Living On One Income In New York City

My husband and I agreed, before we had our son, that even though I had a career and made a pretty decent income, I would be able to stay home once we started to have children. It was very, very important to me that I have the opportunity to enjoy spending time with my children during their earliest years. Despite the hardship of living on one income these days, my sweet husband agreed. He didn't want to deprive me of something that really meant a lot to me.

We live in an area where one income doesn't go far, and being a stay at home mom (SAHM) is a bit of an oddity. In fact, most people who ask me when I plan to return to work are shocked when I tell them "Not anytime soon". I hear about my "wasted" education, and how hard it is on my husband to have to do all the work (because raising a child full-time is not work?).

I understand that these people are well-meaning (I really do- these are people who care and want us to be financially successful in life, and to meet all our dreams without struggling much). But bigger than my dreams of an easy life and big home and all that comes with money, is my dream of spending lots of time with my family and enjoying all those firsts of a baby's early years. I can always go back to work later.

As a result of our choice, we've had to look for ways to be thriftier. I cook at home a lot (which has lots of benefits besides saving money, such as I can cook to our specific tastes, and I know the quality of the food being used), we entertain ourselves by spending time together, reading, watching movies, having family evenings or friends over, etc (instead of spending money to be entertained by electronics or shows or whatnot), and we shop for quality, items that are long-lasting, and we take care of things better so they last longer (with the added benefit of reducing our footprint on the earth).

I also look for ways to make money in unique ways that allow me to stay home, such as Sponsored Tweets, writing articles for web-sites, etc. My goal is to fund my IRA annually, and to put money away for our son's future (college? his own business? whatever he wants!). My husband pays the regular family bills, so anything I make goes toward our son or ancillary family expenses (such as maybe a nice Christening for little man). It doesn't hurt that quitting my job also meant cutting or avoiding all the expenses that go along with a full-time job, such as daycare, transportation, union dues, and whatnot. My husband, as a cop, has better insurance anyway, and no babyitters mean I'm not jealous of some poor young girl because she gets to see my son's first steps while I'm working.

In addition to finding creative ways to cut back while still enjoying life fully, and saving money for our son's future, we've also put the kabash on credit cards...if we don't have cash, we don't buy it. After years of credit card debt, my husband is finally on an all-cash system. A great book (by Joe Dominguez) is "Your Money or Your Life". It puts things like savings, debt, and advertising in perspective, and even gives advice on how to possibly become financially independant one day (a lofty goal, but others have done it, so why not us?)...this is my favorite financial book.

Obviously this is a slow process, getting ahead on one income in a city with a high cost of living, but the rewards so far have been very worth it.