Homes For Sale

With the housing market down, buyers and sellers are looking for cheaper alternatives for listing and finding homes on the market. The internet is home to many options, and is a great way to begin your home search or test a For Sale By Owner without a real estate agent. Even real estate agents are looking to the internet as additional marketing for their current listings.

Click Here to learn how to list your home on one of these popular real estate sites, Zillow.com.

5-A-Day for Your Toddler

I am constantly searching for new ways to get my toddler to eat healthy food. We have all heard that making their food fun is important. If it doesn’t look exciting, chances are it won’t be exciting to your toddler. This week, as I was browsing through the fruit at Costco, I found the ultimate fun fruit – champagne grapes. These little grapes are so sweet and easy to eat. At less than $4.00 for a huge container, they are also a steal of a bargain.

Worried about these little sweeties going bad before they disappear? This week was a great week for bargains in my household. Living in a small condo, I have put off purchasing a FoodSaver. It is on the top of my list of must haves, but I must have more room before I can have one! Luckily I spotted the hand held Foodsaver at Ross this week for only $12.99. This little deal was retail $49.99 and works great. It is worth stopping by your local Ross to see if there are any left!

Want more yummy baby and toddler food ideas? Visit my favorite homemade baby food site, http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/. Don’t forget it is always important that you supervise your toddler during snack and meal time. Also, follow your pediatrician recommendations for starting your baby on solid foods.

Vote for Addyson

I recently had the opportunity to work with James and Michelle Hill, a husband and wife photography team here in Atlanta. James and Michelle use their talents and experience in photography, film and modeling to help capture the perfect portraits for you.

James Adam Hill Photography teamed up with Elite Model Management and KooKoo Bear Kids, an online store featuring furniture, bedding, décor and clothing for babies and children, to search for the next KooKoo Bear Kid. I took my daughter Addyson for her first official photo shoot. We love KooKoo Bear Kids and were excited to work with James and Michelle. The experience was beyond my expectations! James worked so well with Addyson, and I was so excited and proud of her for showing the camera what a huge personality she has.

Let your vote count for Addyson! I encourage you to visit JamesAdamHill.com and see his wonderful gallery of pictures. While you are there, vote for Addyson by leaving a comment below her picture. You can go directly to her photograph here, or search for “Addyson Alane” in the search box at the top of the homepage.

Thank you for your vote! And thank you to James, Michelle, and KooKoo Bear Kids for such a fun experience!

The Cost of Child Care

Today I have been doing some research on the cost of child care in the United States. Many families assume that it is financially impossible for mom to stay at home with their children. Just by doing some basic calculations and subtracting monthly expenses from your partner’s salary actually gives you quite an inaccurate view of your situation. When you carefully evaluate your finances by creating a budget and calculating all expenses associated with child care, you may realize that the impossible is actually possible.

The actual cost of child care is not an easy thing to find. It will depend on the area you live in, what type of child care you need, your child’s age and the amount of time your child will spend in child care. To give you an idea the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) has reported average annual fees for full time child care in 2008. The average cost for child care in the US in 2008 was $8,798, ranging from $5,096-$15,895. For an exact figure in your state, click here. In-home childcare costs tend to average slightly less than child care centers, while hiring a nanny will be your most expensive option (up to $3,033 a month for full time care).

When figuring your costs for child care and considering your budget as a working mom, you cannot forget to think about what your job is actually costing you. Working creates costs that you do not incur when staying at home. Think about transportation costs, parking, clothing, dry cleaning, lunches, coffee and snacks. You should also include in your budget take-out food costs and expensive grocery bills. The thought of cooking, buying in bulk and grocery shopping with coupons is not exactly a reality when sleepless nights and long days at the office are your routine.

When you create your budget and consider all of the costs associated with working and child care, you may find that the amount of money you are actually bringing home is far less than what you assumed. At this point you should consider your options. Is the possible 10% of your income worth it? Can you cut back on some areas in your budget to account for the loss of that amount?

Before you make your decision, spend time working on your budget. Budgets are not set in stone, and everyone needs to make one that works for their family. Use your calculator along with your creativity and you may realize that staying at home is actually the economical choice for your family. (not to mention so much more rewarding!)

Need help creating your budget? Begin here.

This post is part of a series on being financially able to stay at home with your children. Click here to learn more on this topic.

Once In a Lifetime

Upon learning of my pregnancy I was instantly transformed from a working girl to working girl contemplating being a stay at home mom. For me, this didn’t take much thought. I always knew that raising my own children was very important to me, and my husband and I were determined to find a way to do it. Let me begin by saying that it has been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. There have been struggles; these struggles being no harder than anything I ever came upon in my career, just different. At this point there is no one that can convince me there is anything better than being there for my child in every milestone moment of her first year (and years to come). After all, these milestones only come once in a lifetime.

I know that this isn’t an option for everyone, although it is hard for me to believe it is not an option for most. I do understand the financial needs all of the hardworking single Moms out there, and I am sympathetic to their situations. I also have met many single Moms through blogging who have been able to work from home to support their families.

With exceptions, it is very possible to be a stay at home Mom. I am looking at this topic from a financial stand point. For those who are struggling with, “could I actually leave my career to be a stay at home mom,” don’t think of it as leaving your career forever. You can always return to your career and will have many years to achieve those goals.

I dare say that the world we are living in has blinded us into thinking that a family living on one salary is just not possible. What is actually impossible is living beyond your means. If you have $100 to spend then you will spend $100. If you only have $10 to spend, guess how much you will spend? That’s right, $10.

We have also grown accustomed to tracking our finances virtually. Does it frighten anyone else to think of how our money is slowly becoming nothing more than virtual transactions? This makes it harder and harder to create and follow a real budget.

By budget I am not talking about sitting down and guessing what you think you make and what you think you should be spending on groceries. Actually creating a budget takes some brainstorming. You need to look at your finances over the span of a year. Think of all the possible things you spend your money on and write it all down. Often we forget about payments that occur annually or biannually like home insurance, auto insurance and ad valorem taxes. Thanks to all those virtual transactions, this part is actually easier than you think. With nearly all banks, credit card companies and utility companies keeping track of your accounts online it is very easy to get yearly reports of your spending habits.

If you are just starting out on your journey into motherhood, then in next 9 months you will take the time to read every pregnancy book you can find, make every doctor’s appointment, take every breastfeeding and labor class you can find and eat healthier than you ever have to ensure a healthy baby. Take the next few steps now to ensure that you can be the person to teach, influence and be the center of that baby’s life beyond 6 weeks old. If your bundle is here, then it is not too late to re-evaluate where you are now.

1. Sit down and create your current budget

2. Create a sample budget for the working mother who will send her child to daycare

• You will need to include additional work-related expenses, such as clothing, dry cleaning, commuting costs, unreimbursed work expenses, lunch and snacks. There is also often an increase in lifestyle expenses when there are two household incomes. There is a chance of spending more on things like dining out and housecleaning.
• You may also account for formula. The working mother is much less likely to continue to pump and breastfeed than the stay at home mom, and formula is a very large expense.

3. Create a sample budget for the stay at home mother

4. Compare

How much more money will you really be bringing home? Can you adjust your budget now to account for the difference? Try living on the new budget over the next few months. You can even get a head start and put your paycheck straight into a savings account, or strictly use it for the initial baby items you will need for your nursery. These will be onetime expenses that you will not need to account for after baby comes.

In the end it usually comes down to “things.” Are you willing to let material things come between you and your goal of staying at home with your child? As I stated before, there are always exceptions, but let’s not call excuses exceptions. There is no excuse for not running the numbers and creating a real budget that you can look at and understand. There is no reason that you can’t return to your career when kindergarten beckons. Let your defenses down, ignore peer pressure, figure it out for yourself and do what is the best thing for your child.

Interested in learning more? Sign up for my RSS feed and learn more about the possibilities for a Stay at Home Mom over the next couple of weeks. Get help with creating your budget, learn the actual costs of childcare, ways to save money on baby essentials, opportunities for stay at home moms and read inspiring stories from friends who have already been on this journey.