Hi Dr. Laura!

When I met my husband 17 years ago, we had the conversation about me being a stay-at-home mom when we had children. He agreed wholeheartedly, and we began planning immediately after our wedding. We started putting my entire paycheck in a special bank account, and learned to live off of ONLY his paycheck. We ate dinner at home, took sack lunches to work every day, and had friends over on the weekends to make a cheap evening, instead of going out and spending tons of money for entertainment. After a few years of living frugally, we had three years'-salary socked away to help with expenses once the first of two babies came along. Plus, we had already trained ourselves how to live on only one income, so it wasn't a shock to our system once I quit work to stay home with my kiddos.

Once I began staying at home, I supplemented our income by helping care for an elderly neighbor and doing some transcriptions from home.

That's how we did it!

Thanks for all you do!

Melanie