I really don’t know what else to suggest other than you getting a job, or your husband picking up a second job. We are in a similar situation. My husband is willing to get a 2nd job, but he just hasn’t found anything yet in the town we live…not a lot of opportunities here. So we’ve basically just cut back-no fast food or take out, no going out to eat, i clip coupons religiously, limited trips in the car to save on gas, cut back from digital cable to basic cable, leaving the a.c. off on cooler days or night.

Hello there. I am a stay at home mom too. I am 24 years old (just turned 24 last Thursday!), and I have an almost 3 year old an a 5 month old. My husband works two jobs for me to be able to be a stay at home mom, but as he says, it’s well worth it. He usually works from 6:00 a.m. until 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. He works his full-time job from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then his part time job from 3 p.m. to 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. We live in a small (900 square foot, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom), older (about 86 years old) house. We drive older vehicles that are paid for. My car is still my highschool car – a 2 door chevy cavalier which is about 10 years old, and my husband drives a little Ford Ranger pickup, which also is close to 10 years old. We don’t go out to eat. We don’t have any extras such as cable, cell phones, going out to movies, to dinner, ect. We only purchase what is neccessary, not because we “want” a new shirt, shoes, jeans, ect. If jeans are worn out, then we buy a new pair (by new I mean for under $25 on sale). We don’t buy clothes or anything becase we want them or because we are tired of our old wardrobe. We purchase only out of necessity. We don’t put anything on a credit card. We pay cash or if we don’t have the cash for something, then we don’t need it.
We live in the rural midwest and my husband makes around $27K a year. Our only debt is our house. Our only bills are (thankfully) our utilities which are a local land-line phone, gas, water/sewer, and electricity, and our mortgage payment. We purchased our home 3 years ago for less than $57,000. It’s somewhat of a fixer-upper, but it is in a nice neighborhood, at the bottom of the hill where my childhood home was located. After the mortgage and utilities are paid, gas is in the cars, and food in the cuppboards, we usually are able to have a $175 – $300 cushion in checking at the end of the month and we’re able to save $200- $300 a month. It’s tough. It’s a strict budget, but it works and our kids are getting the best care possible from someone who loves them. It’s nice to know that our kids are being taken care of by us and not someone else. That they are not just a number or dollar figure to a daycare provider, but that they are ours to raise and love all day. We’re very blessed that we can do this, I know. It wasn’t always that way though. I worked full time until our oldest daughter was 18 months old and it was awful. We weren’t raising her, the daycare provider was because let’s face it, she was at the daycare for 8 to 10 hours a day and only at home with us for 3 of her waking hours. And during that time while trying to spend time with her we were also making supper, cleaning, doing yard work, housework, running errands, ect, and so the only “quality” time that we were able to spend with her was spent giving her a bath, reading her a bedtime story and then tucking her in bed for the night. One night we had had enough of it and so my husband and I sat down and figured out what it would take for me to stay home. We didn’t think that it would be possible because, hey, we were both working full time and barely making ends meet. But we were shocked to find that if we eliminated the cost of daycare, my commuting to and from work (we live 15 miles from the town where we work), extra meal costs, work clothing, extras such as cable, cell phones, going out to eat (because with me staying home there’s no excuse for me not to make meals for the family), going out places and spending a bunch of money on extra stuff such as movies, bowling, new clothes that we want or shoes, ect, we figured out that we’d actually be saving about $300 a month by me staying home. Wierd, huh? Anyways, it’s proven true. Wouldn’t change it.