Monday Q&A | Why do I homeschool? + income questions
Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!
Just out of curiosity, why do you homeschool? Is it for religious reasons? The quality of schools in your area? A personal preference? Just curious 🙂
-Karen
There are somewhere around a zillion reasons that I like to homeschool my kids, actually! But I'll limit myself to a few.
I like to homeschool because I can:
-infuse all of our learning with our Christian worldview. Incidentally, this does not mean that we just write Bible verses on each page. (not that, you know, any Christian textbook manufacturers do that. Ahem.) It means that we teach our children to look at the world through faith-colored lenses, if you will. And it means we teach them that we can glorify God by doing our math just as well as we can glorify Him by reading the Bible.
-train, teach, and discipline my children as they learn.
-choose what curriculum and learning methods are right for each child.
-be free from grade levels. My 3rd grader can be in 5th grade math, 4th grade reading, and 3rd grade science if need be.
-have my kids work at their own pace, whether that's fast or slow.
-skip stupid, pointless busy work in our textbooks.
-teach without a textbook if I want.
-set our own schedule. I ♥ this aspect of homeschooling more than words can say.
-give my children more time to play and more time to pursue their interests, because homeschooling is usually very time-efficient.
-enjoy my children's company during the day. I would miss them if they were gone all day!
-take my children on field trips whenever I want.
-take our school anywhere...outside, inside, down at the pier, at the park, at the doctor's office.
-make decisions and change things without having to form committees and get approvals. I love the simplicity of it.
-free my kids from homework.
-give my children the freedom to learn without the distractions of cliques and peer pressure.
Of course, I don't enjoy everything about homeschooling. It's a lot of hard work, and there are definitely days when think having children gone for 6 hours a day is a good idea! 😉 But on the whole, the good aspects of homeschooling outweigh the bad for me and for our family, and I'm grateful that we are able to make the choice to homeschool.
(for the record, I know homeschooling won't work for everyone, isn't the best choice for everyone, and isn't even a choice for everyone. But, I think it's the best choice for us.)
I don't need specifics because it is quite personal, but you live quite the frugal life (obviously) and you as a family appear conscious of money, my question is - how much does your family make per year? Like I said, I do not need exact or details. But more like, $30,000-$40,000 or something general like that. the reason I ask is that I want to be a stay at home mom and I am trying to convince my hubby that we can survive! But he doesn't believe me!
I actually tend to be very un-private about money (I think it's odd that our culture considers it to be such a private matter), but Mr. FG is not quite as open as I am.
So, I will be respectful of that.
But, here's what I can tell you. For many, many years our family lived on an income that was far, far below the average income for our area. In fact, when my husband and I first got married back in 1997, after taxes we had about $400/week to work with.
Happily, we're now in a higher income bracket due to my husband's career change from warehousing to IT. Even with the increase in salary, though, we've not reached the median income for our area (this income level feels more than comfortable to us, though, because for the most part we have not increased our spending).
So, it's not as though our ability to save is the result of having a massive income. Instead, it's more attributable to our habit of living beneath our means.
I know of so many people who make far more money than we do but who are in dire financial straits, and each time I hear of another person like that, I become more and more convinced that how much you make is not nearly as important as what you do with what you make.
Even when my husband and I had $400/week to live on, we still managed to stay out of debt and we even saved up a down payment for our first house purchase. When our income was that low, spending control was definitely key.
If your husband needs convincing that you can live on, say, $35,000 a year, see if you can make it work on paper. Or even better, see if you can make it on $35,000 before you quit your job (and just save the difference!). Seeing it on paper or in real life will probably be quite convincing to him. And even if you can't cut all the way back to $35,000, perhaps you can cut your expenses enough to warrant you switching to a part-time job.
This may be too personal, so feel free to answer as you wish (or not answer!). I was just curious what kind of money you (or other bloggers) make with your blogs. I love your blog and appreciate that you have very little advertising and that the advertising you do have is family friendly as well as relevant to your topics. I also hope that you are making money off you blog as I know you put a lot of time and effort into it – which is valuable.
-Shaylin
The amount of money I earn on my blog varies from month to month. For the first 9 months, I was actually in the hole from blogging because of the $100 I spent for a year of hosting services. After that, I added the BlogHer ads to my blog, and that's when I got out of my hole. I was so excited when I had $15 in my account! 😉 And when I got my first $100, I was equally as thrilled.
Now I have a few more streams of revenue going, I have more than $15 in my account, and paying my hosting fees is not putting me into the hole (yay!). I wouldn't say it's making me rich (though I'm know the really big bloggers are getting rich from their blogs!), but my blog income has helped me to make some progress on my van savings account. 🙂
If you'd like some real number examples of how much bloggers are making, check out the comments section in this post on Blogging With Amy.
I'm not sure if this is the reason you asked the question, but when people ask me if they should quit their job and blog instead, I'm always a little bit hesitant. Blogs can make money, yes, but in most cases, it takes months and months and months of work before a blog is even remotely profitable. I've been at this for more than two years now, and as recently as last December, my blog was only earning around $150/month.
But, that was totally ok with me. I blog because I have a passion for the topic and a passion for helping people to see that the frugal life can be the good life. Any money that I make doing it is icing on the cake.
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Readers, the first and third questions are sort of hard for you to answer (unless you know another reason that I homeschool!), but do you have any advice for my second questioner? (I lost her name somehow!) How would you go about figuring if the switch to a single income was doable?
Today's 365 post: Breakfast on the deck
For the woman who wants to become a stay at home mom, have you considered working from home. Lots of companies now have work-at-home jobs. My husband and I decided I would stay home when we had our son. It was hard and we struggled, but we managed to do it on $8/hour, my husband's wage at the time. We didn't have cable, cell phones, DSL or anything extra. We didn't even have a car for a while. It is doable, but hard and you must, must be willing to give up the little things that most people take for granted like cable, bottled water delivery and cell phones.
When my son started school I got a full time job outside the house. I stayed there a year. I was miserable. I never saw my son. So God blessed me with a layoff. Some would say a layoff is horrible, I saw it as a blessing. I had made a committment to my job so I couldn't quit, but I hated never seeing my son. I was out of work for a year. Then God blessed me again with a work at home job. Now, I am always home. I work 4 hours a day that I choose. My son is being homeschooled by my mother and myself now and we are all much happier.
The work at home thing is a suggestion, because so many companies are doing it now. My husband works from hom for a company based in MA and we live in Texas. I work for a local company. But we both work from home. It is an option if your husband balks at the idea of your not working or he gets worried about the loss of income. Good luck to you.
I am not sure if this would work for the woman who wants to SAHM but when my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child we lived off of only his income the entire time I was pregnant. My income went into our savings account. This made us confident we could live on one income and added some extra money into our savings account.
Maybe that is something she could try for 3 months, 6 months, 9 months?
Just an idea that worked for us!
wow that is a brilliant idea.
my husband thinks we should "power through" to retirement so we can be out of work early and enjoy our time then. I disagree so much! When we get to retirement eligibility in our 50s, our children will be teenagers or adults, we'll be a little less able in our bodies (or worse), our parents may have passed away (they are all living now), and these exciting days will be gone.
Just like CeCe, I too work from home. I only did so because my husband was very nervous about him bringing the only income home. I wanted to stay home to raise our then 2 children (we now have 3). Working from home has allowed me to be flexible for my family. I can care for my kids, throw in a load of laundry, make meals, all while working. It has been a blessing, and has saved our marriage!
I really, REALLY wish I had been home-schooled for many of the reasons you post above. I sat there doing busy work in the 2nd and 3rd grade and I would get bored so I would fall asleep or goof off. Heck, they used to give us "Before School Work" just to punish us kids who came on the first bus to school so we wouldn't be rowdy and trade baseball cards or something. Of course now I'd just be drugged up on ADHD pills or something.
Public schools work well for the mediocre kids. The slower kids and the smart gets always get the shaft.
Hi,
I'm the one who asked the homechooling question--and my son's in public school, very bright, and adequately challenged. In fact, he's doing super and really enjoys school and learning. He will come home so jazzed up on a subject (like how government works) and will want to get online with me and research it together. So, while I'm sure homeschooling is lovely--public school is lovely, too.
Karen
I agree w/ Karen. No need to bash public schools. If you don't like the way schools are run in your area, get involved and try to change things! Public schools are great and so are the many wonderful teachers who work at them.
My kids go to public school BECAUSE of the extra services they receive. Speech, PT, OT are all a necessary part of their day. Many families around us moved to our school district because we are one of the best districts in WI for special needs kids.
I went to parochial school K through 12, and received a far better education than my public school peers at the time. But it depends on the area, and the schools. For us public is best, I make sure that my kids also receive a christian upbringing at home. I would have to go back to work to pay for private school, and daycare, and wouldn't even make enough.
For the woman that is considering being a stay at home mom or women that aren't even moms yet but are thinking about this, this is a difficult question. Like Kristen said, it's all about what your priorities are. You have to decide what you are willing to give up, and how important it is to you to be a SAH. I also think it is crucial that your husband is 100% on board because he will be making sacrifices and having more responsibility put on him to be the sole income provider for the home. You are also risking a lot more because you don't have that diversification of two incomes.
We put the additional risk in God's hands. I don't have children yet but my husband and I are financially preparing for that change. The best thing for us was to do the math to see if we could make it on his income. To do this, create two budgets. One that is your income and expenses currently (including taxes, tithe, etc) and one if you were a SAH. On the SAH one, assume you will be able to spend less on food/professional clothing/commuting gas, calculate your taxes as if you were a SAH to see how much you would save there, recalculate your tithe based on just his income, add insurance costs if necessary, etc. If you can't make it yet, prioritize saving now so that that savings can cover the difference between his income and your expenses when you are a SAH or look at part time opportunities. You would be surprised how much your expenses drop based on the reduction in tithe, taxes, and child care. Figure out exactly what you will be giving up before making the decision to be a SAH so that you can prepare yourself.
If it's really important to you, get a home with a lower mortgage payment, refinance, or move. I know a couple whose husband was recently convicted and felt God wanted his wife to be a SAH and raise their son, so he sold their house, and got a job in another state where it was cheaper to live. God has blessed their decision.
There are a lot of actions/decisions/sacrifices that are in your power to make if you and your husband really feel that this is your top priority.
Totally agree about the husband and wife being in agreement....I can see how not being on the same page could cause major problems and stress.
We are another family that lives on an income that's far below average for our area. I really agree that it's not so much your total income as what you do with it that's important. One thing that can be helpful when you're trying to decide if you can afford to stay home is to do the "Value of a Second Income" exercise - it's in The Complete Tightwad Gazette but I'm sure if you Google it you can find pretty much the same thing online 🙂 I have a friend who was making well over $100,000 a year, but when she did this exercise she found out she was really only making just over 10 bucks an hour when she took into account the fancy clothes, overtime, and all the other job-related expenses she had. If quitting your job means you can reduce expenses by going from 2 vehicles to one, not eating out, etc those are factors to consider as well.
Very good points. And I totally remember that part of the Tightwad Gazette. lol
My story of going from two to one income:
My husband and I agreed on a two goals that has enabled me to stay home for the past seven years. The first goal was a change of employment for him. He worked in a factory; we knew the top income he could reach was very low. He decided to take nurses training, not only to change his vocation, but also to add income (I'll add, he is a people person, so nursing fit his personality). Our change from two incomes to one was gradual and took many years. (We have always been frugal and lived on a budget most of our married lives.)
Our first step was to determine we would not go into debt for education. After consulting the local college where he obtained his nurses training, we figured out the cost of just one course. We put that into our budget to prepare for the next semester. We both continued to work full time. He discovered that the company he worked for would pay for college courses, as long as you maintained an A or B grade. This was great incentive to do well. Each reimbursement check went into the "education fund" to pay for next semester's tuition. He went from taking one to taking two courses a semester.
When He got to the place of having to take clinical classes, there was no way he could continue to work full-time, nor would he have reimbursement. Once again we sat down; could we make it on my income, plus his part-time work at a local hospital, plus the money we had saved. Yes, we could but it would mean living within our means. Example: Instead of the vacation at the beach, we pulled out our trusty 20-year-old tent and vacationed at a local state park for those two years. The tuition reimbursement would no longer be there; how would we pay for tuition? The hospital he worked for part-time offered tuition reimbursement if he would agree to work for them for two years after graduation.
I can honestly say, we did not feel deprived during this time; the two-years of clinicals passed quickly, and he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Summa Cum Laude. I'm proud of him.
As I mentioned, we had two goals. The second was for me to be able to stay home. I still remember the day he told me, "My gift to you for working with me is that you can quit your job."
I will say this: Our children were almost grown at this time. But I am proud of them also. All three mothers (two daughters and one daughter-in-law) are stay at home Mom's who homeschool their children. They also live frugal lives, on a budget.
For the mom who wants to be a SAHM...10 years ago I gave notice at my job. For the year prior to that, all of my paycheck went into savings. It was our test run to see if we could make it work plus it was great building up our savings account. As it turns out, my boss was so disappointed that I gave notice that he suggested I take the summer off w/out pay and we meet in early August to see if I would consider working part time. Turns out that I took 10 weeks off, scaled my hours back to match the hours that my girls were in school. When the girls didn't go to school, I didn't go to work. What a blessing because after 9/11 my husand's natioal guard unit was deployed to Germany and we had money in the bank which allowed the girls and I to take a 3 week trip that May to visit him; paid in cash! Now, 10 years later I'm still employed at the same company and I work full-time again but the office knows family is my priority and they allow me to be very flexible if I need to.
Sounds like you work for a fantastic company! It would be so great if all companies were that accommodating...I think more moms would work if that schedule was available!
I think it's really easy to get passionate about homeschooling! I could just recommend that the person who is thinking about being at home full time should pray about it. I was really worried about how not working for a pay check would impact us financially. Within six months my husband's pay went up more than enough to make up what I brought home after childcare. I'll pray for you because it certainly isn't an easy decision, especially in this economy.
I have been a SAHM for just over 7 years now. I married by best friend almost 13 years ago and we both worked. My husband farms and also worked for another farmer and I worked in town. We had very little extras but got by. We waited 5 years to have our first child spending that time paying off student loans and buying our farm. After buying our own farm my husband was eventually able to stop working off the farm and we started preparing to start a family. Since we run a business (farm) most of the money needs to be returned to the business. We wanted to be able to live off what I was making in town so we didn't hurt the business so we opened a 2nd checking account. We only put my pay in it to see if it was doable or not. I am better at having the money in hand and doing, rather then looking at paper to tell me how much is left. But we put the pencil to the paper a lot and also found it very important to talk about all the finances. The bad part about farming is that your income fluctuates from year to year. It is pretty lean some years and not others. Understand all the finances is empowering so that you can know where you stand. If it is all out in the open it is sooo much better! We now have 3 boys and I enjoy every day I get to spend with them! I am actually not looking forward to getting back in the workforce but I am sure I will have to some day! 🙂 A lot is about what you are willing to not have. We have no cable/dish, eat out rarely, shop sales, use coupons...etc. While balancing the musts...groceries, insurance, vehicle...etc. It is an effort but oh so worth it!
Something else to consider that I have not seen mentioned here - insurance (health, life) and retirement (like your 401k). When looking at the one income budget or living off one income and banking the other be sure to consider how much it will cost to have family coverage for insurance on the working partner's available plan and what the impact to your retirement contributions will be.
I am not suggesting it's not worth it - but thought it was worth mentioning for folks to consider.
I love this post today. I am a full time working mom of 3 girls that is planning on becoming a SAHM next summer. Of course the timeline is planned according to when the debts are payed off. I know we will make it because utilities, food and gas will be all our monthly bills. I have also been planning this for a year now and have it all put on paper, over and over again. The monthly payments will all be gone. While I wish we had done this sooner (my girls are17,7,2) it will still be a blessing. The reasons Kristen posted for homeschooling are some of the many reasons why we are planning on homeschooling the two youngest girls as well. I agree with the comment about your spouse being 100% agreeable. My husband is very into this decision, probably 110%, it would not be able to happen if he was not. Frugal blogs like this will only help me keep money in our pockets. Thanks for a great blog Kristen.
Hey! Love your blog!
I really enjoy your thoughts on homeschooling--especially the desire to teach your kids how to have a Christ-centered outlook on everything.
I'm actually curious about the pros/cons of homeschooling and the effects on social skills. My cousins were homeschooled and, although very intelligent, they often lacked the social graces with their peers that often comes through public schooling.
Have you found creative ways to "socialize" your kids?
Appreciate your thoughts!
I am not homeschooled, but I knew several homeschoolers in college, including one whom I dated (and so got a very intimate look at his siblings, all of whom were also homeschooled).
Socialization is something that comes up often in the argument against homeschooling. However, all of the homeschoolers I have met and interacted with had two major advantages over us public schoolers - (1) they had spent the majority of their middle school years (usually the most excruciating for public schoolers) in stable environments, surrounded by people who loved and supported them; and (2) they had been exposed, through multiple volunteer opportunities, to a much larger range of age groups and economic groups than typical public schoolers
These were kids who were as comfortable with elderly adults in nursing homes as they were with kids in their own grades. The man I dated had spent hours upon hours in hospitals (his family was a host family for kids coming to the US for burn surgery), in jails (his mom volunteered to teach incarcerated kids to read), and in nursing homes (they visited elderly adults to provide them with company). How many public school kids have all those experiences before they're even 18?
Just going to public school is no guarantee a kid will be well-socialized. More often than not, the result of public school is they only meet other kids exactly like themselves.
Parents have a responsibility to expose their kids to many different social situations, whether their kids are schooled at home or in a classroom setting. This includes getting kids out into the communities in which they live, not just forcing them to spend time with another two dozen children who happen to share the same birth year.
I don't know. Where i live, homeschooling doesn't exist and it sounds just like... unnecessary.
What I really loved in my elementary years was learning *together* and confrontation. With kids who were different from me in many aspects and a teacher who wasn't my mum, who was lovely and tender to us but also an authority figure. Writing and reading together, sharing our experiences, listening to classical music, going on a field trip in a local forest... not the same when done with my parents.
Yes, there is peer pressure in a class, but it's life, you can't protect children forever.
Like many have suggested put your income into savings like it doesn't exist and live off just your husbands. By doing this you can see what you need to cut, what is important and what is not. When my husband and I were first married we had no kids and no debt and were making 2 ½ times the median income for our area. My husband's job was shaky so we ALWAYS lived off of my income and his was saved just in case his job ended. We have been fortunate that we have kept those jobs as we built a family but we still always live off of 1 salary as we choose to live frugally not trying to keep up with the Jones's.
We are a one-income family and after learning how to budget and cutting out a lot of "extra" luxuries, we not only meet expenses, but have been able to pay off a lot of debt! My husband is a mechanic, so we are not living off a six digit per year salary!
I am fairly newly married (just had our one year anniversary in June). Currently I am the primary income-earner for our family, so even though I really want to, staying at home is not an option for us. We live in a 1 bedroom apt and live beneath our means, saving every penny (almost) to pay down student loans. Currently, the university I work at is offering free tuition to employees of 2+ years and their spouses. So we are both back in school, but hopefully when he finishes his degree, I will be able to quit my job and he can get a job that pays enough for me to stay at home.
The idea about trying to live off of just one salary is a great idea! You could use the other salary as either savings or to pay off residual debt.
I've always said, you make your cost of living. When my husband and I got married we only lived on his income. I continued to teach, but the majority of my check went into savings except what we used to pay off a car loan and save for a new house. When I got pregnant, we knew that I would finish the current school year and then resign. It wasn't a stretch to switch to one income since we were already living on one. Anyone can make it work. You must budget and be willing to give up some things, but you'll never regret it! You can always return to work when your children are older if needed, but you'll never get those younger years back!
I LOVE all your reasons for homeschooling! I so wish I could, but there's that nasty little detail about my husband having me committed to the nearest "funny farm" to contend with. I wish he'd support me in that. I know it would be hard, but sending my kids (9 and 13) off to their 1st day of school this year was bittersweet indeed. I love being with them!
My husband makes $40,000/year before taxes, and I'm a stay-at-home mom. We're still learning how to live on our now-decreased income. For the first year of my son's life, I was working at a $50,000/year job and my husband was making $25,000 as a grad student. However, we were also spending $300/week on daycare ($15,000/year). That was a bit high for a single child in our area, but with more kids, our daycare expenses could easily consume the majority of my income. Combined with needing a second car for me to get to/from my job in our new city (hubby can't take public transportation like he did for grad school), and my entire salary would basically be consumed with expenses related to me just having that job. My job wasn't that important to me, and I discovered I'm a much happier person as a stay-at-home mom, so in terms of sanity, staying home was the better choice for me!
We structured our life to live on only my husband's salary when he decided to take this job (which involved a long-distance move) - our mortgage is $831/month, we don't have cable (or even a TV), we have the lowest cell-phone plan we could find for our usage level, we are on a very strict "eating-out" diet - basically enough money in the budget for 1 Ruby Tuesday-level meal out per month, plus some fun money to make it all not too burdensome ($50/month for each of us).
Anyway, long story short, it is definitely possible to live on one income, but you have to structure your life differently in order to do so, which means both partners have to be on board. I highly recommend taking the entire income of the potential stay-at-home parent and sock away any money not used for childcare. Do that for 6 months, then you'll have a good idea of whether or not you can do this on your current lifestyle. If not, you may have to do small things (cutting out cable, eating out less) or more dramatic things (moving into a smaller, cheaper house, or moving closer to work for the working parent to be able to eliminate one car).
I worked part time when my son was 5 months - 18 months, then I quit to be home full-time. I have never regretted being home with him and living on one income. The only regrets I have about it is that we didn't save up more when we were a "double income, no kids" family, and that I didn't do it sooner. My son turned 11 weeks old on September 11, 2001, and I remember thinking, "I'll never let him out of my sight!" But a month later, when my 13 year old car bit the dust, I sadly agreed to go back to work (hopefully temporarily) when my maternity leave was over so that we could afford a new car. How stupid was that??!! Why didn't we just buy a used car or borrow one from my father, who had about 5? It took us another year or so before we could finally sell our house, move to a cheaper place, and implement our plan of me staying home. My son is now 9 and we homeschool because he has special needs (gifted/Tourette's/Sensory Processing Disorder) and I'm so glad we were used to living on one income. It was no sacrifice for me to continue staying home and homeschool him and keep him out of school where he was teased, stressed, and bitterly unhappy. Let other people worry about the Joneses----do what you can to enjoy the children you are blessed with.
Here's my question. I hope it's not too late since I'm doing this late on Sunday night. 🙂 Do you use paper towels? If not, what do you use instead? I realize that rags work fine, but I feel like using Windex and rags to do things like clean counters would use up rags really fast. Not that you're necessarily wasting, but really, I was just curious.
Never too late. 🙂 I'll put it in next Monday's Q&A, as today's is already up.
I do use paper towels for a few things, but I use them very sparingly. More details next week!
@Sloan In my experience, rags last a pretty long time. I do use papertowels for some unsanitary things like perhaps wiping down the outside of the toilet, but other than that, I try to use cloth or rags. I've cut up old my husbands old t-shirts and dress shirts for glass, but what I've found works particularly well on glass is the old cloth napkins once they get a stain or 2 that makes them better used this way.
p.s. I put my paper towels UNDER the kitchen sink making them a bit harder to access. Having them "out of sight, out of mind" has really helped lessen the temptation to just grab one to dry your hands (One of my ALL TIME PET PEEVES 😉
I know this post was quite a while ago, but I just loved your answer about finances. It is never about how much money you make. I have been a stay at home mom since my first (of 3) children was born, 7 years ago. Being able to stay at home is about planning. My husband is a deputy sheriff, and we live in the best school district in Central Florida. We waited 6 years to have children after we got married. During that time, I worked, as a teacher, but we NEVER used my income. We always lived as if his salary was the only money coming in. My income went into savings, which enabled us to buy our first home and pay it off completely within 2 years. Now we have a large reserve and don't have to worry and stress about money. We are frugal, stick to a budget and plan what we buy and where we spend money, but there is the freedom of knowing that we will be ok on one income, even if the roof needs replacing or the car breaks down. It can be done on a small income ($45,000 in Florida) without deprivation, just a reevaluation of what is important and lots of planning.