So I know I’ve said it before, but I’m currently a stay at home mama. While I was pregnant with my first baby and still working 40 hour weeks I was definitely planning on going back to work after he was born. Then the daycare topic came up and that turned out to be a lot more tricky than I thought. I started questioning whether or not I wanted to send him to daycare or be the one who got to stay with him all day. Also, it was super hard to find a really good, affordable, daycare that wasn’t 35+ minutes out of our way. Then my sweet, beautiful baby boy was born and everything changed.
As I held my precious newborn baby, I knew that I could not leave him with someone everyday and go back to work. Obviously, I am NOT shaming or judging any parent who chooses to or has to go back to work after their child is born. If that’s better for you, great. If that’s better for your finances and you wish you could stay home with your babe, my heart hurts for you and I truly hope you can get to the point where you can choose to work or stay home. I also didn’t love my job and it was not the career I went to school for so I wasn’t desperate to get back to it.
Luckily, my husband was totally on board with whatever choice I wanted to make about staying home or going back to work. My mama went back to work for a short time after my sister and I were born. We went to daycare for awhile and then she decided to work evenings/weekends while my dad was home so that we didn’t have to go to daycare anymore. My mother-in-law also stayed home when my husband and his sisters were little. We both decided that we would feel better if I quit my job and stayed with our baby. My postpartum anxiety (a post for a different day…) was super relieved when we finally made that call.
Then it was crunch time trying to figure out our finances. Honestly, I don’t know if anyone will ever read this so I’m just going to put it all out there. Being a one income family is hard. Like really hard sometimes. And we were okay with making sacrifices, not taking vacations, not having brand new cars, all of that stuff. But living still costs money and budgeting is not very fun. And we both had (have) student loans and other young people debt that made it a little harder. So I started trying to find different ways to save money here and there.
This was 5.5 years ago and all these money saving apps and sites just didn’t seem to be around as much as they are now. I started using ibotta (not sponsored or any of that, just really like the app) and that was helpful. We could save/get money back for things we were going to have to buy anyway. Plus we could sometimes try new things and still get money back. That was fun especially when you’re on a budget and don’t have a lot of wiggle room for extras. My referral code is ccllrgy if you want to use it and get $5 after your first receipt. No pressure, but I’ve never had a referral so it would be super cool to get one. I’ve been using ibotta for about 4ish years and my earnings are over $500. Not a huge amount, but also not nothing.
I found a few more money saving/cash back apps that are super easy to use too. Obviously, they don’t replace a paycheck, but it is nice to contribute a little financially. I’ve been using Fetch and Receipt Jar (again, not sponsored I just like them) and they’re super simple. Take a picture of your receipt after a purchase, get points, redeem points for gift cards for all kinds of stores or virtual Visa gift cards (my personal fav). Annndd I’m just going to throw in another shameless referral code for both of those apps because why not? You get a bonus and I get a bonus. Fetch A6FDVG. Receipt Jar DANILTM4J.
Now that we have two more littles added to our family, saving money is super important. And if I can help someone, possibly another stay at home mama, find an easy way to save a little money that would make me happy. I don’t want to say “it takes a village”, but sometimes I does. Or just a stay at home mama on the internet sharing a referral code. 🙂