When I was growing up, I had no clue of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I went to college and quit after 3 years, since I couldn't decide on a major and thought I was wasting my money. I went from job to job, starting in retail and then on to office work. I was a national sales secretary for Nike, and a department secretary at Boeing, and worked as a temp in various places. It was all interesting enough, other than Boeing, which I couldn't really describe in that way.
When I became a mother, and was working at Boeing, we were hard-pressed for money. My husband was trying to break into the field of sales and started working for various brokers. They'd hire him full-time and immediately put him on part-time so they wouldn't have to pay benefits. So he was going through regular job changes at that time. There I was with my colicky baby, waking her at 6 a.m., hurriedly dressing her and myself, taking her to daycare at 7 a.m. and going to see her at lunch; taking a pump to work so I could continue nursing. (You should have seen the gate guards' puzzled faces when they'd ask me to open my cooler with it all in there!) I'd pick her up after work and go home too exhausted to clean house well (I was anemic also...). She'd wake up at 2:00 every night. I hated work; Katie hated my work as well. She finally got kicked out of that daycare; the woman said (though she'd been doing daycare for 25 years) that Katie was the most difficult baby she'd ever watched--not a distinction that I'm proud of. I hired a neighbor to take her in instead. (Thankfully she's no longer difficult!)
Finally a month after becoming a Christian I knew very strongly that I really needed to quit working and stay home. It was truly a stretch but I had to trust in God's help. The first morning that I stayed home, I suddenly knew what I was wanting to be...I'd wanted it all my life and just didn't realize it. I wanted to be an at-home mom. Because I'd never thought of it as an option, and because I'd never really been trained in it growing up, I was ill-equipped. I had a lot to learn; I still do!
There are various ways other than what I've already blogged about (garage sales and grocery store shopping) that I use to save the money to stay home. I cut our own hair, all four of us (sometimes with better success than other times--but the biggest challenge is my own head, and I can accept that), and I figure I save about $100 or so per month by doing so. I clean our own carpets. I fertilize our yard (I recently learned that getting this done commercially would cost us about $450 per year!). I fix our furniture and many appliances and prune our own trees. I do our plumbing, sewing, gardening, indoor painting, and home schooling. I don't do car repairs or get on our roof, but I do many of the other things! Sometimes I think knowing how to do these things is a drawback, in that I never feel free to call and get someone else to do it, but we'd be struggling financially far worse if I didn't. And though getting everything done that seems to need doing is perhaps impossible, I'm never bored! Life is fuller than it ever would be in an office, away from my home and family!
For all these things that you can do to save your money and be able to stay at home with your family, you can find out how to do them either on line or by looking at books from the library--I've done this many times. If you're in the middle of a household project and can't figure it out, the hardware store is full of people who can advise you on how to finish the job. I installed a sink, for example, taking 4 trips to the store to ask questions and buy parts and tools. Sometimes the difference between being able and not being able to do these things might lie in buying or renting the right tool.
If you're perplexed with your work and longing to stay home, pray for God's help and inspiration. He'll give you the means to do what He wants, and I believe that His ideal is for families to be together.
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