HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED TO SURVIVE?
Before you quit your job, you need to determine how much your family needs to survive. This requires making the dreaded family budget, but it’s a necessary hassle if you’re serious about wanting to work at home.
Here are some items to include in your budget:
Household:
Mortgage/rent
Homeowner association fees
Taxes (usually included in mortgage)
Insurance (usually included in mortgage)
Electric
Gas
Water
Sewer
Telephone
Maintenance
Other
Insurance:
Life
Medical
Dental
Eye
Other
Automobile:
Car payments
Insurance
Personal Property Tax/registration fees
Maintenance
Gas
Loans or Debts:
Student loans
Consumer debt (credit and store cards)
Other obligations such as taxes
Other Obligations:
Child Support
Alimony
Other Expenses:
Clothes
Food
Grocery
Dinner out
Lunches
Medical
Fun Stuff
Cable
Videos
Excursions
Magazine subscriptions
Vacations
Hobbies/interests
Grooming (hair cuts etc)
Dry Cleaning
Gifts
Cash
Emergency
Savings
Other
Total Expenses:
Now you can calculate how much money, if any, you would need to earn from home if you quit your job. Take your Total Expenses and subtract the amount of money that comes into your home without your income. For example, if your monthly expenses are $2,500 and your spouse earns $1,900, you would need to earn a net amount of $600 ($2,500 – $1,900 = $600). Or would you? While $600 isn’t that much to earn it isn’t that much to save either.
Ways to Save More!
Look over your budget again and see if there are areas that you can save money. Can you survive with one car or a cheaper car? Can you cut your grocery bill? Can you use the library to borrow books and videos for free instead of paying for them? Once you stay home, you will have more time to bargain shop for clothes, repair services, and other needs thereby cutting costs on those items.
When I did this exercise I sold my $350.00 per month car and bought a $188.00 per month car that also saved me on insurance and personal property tax. I cut my grocery bill by 20% and my utility bill by 10%. I joined barter and swap clubs on the Internet for books and other items. With my new budget makeover, I saved about $700 per month.
After doing the exercises above I discovered I could work outside the home 40 hours per week to take home less than half my salary or I could work from home part-time, be with my kids, and earn about the same amount of take home pay. It wasn’t too hard of a decision to make.
By now you should know how expensive it is for you to work outside the home. Perhaps you were lucky and discovered that you pay more to work than to stay home. But even if you found that you would still need to earn an income from home, the amount should be significantly less than what you would have to earn working outside the home. You can now begin to search for work that will allow you to earn that amount from home.
