One of the big reasons many moms choose to work at home is so that they don’t have to pay for childcare. It’s a huge savings on the face of it. But would paying for a little childcare allow you to earn enough to make up for it?

It’s not something that all moms want to think about when they decide to work at home. You have your goal of being there for your kids, and it’s hard to say “but I’ll pay someone else for just a few hours so I can really work.”

Is It Fair to Your Family?

Depending on just what you’re doing and how many hours a day you really need to focus on working, it can be too much. Sometimes by far. You really need to be able to figure out whether or not you’re being fair to your family.

Working in spurts as the kids let you can mean you spend more time working and less time with your family than you would by paying for a little childcare. You may not have time to build the focus that you need to really get projects done.

You may also be building your frustration level. Believe me, I know exactly how frustrating it is to get interrupted while working on a project. It’s pretty miserable.

It’s not exactly fun for the kids either to have a mom who is grouchy from being interrupted, or to always be told they have to wait. Hearing that sometimes is fine, even a good thing as kids need to learn that they are not the center of the universe. Hearing that all day, every day isn’t so good.

Is It Fair to Your Marriage?

It’s not just the kids you can be unfair to when you work at home. It’s your marriage. Skip out on making time for your marriage isn’t a good plan.

Working all night, every night, plus all weekend, really doesn’t leave you much time to build your marriage, which really needs to be more important than your business. A supportive spouse is a good thing, but you can take their support too much for granted.

No, putting your husband into daycare isn’t the answer. I doubt the daycare provider would appreciate it. But using childcare enough that you have time for your husband and a break from your business is a good thing.

Is It Fair to You?

If you’re working yourself so hard that you don’t have time for anything else, yet you still struggle to get anything done with your business you probably aren’t being fair to yourself either. Using childcare can mean that you get a break for yourself later on.

Is It Fair to Your Business?

No, your business won’t care if you neglect it or are distracted, but it won’t grow as fast. If you have clients, on the other hand, they will care if you aren’t able to complete in a timely manner the work you agreed to perform.

Only you know exactly how much you want to grow your business. Not everyone wants a multi million dollar income from their business. It can sound nice, but if the work required doesn’t fit into your lifestyle, you probably aren’t going to welcome the idea so much.

But if you’re running a home business you need to be able to reach the goals you do have. If you aren’t working toward them because you need more time for your family, are you being fair to your business?

How Do You Find Childcare?

If you don’t already have a provider, finding one can be a bit tricky. There are services such as Sittercity that can help you to find a caregiver. You can also check for ads in the phone book, talk to friends about who they use or check newspaper ads.

What If You Can’t Afford Childcare?

I know this situation well. It’s not cheap to pay for childcare. But if you’re lucky you have options.

Local family is the best. From my own experience, I can state that retired, local and eager grandparents are absolutely the best. One of the hardest things about moving last year was moving away from my inlaws, who had previously taken my kids overnight once a week most weeks. A hard benefit to lose, as it gave me both work time and time alone with my husband.

If local family isn’t available or isn’t willing, it’s time to start looking at trading childcare with friends. Make friends with the parents of your children’s friends and you can make arrangements to trade care. Many families will appreciate the idea.

This means you will sometimes be caring for extra kids, but if they play well together that can mean you get more work time. Busy children don’t need as much direct supervision after a certain age. That means you’re freer to do what you need to get done.

Whatever you do, find the right balance between caring for your family, your marriage, yourself and building your business. It’s a tough balance, but one you need to figure out.

One of the hard parts about being a stay at home mom is that you aren’t making money on your own. You rely on what your husband brings home. Sure, you say the money belongs to both of you, but there’s often that feeling on both sides that it isn’t quite true.

How do you cope?

1. Talk over your feelings.

Communication is important in any marriage. If you’re feeling as though you’re less important because the things you do raising your family at home doesn’t bring in money it can build resentment.

It can be a help to realize that you do make a financial contribution. You’re saving money on child care by being home with your kids. You’re probably shopping for bargains more. You’re probably cooking more meals at home and thereby saving on your family’s food bill.

It’s important that the partnership that is a good marriage recognizes both earning money and helping to keep the family’s spending under control are both important contributions. It can be hard to do that if your husband acts in any way as though you’re using “his” money, and if that’s the case his feelings need to be discussed also.

2. Decide if you want to earn money from home.

Some stay at home moms decide that they need a work at home job or home business so that they can bring in more money for their family. Sometimes it’s also necessary to the family’s overall budget.

Stay at home moms today are lucky in that they have so many ways to earn money from home, some of which are extremely flexible. It’s not just the traditional jobs such as running a daycare or joining a direct sales opportunity. There are customer service work at home jobs, online home businesses and much more.

There are a lot of risks to getting started working from home, and generally laws to be aware of. Make sure you learn about the common scams and don’t fall for hype when you’re picking an opportunity. Too good to be true usually is.

3. Be yourself and enjoy what you have.

Just because you’re suddenly such-and-so’s mom and you’re home all day doesn’t mean you lose your identity. Make time to be yourself.

Keep up your hobbies. You might even be able to get one or more of your kids interested in it. But don’t drop the hobby just because you don’t think you have the time or shouldn’t spend the money. Unless it’s really expensive or your budget is that tight you can probably find a way to enjoy your hobby while being with your kids.

Also read the kinds of books you enjoy. The Cat in the Hat is a great book, but reading any children’s book over and over will get to you eventually. Read something you enjoy. Let your kids see it. It’s a part of encouraging them to love reading too.

And remember that even when staying at home with the kids makes for a tight budget you’re lucky to have what you do. Many parents would love to do what you’re doing but just can’t afford to. It’s one of those jobs that even on a bad day, it’s pretty good when you think about it.

Finally, remember that being married, especially with children, does a lot to your finances no matter whether you work outside the home or stay at home. You most likely won’t have the freedom you once did no matter what you do. The needs of your family come first in most cases.

Talking about money, even with your spouse can be difficult. Unless you have plenty of extra it’s not exactly a fun talk. But sometimes it’s certainly necessary.

My husband and I aren’t as good about this as we should be. Because of my business I do keep separate accounts, but he needs to know how mine are going, and I need to know how our personal financial situation is doing. That doesn’t always get discussed when it should.

Things have been tight for a while, which is why we need to discuss it more. We scraped by when he was laid off, kept scraping by when he got a barely adequate job, and keep trying to do better now.

Some of the coincidences have been interesting. My income went up rather suddenly when he was laid off, then plummeted the week before he started the new job. Utterly frustrating, as we would have been in a good position financially if my income had kept up, and I was still doing things the same as before. Just a most frustrating coincidence that instead the combined income was about what I had been making alone while he was laid off.

That one was pretty easy to talk about just because it was so frustrating and odd.

Plan How You Spend Your Money

Fortunately, neither of us is a really big spender as a rule. Anything out of the ordinary gets discussed.

I understand that’s a pretty common rule, actually. There’s the money spent on necessities and regular expenses, and then there’s what you can spend on your own without asking, and what you can only spend after clearing it with your spouse.

It’s not a bad system if you follow it carefully. Failing to discuss things can lead to quite a bit of frustration for both of you.

Don’t Worry About Who’s the Breadwinner

While just now my husband out earns me, he knows my stated goal for my business in part is to heavily out earn him. He likes that goal, even though the last time I managed it, it also made him feel a bit insecure.

It’s hard for a man to not be the breadwinner in some ways. Despite the common expectation that both spouses will work, there’s still the idea that the man more often earns more.

Add in that my income comes from working at home, and I can see where it’s both a point of pride for him when I earn well and just a touch awkward. It’s the conflict between knowing it doesn’t matter, and how you were taught to view the world growing up.

The trick can be getting to where it genuinely doesn’t matter who the breadwinner is. The money belongs to the both of you, not just to whoever earns it.

That can be hard on the one who earns more, as there can be the feeling of “I earned it, I can spend it as I like.” But if you’re really a team, in my opinion, that’s not the way it should be.

It’s always important to know where your family stands financially. It’s stressful when you know you’re behind, but better than not knowing and being caught by surprise. And if times are good, so much the better.

Take some time and make sure you know how your family is doing financially.

Here I go along week 2 of having my husband gone all week. It’s rough being the only one home with the kids 24 hours a day from Sunday night through Friday evening, but for now that’s what it takes.

It really makes me appreciate how much my husband does around here.

It’s not like the days are all that different in some ways. After all, I’ve always been the primary caregiver, and at home all the time anyhow. But now there’s no relief, not first thing in the morning or in the evening. It’s allllllll me!

Brent’s always been a great daddy. Up with the kids in the morning, especially now that we have a baby still getting me up at night. Up in the middle of the night if either of the other kids needs a parent. A lousy housekeeper, but good at working in the yard and getting the kids out of my hair when I need a break.

I don’t have that right now for 5 days a week. I am so ready to get this move done and over with!