am ashamed to say that I also did not know exactly how much money we had at our disposal each month after taxes and retirement contributions. Needless to say, I was paralyzed by the thought of analyzing everything! What I did know was that a proper budget worksheet could help our situation. Determining Monthly Expense Categories & Creating a Basic Household Expenses Worksheet Because I was used to using Microsoft Excel Keep Reading
List of Monthly Household Expenses {Perfect for Family Budgets!}
Anyone who’s ever tried to put together a family budget knows that it’s no easy task. Every family is so different, it’s difficult to give a standard example of expense categories for a monthly budget. What one family considers important might not be on another’s radar, and everyone makes different amounts of income, adding to the differences. Keep in mind that low income and high income households have vastly different budgeting techniques. A large percentage of a low income household’s income is spent on necessities, and a high income household may have additional expenses Keep Reading
