My husband and I knew we wanted one of us to stay home with our with our children when the time came. So we waited and planned for the right time to expand our family until we knew I would be able to leave the work force.

Now I know, sometimes you can’t plan all life’s events. Maybe you didn’t expect to have baby right now, or maybe you didn’t plan on being a stay at home parent but once that little one came you knew you didn’t want to be apart.

Here is 5 tips on becoming a Stay at Home Parent

#1. Financial Stability If you’re already in a place where you’re struggling to pay your bills each month, it’s probably not best for you to pursue leaving the working force all together. You and your partner (or whatever your secondary source of income that will be sustaining you) need to be at a place where you are not currently worried about your finances.

#2. Budget An obvious one right? You’d be surprised at how many adults don’t currently budget their finances at all, and when you’re planning on eliminating an income source, it is a MUST. You need to compile a list of all your monthly expenses (mortgage, gas, cable, phones, insurance ect) as well as your monthly spending (groceries, vehicle gas, entertainment etc). If this amount exceeds your secondary income source(husbands/wifes income) you need to be prepared for the possibility that it is not within your budget to loose your job income… if this is the case for you, don’t worry! All hope is not lost yet, follow me to tip 3.

#3. Sacrifice There are many ways to make your life fit within your budget better, but you may not love all of them. One major thing we did was go from 2 cars, to 1. This one hurt, no sugar coating it, but in doing this we saved over $300 each month between extra insurance, gas and a car payment. Schedule your families appointments and events around your spouses work hours and you can find having one car really isnt so bad. Other things you can do is lower your cellphone plan or rid yourselves of a home phone all together and only use cellphones (I still use my IPhone 6 ive had for 4 years, there is no need to be ugrading constantly). You can also look into meal planning/prepping and your extras like cable, paid subscriptions etc.

#4. Child Care Another obvious consideration right? This is a MAJOR thing to look at. If you arent home with your child, who is? Or where are they? Daycare costs can be quite expensive, and paying for child care can outweigh any income you’re bringing in while working. For us, we worked it out that I would come home at the end of the month with roughly $200 for working full time and having our 2 kids in daycare, and that just wasnt worth it to us(we considered the car insurance and gas into this.).

#5. Being content with what you have. You need to take a step back and look at what you have, and be comfortable with that, and not a bunch of extras. During our financially tight times, I had a general rule to follow when making unnecessary purchases, and that was to ask myself “Do I want this badly enough that I have to go back to work for it?” do this and you’ll find the answer is a resounding NO! Now this isnt to say you can never buy anything but food again, know your limits and stay within budget. I have found so many awesome deals on things I love on Facebook Marketplace and other buy and sell pages. Or waiting for sales, etc is a great way to treat yourself but staying within your means. Secondary you can sell items you no longer use or want for a bit of pocket cash. Offer to babysit or do odd jobs, but most importantly, be content with all you have already.

I hope you find some of these tips helpful! If you have your own tips or think I missed anything, feel free to leave it in the comment section!

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.