In an attempt to try to get me to blog more, I'm making it a goal to blog here every week about the money I save my family by being a stay at home mom. My goal is to do this for an entire year.

Let's start with this week.

Laundry cabinet:
I found a show room cabinet for $18, by modifying it for use as an upper cabinet (it was a base cabinet), making a curtain with scrap fabric instead of buying doors, after additional supplies it cost $25. The cheapest cabinet I found for this project was $60, labor to install it would have been $100. Total savings $135. The time it took me to do this is the same it would have been to have a bid done, then to have it done.

Brake & Rotor replacement:
On the same day I did this myself, my friend paid $300 for someone to do it for her. I paid $130 for parts. Total savings $170. It took me 1 hour, she waited 2 hours for her car to be done.

Dishwasher repair:
My dishwasher experienced repeated power failure. I removed 3 screws and the kick board, tightened some loose wire connections and had the dishwasher going. To have someone called out to my place: $75, not to forget I didn't have to wait for a repair guy, so I saved money on my power bill by not having to wash dishes by hand. Total savings $75.

I only ate out twice this week, so I saved at least $20 by cooking meals instead of eating out (low ball estimate).

I bought boneless skinless chicken in bulk for $1.49/lb instead of $2/lb saving $10.20.

I bought an online deal for having my safety and emissions done for $1o, savings $40.

I babysat for my sister every weekend, for at least 4 hours a night, for 8 consecutive years for free (and still do 12 years later when she needs it). As such, she and her kids now baby sit for me for free when I need it. I used them twice this week for over 6 hours, so that saved about $25 in baby sitting costs.

This week I spent $25 on a high chair (one on legs) from IKEA instead of spending what the average American spends on a high chair. Savings $35.

Also at IKEA I found cheap curtain rods that fit my huge front room windows for $10/piece. Previously I had spent $20/piece for our smaller bedroom windows. Savings on 2 curtain rods $20.

Military discount on my daughter's shoes from Payless was $1.30.

Membership gas rewards at Mavrik was $0.22

This week I also finished making my Halloween costume. The materials for it cost about $20, this is a shirt, pants, gloves, shoes, hat, and mask. This saved $45.74 compared to buying this in a store.

Diaper pail at a thrift store for $8. Savings $21.

Total savings for the week: $601.46

This week alone, when you add child care savings, I have already saved more money by staying at home then I would have made by working.



As this is my first day to do this I will calculate now how much money our family saves in a year on care costs for my child by me staying at home. The average day care here costs about $850/month for an infant, I cannot find the costs for a bilingual program, but I'll just add in $50 for bilingual, even though that's probably an under estimate (I'm bilingual). So $900/month for 12 months is a savings of $10,800/year. The last job I had before having my daughter paid, after taxes, $1200/month, which would have barely covered child care costs.

I also feed my 10 month old what I'm eating, I just make adapt it so she doesn't choke. That is a savings of about $45 a week by not buying baby food. The yearly savings of this is $2,288. I breast feed, which saves about $200/month. Total yearly savings on baby food and formula is $4,688.

So, between October 17, 2011 and Oct 17, 2012 I will have already saved $15,488 on the cost of raising my daughter.

With my husband deployed we were able to lower the interest rate on 3 of our loans/credit cards which saves us about 14% on our interest rates. This will save us about $30/month for the remainder of his deployment. He has at least 2 months left in this deployment, so I'll add that $60 of saving in now and adjust as necessary.

I will attempt to keep track of everything I save (including the interest savings as credit cards/loans get paid off early, if this occurs), but as calculating gas costs for separate trips would be a nightmare I won't add that in, but I probably save hundreds of dollars every year by combining most/all of my errands into one trip.

Running Savings Total (includes cost of food/child care savings for one year): $16,149.46