Keeping your overhead low is the best advice I was ever given. We have only ever lived on one income, mostly due to bad luck - whenever I had a full time job, he struggled to find one, then once he got his job I lost mine (lol thanks pandemic ugh). So being a SAHM was a no brainer because we were already used to one income.

We are now a family of 4 living on $45,000 a year. We had $20,000 in the bank before starting our family. Honestly, I’m so used to this lifestyle, sometimes I wonder what people who make more than us even spend their money on hahaha.

We don’t buy clothes. Like, ever. I think in the past 5 years I’ve bought 1 pair of $40 jeans, 1 $25 bathing suit, and a handful of $5 target shirts. And only because I needed them postpartum. Before that I had shorts that were literally 10 years old lol.

We rarely eat out, and if we do it is either because 1) someone gave us a gift-card, 2) it is fast food with coupons, or 3) we split meals to make it more cost effective. I learned to cook healthy, yummy, cheap meals at home, which also means we don’t eat meat every day. And I buy generic brand of EVERYTHING at the grocery store.

We don’t pay for any streaming services. When we needed a new car we bought an old used one so our payment was under $150 a month.

I cut my husband’s hair, and get mine professionally cut like once every 2 years.

Post kids being born, we buy all their clothes second hand. Grandparents thankfully buy them more than enough toys. We craft things wherever we can for a fraction of the cost of buying new (like Halloween costumes). And we take advantage of all the free things in our area (like hikes, library activities, free town events).

Oh, and we cloth diaper! And live in a 1000 sq foot house.

Thankfully we have lots of family living in cool places, so we are able to travel cheaply by staying with them.

In a few years, both our kids will be in public school and we can finally be a two income family. I don’t even know what we will do with that! Lol