5 Guide Questions if you want to be a Stay at Home Mom

I decided to resign from my day job when my son was just 3 years old (he is 11 now). I was doing great with my career at that time (I was a supervisor in one of the top supermarkets in the country), but it was sooo hard to get a nanny to take care of him. After thorough thinking, my husband and I decided for me to just stay at home and take care of the little one.

That’s wasn’t an easy decision. Lakas lang ng loob puhunan namin. We were used to having 2 incomes and we don’t have anything when I decided to be a stay at home mom. No Savings, No Insurance, No Emergency Fund, No Investment, as in waley, nada, bokya, nganga, zero.

I know a lot of you want to do the same but you’re not so sure if you and your family would make it. Let me help you by asking yourself these questions:

1. Can we survive financially? I’m sure this question is on top of every family’s mind. Of course, two incomes are better than one.

What you need to do is to check and compute your expenses per month to see if one income can manage to pay for all the bills. If you have two income and was not able to save, check the things you did wrong.

Maybe you are eating out too much or spending a lot on unnecessary things. But on the other hand, consider the fact that if you will be a stay at home mom, you won’t pay for a nanny anymore, so that’s less expense to your family’s income. You won’t spend on transportation and you don’t need to buy new office attire, bags, make-up and dining out. I tell you, after checking this, mas nakapagtabi kami nung asa bahay na ako.

What’s nice with our set-up before was we are not paying a house because my parents-in-law gave us a place to live. My sister-in-law also has their own carinderia, so every time we don’t have food, I could just call them and they deliver the food right at our doorstep.

TIP: Before you decide to resign from work, it’s better to save at least 3 months of your salary, practice using only your husband’s income for 3 months to see if you could survive. That is if you still have an option to wait for at least 3 months. In our case, 3 months was too long because as I have mentioned no one will take care of my son.

2. How I will stay sane if I’m at home all the time? I never imagined myself being a homemaker. I thought that I will be just like my mom ( a working mom). The transition was hard at first, my body who is used to doing paper works at the office, meeting and interacting with different kinds of people every day, needs to adjust to entertaining a child, making sure that he/she will not get sick and doing household chores.

TIP: Go out with your friends once in a while if you are an extrovert/ambivert. Make friends with the neighbors also. Read finance books that will help you with budgeting, saving and investing.

It’s nice that almost every household now has access to the internet, you can research for information to improve yourself and earn additional income while staying at home. This is what I did that’s why I discovered blogging and I’m happy that I’m earning from it now.

3. Can I manage to leave the kids with a person I barely know? If you have your mom or relatives staying with you then you are lucky and maybe you will not consider to be a stay at home mom. BUT, if you are like me who don’t have an eye inside the house, then this is such a hard thing to consider. Whenever I’m at the office, I cannot function well because I keep on thinking what’s happening at the house. The thought of a yaya kidnapping the child or hurting them is always in my mind. A small kid can’t say anything yet so I only rely on what the nanny will tell me that happened at the house at the end of the day.

4. What are the things I could do to earn from home? I blogged about some sidelines you can do at home to earn extra income (read HERE). You just need to do some research and join groups in Facebook exclusively for online workers to give you an idea.

5. Can you handle criticism that comes with the decision to being a SAHM? – Yes there will be a lot of them I’m warning you. If you are on top of your career and decided to be a stay at home mom, some will say

• sayang naman pinag-aralan mo
• di mo nabawi ang tuition mo nung College
• malaki siguro sweldo ng asawa mo?
• nakaka bobo sa bahay
• malu losyang ka sa pag-aalaga ng anak

I tell you, do not get affected/offended of these words/opinions. Just let it pass your ears. Not everyone has the guts to be a stay at home mom when they have a good career but you did it for your kids. That I think is what matters the most.

Increase your knowledge and skills so that when the kids are big enough to take care of themselves, you can always go back or earn extra from the new skills you learned.

Seeing your kids grow and you being part of their triumphs and success and helping them get through the difficult time is the most fulfilling thing you can do as a mother. They won’t forget it and they will cherish you forever.

There you go mumshies, good luck on your decision and I hope I was able to help you.