Linkshare: Can you afford to be a Stay At Home Mom?

photo by www.catilo.net

Sharing a great article today by Rhee of Rainy Days on Mom Days : Can You Afford to be a Stay-at-Home-Mom?

She made a table that you fill up to help you calculate if you can afford to be a stay-at-home mom, or even a stay-at-home dad for that matter, hehe!  You can tweak it to match your current lifestyle and situation but overall it's a pretty good list of what to expect in terms of budgeting and child-related expenses.

When you become a parent, you are faced with a lot of decision-making -- Breast or bottle? Carrier or sling? Home-school or regular school? Cloth or disposable? And so on...and so forth. 

Of course, each family is unique because of lifestyle or circumstances.  For our own Muffin Baby, the decision to put him on formula at 2 months old may seem like an unlikely, even shocking, choice to a lot of people... Yes, I truly believe "breast is best" and wanted him on breastmilk exclusively... but due to high-risk medical reasons it was not an option for me.  But I digress, moving on... =p

Now, being a working or stay-at-home or work-at-home parent is yet another decision that can receive a lot of different reactions -- from "Wow, that's awesome!" to "Really? Cool." to "Okay, but for how long?" and "Are you sure?"

For the Muffin Man and me, this question came to us sooner than we planned... a couple of months after "I do" to be exact!  And every time the discussion came up we always ended with the same answer... that one parent would stay at home.

So we took that leap of faith... though it felt more like jumping into a ravine with our eyes closed...!  We found ourselves learning the ropes of married life, budgeting, saving and living on a single income all in a couple of months.

photo by www.catilo.net

Time and again God would provide over and beyond our needs.  With a lot of testing, sacrificing and learning on our part, God is constantly teaching us to be good stewards of His blessings, and we are really thankful for His patience in that!

I am blessed to be surrounded by relatives and friends who are AMAZING parents.  Married, single, working, stay-at-home, work-at-home, overseas -- you name it!  All of them in different situations but nevertheless with the same mission... to love their children and give them the very best.  

I wholeheartedly agree with Rhee -- In the end, it isn’t always about money... It’s about priorities and goals that you have for YOUR family and finding creative ways to achieve them.

And btw... Happy Father's Day to all daddies out there!

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So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  - Matthew 6:31-33

And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. - 2 Corinthians 9:8

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EDIT:

Here's an excellent read -- just for a little perspective!  -- as reblogged by Jenn Punzalan, on the cost of raising a child.