N is for no longer working and nervous

N is the letter this week for the ABC's of homeschooling meme. N is for no longer working and nervous!

Well in 13 days I will officially become a stay at home/homeschooling mom. I am so excited but nervous at the same time about all of the changes that will be occurring.

I am nervous about my transition to a stay at home mom and living on one income. I have always worked and we have always had two incomes and even with two incomes money has sometimes been tight. I know in my heart that I belong at home with my children homeschooling them. But I am so nervous about how we will get by financially and pray every day our new lifestyle will work out.

Currently my children are watched by my mother while I’m at work so we don’t pay for childcare. I will however be saving about $150 a month by not commuting everyday to work. We don’t have any debt which is wonderful and we rent an apartment. I am a frugal, coupon clipping, bargain shopping woman and we don’t eat out very often. And we drive two paid for cars. Even though my car broke down this month and we somehow have to figure out a way to get another one very soon. My husband has a company truck he drives so being down to one vehicle is not the end of the world. But he is currently looking for another job with better pay so we will definitely need another car at some point. Unfortunately we don’t have much in savings. The money we do have is our emergency fund and moving money (when the time comes to relocate to Savannah, GA). But that will most likely have to go towards a new car now.

I don’t know how other families do it on one income. I’ve asked around on blogs, facebook and forums and I haven’t received very direct responses (I guess people don’t like to talk about finances). We will not have a lot of extra spending money once the necessities rent, utilities, insurance, gas and food are handled. So how are we to take care of other items like clothes (we have no problem with thrift store shopping), car repairs, field trips and/or extracurricular activities, etc. 

I do plan to bring some money in by working at home. I thought of babysitting, doing odd jobs like website maintenance for my current employer, blogging (not sure how that is going to work out so far my sponsor links aren’t getting many hits), selling on my Etsy shop or Ebay, and frequenting various online earning sites like Ebates, My Points, Inbox Dollars etc. I also have my Real Estate and Appraisal license and hope to get into that more actively since I will have more time and they can both be done from home. And my nervousness kicks in again. How will I have time to teach the children, clean the house, make dinner, spend time with my husband, have some me time and do work from home?

And then there is the nervousness about homeschooling! Will I be able to teach the children everything they need to know? Will I be able to keep homeschooling them until they are able to graduate? Will they enjoy being homeschooled?

This is definitely going to be quite the transition and an interesting first year of homeschooling. Thankfully I have a supportive group of local friends and virtual friends!

Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated!