Affordability

Facts, Stats and Support
Financial Calculator
Featured Articles
Problems & Solutions
Books
"Best of" Collections

Facts, Stats and Support from Family and Home Network

More Mothers Discover that Being Home is an Affordable Option

Almost eight million American married-couple families with children under the age of 18 have a non-employed mother and/or father.

Fathers in families with an employed mother earn about the same as fathers in families with a non-employed mother

Discussion Board: Our discussion board includes a forum for subscribers to share experiences and ideas for increasing the affordability of full-time parenting- open to subscribers only (click here to subscribe).

Financial Calculator

Living on One Income: click here for a worksheet designed to help you examine your finances.

Featured Articles

Online articles featured from our monthly magazine, Welcome Home, offering personal accounts of the sometimes difficult financial transition to having a parent at home. Excerpts are provided below.

Planning Ahead by Marybeth Donahue Connelly

"Heeding wise advice from their own parents, they planned from the start to live on one income. Even during the years when both spouses were working, they lived on Jeff’s income and used Jeanne’s salary for one-time purchases, such as furniture, and to pay off their car loan early. When their first daughter, Sara, was born, they didn’t have to scale down their expenses because they had planned carefully and hadn’t fallen into the trap of needing every penny they earned to pay the bills." Full Article

Other Welcome Home articles from our Affordability Series can only be accessed by subscribers; They include:

Affordability Survey: Family Finances
" In our affordability survey, we asked both mothers and fathers to tell us about when they had made the decision to live on one income (before marriage? before or after the first child was born? after the second?). We also asked what resources they used to help with financial planning and budgeting, and what resources they'd like to see more readily available to people making these decisions."

A Unique Partnership
"Since Sidney’s birth, Mary Ellen and Jim have managed a unique partnership in which both parents are at home with Sidney as they alternate responsibilities for their publishing business. The Parhams are very pleased that their son, a busy, talkative five-year-old, is part of both the home and work aspects of his parents’ lives."

Breaking the Health Insurance Handcuff with an MSA: An Insurance Alternative "Several years ago, after switching insurance carriers twice in four years because of rising premium rates and then watching the new premiums rise still higher, I began to wonder if the day would come when we would no longer be able to afford insurance."

For Me? by Linda Elkan.

"The thought of being home full-time stirred up anxious feelings in me. I was worried about the money. Financial security was not something I’d had as a child. A career in law had at least given me the means to support myself. Could I give up my financial freedom and learn to depend on my husband? Could I gracefully accept his offer to be the sole breadwinner?" Full Article

Problems & Solutions

The "Problems" and their solutions are provided by the readers of Welcome Home. This column appears monthly in the journal.

Economic Survival: Getting By on a Family Income of $21,000 or Less

Making Money at Home

A Gift for Your Husband -- That He Doesn't Pay For

The solutions to the following problems are only available to subscribers of Welcome Home.

Preparing for a Cut in Income

"I am the mother of three children ages five, three, and seven months. I work full-time as a nurse at a hospital from seven p.m. to seven a.m. I am so tired! Having always worked outside the home we are accustomed to my income, but I want, and need, to focus on my most important job now -- mothering these three wonderful young ones of mine. My question to your readers is, "How did you prepare a few months in advance for a substantial change in income, and once you became an at-home mother, what budgeting and lifestyle changes made the most impact in terms of saving money?"

How to Stay Home when Your Husband Wants You to Return to Work

"How have other mothers continued to stay at home, even when their husbands would like them to return to work? My guilt is weighing heavy. I'm feeling like a burden to him, but I am not ready to leave my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter."

When you order these or any books from Amazon.com via our web site, the price will be the same as if you ordered directly from Amazon, and MAH will receive a small portion of the profit.

Books

Women Leaving the Workplace: How to Make the Transition from Work to Home by Larry Burkett

Staying Home Instead: How to Balance you Family Life (And Your Checkbook) by Christine Davidson

Come Home to Your Children by Frank and Ayesha Jones

See Books to Look For and Links to other web sites for additional resources for moms or dads transitioning from full-time employment to full-time parenting.

"Best of" Collections Published by Mothers At Home

Is Homemaking an Affordable Choice? If you think the choice to be at home is only for the wealthy, think again. Our affordability reprint counters this myth with facts, and also shows that having both parents in the labor force can be expensive.