Before I got married and had children, I knew that I wanted to be a stay at home mom. Kinda like a calling, I just KNEW it was for me. The day we decided that we wanted to start trying for a baby, I got engrossed in the the Law of Attraction and #manifestation. The reality of the situation was I didn’t believe that we could live off of one income, so I was closed off to any opportunites that would make that a possibility.
After putting out the intention that I was going to be a stay at home mom no matter what, I started coming across various budgeting hacks and tips to start squirreling away the few extra dollars we did have to actually afford for me to stay home. I’ll share with you the three things I did to make becoming a stay at home mom a reality.
“Self care is very important to me”
1. Get in the Mindset The first thing that I did was get in the mindset of what being a stay at home mom would look like for me. My husband at the time was a middle school teacher and training MMA so he was out of the house 10-12 hours a day, 5 days a week. Self care is very important to me, so I wanted to make sure that with my husbands work schedule that I could still properly take time out to check in with myself so that I could be the best wife and mother.
2. Get Real About Your Finances As I mentioned my husband was a middle school teacher and I was in a graduate student/ working full time prior to becoming parents. We had a decent savings,but we where really just living for the moment….#southfloridaliving. I opened up a spreadsheet and started tracking exactly what we were spending our money on. I did this for a month to see how much money was coming in and going out of the house. Once I did that, I realized we COULD afford for me to stay home on my husbands teacher salary.
3. Start Saving Before Baby Before Leilani was born, we started adjusting to living off of one income. We lived off of Miles income and I used my income to pay down debt and put away for a baby fund. Did I forget to mention that we where also planning our wedding around the same time! We had a preset budget for our wedding so we needed to make sure we didn’t go over that budget and also have money aside for when I would stop working. Read more about how we planned our wedding for less than $10k here.
I used these three tips to create a good sized savings for our family before Leilani was born. We had it all figured out… or so we thought. I was going to stay home for the first year with Leilani then go back to work as soon as she could walk. Well….5 months after having her, my husband and I found out that we where expecting our second child #surprise.
Since I knew that I was going to have #2under2 our daycare cost had just doubled over night. There was no way that I could go back to work, my entire paycheck would be going to pay for daycare. Around the same time Miles had just left his job as a teacher to start training full time and open his own fitness business. Talk about stress! I needed to figure out a way to start bringing in a small income to help cover some bills.
I watched countless #youtube videos and read different blogs on how to get a work at home job. From filling out paid surverys to apply to countless remote jobs, I didn’t have any luck. Fortunately, after Mahari was born I was able to land a few customer service positions, but I quickly learned it wasn’t for me. Have you ever tried to make phone calls with a toddler and newborn in the background? Yea.. its not happening.
I needed something that used my business and therapy background, but that was flexible enough for me to work and breastfed at the same time! Finally, I stopped looking for a job to hire me and decided to hire myself.
Thats when I stumbled across 3 different jobs that fit my skills, spirtual life coach, virtual admin and selling online.#Mindblown, you mean that I can work from home, help people grow into their best selves and be with my kids, I was all in! Fast forward I have a great client list and a growing #poshmarkcloset and eBay store.
“I stopped looking for a job to hire me and I decided to hire myself. “
I never would have trusted my ability to become my own boss had I not gotten pregnant the second time. Stay tuned as I share my tips and tricks on how to start a successful Poshmark/eBay business with $0 and how to develop your skills to become a virtual assistant!
Remember your amazing,
Lexi
Lex Livin' 