No doubt these are discussions you've had in your own home!

Here are a few recent articles that address the topic:

From Sheila's blog at Care.com
http://bit.ly/cLk460

"There are more flexible, home-based jobs now than ever. It's a growing sector of business, especially in the recession where companies are being more cost-conscious than ever before. Sites like Etsy, Elance, Cafepress, or even Care.com let you showcase your talents (and get paid for it). You can even find full or part-time career opportunities through other websites like Alpine Access, Working Solutions, and TeleReach. There is the downside, however, that many of these jobs don't offer the same types of health or retirement benefits. But if you're interested, definitely check out Tory Johnson's Women For Hire which has even more job tips, ideas, and lists of work-from-home resources."

From the Wall Street Journal's parenting blog, "The Juggle"
http://bit.ly/9kVice

"My husband and I would be better off economically if I either worked full time or didn't work at all and cut the child-care costs"


How did you make the decision to stay home? What changes have you had to make as a SAHM?

That's the problem right there. Child Care is so expensive SAHM would just be working only to cover the weekly expense of Child Care. It's completely ridiculas I must say.
We recently lost our beautiful dream home and are now living in a rental. I have 3 children ages 8, 6, and 2 1/2. On top of that we "had" 3 dogs because we lived on 5 acres.
We had to find our Golden Retriever a new home because this place is so small and has no back yard.
What a change but, we're working through it. I recently applied for a PT job at our local hospital as an infant photographer. I haven't worked in 9 years! I go on an interview this Thursday which is tomorrow. It's only a weekend job from 9-2 at $12.00 an hour but, it's something. My Husband works at an Alpaca farm but, it's been recently foreclosed so he'll be out of work ONCE AGAIN very soon. He's also starting school this spring. Times are going to be really tough for us. I just can't wait to get a break. We as all the rest of the US have been through more then what we can handle. It's rough!

There are more opportunities than ever for working from home, however, one needs to be very careful with all of the "opportunities". Some are merely looking to sell their product to you. Another thing I have found in my search is that there are a lot of companies that are terribly unprofessional. I called on several jobs the last few months, sent my resume in and they expected me to drop everything and come in for an immediate interview. The whole idea behind those jobs was that it will be flexible, yet they weren't the least bit flexible when requesting me to jump through their hoops. If anyone knows of any legit jobs out there, please post something...I'm sure there are many of us that would jump at a true opportunity! Thanks!

For me, it was a matter of choices. I decided more time with my family was more important than lots of nice "things". Don't get me wrong, I like to have nice stuff - but staying at home seems to be worth sacrificing those things.

I recently sold the small business I own and looked into spending that money on bigger and better things and continuing to work full time. Instead, I put that aside and utilized the money to allow me more hours at home.

It seems to me that there is a window of time where there needs to be someone at home with the children mainly being birth to puberty - but perhaps even younger. I saw it as a window of about 10 years with 3 children. During that time, money and resources would be put into spending as much time as possible with them. Assuming we stay married - my wife and I would probably be together for 40 years (assuming we live into our 70's). If we completely remove ourselves from the work force at age 65 then that 10 year window would be about 25 to 30 percent of our marriage and about 20% of our working life. That leaves a lot of time (80%) to accumulating wealth.

When I looked at it like that, it provided more clarity into my options.

In other words, for a window of time in our lives we will focus more on time with the family and less on accumulating wealth.

That was kind of confusing but hope it helps.

I work from home at a legit job. I don't want to post too much info on here because not everyone is interested. You can email me at ghealthandwellness@gmail.com
I made money on my own schedule and I can do as little or as much as I want.