Going From Two Incomes to One

The missus and I have both always been pretty responsible financially, but when we found out we were going to have a baby we had to reconsider a few things, mainly how big of an emergency fund we were going to need and how we could allow her to stay home and care for the little one.

We had a decent emergency fund already, but we were also willing to take on a lot more risk since we didn’t have a child.  Actually, it didn’t even seem like risk at the time.  What we needed to get ready for the baby was a way to build our emergency fund even larger and also adjust to making less money.

Our solution was to save everything she made and put it toward our emergency fund.  This allowed us to build it to a pretty big sum very quickly.  Additionally, it forced us to adjust our budget to living on my salary alone.  It’s not like we had to give up much anyway.  We were spending quite a bit on fun things like traveling (a lot) and dining out at nice restaurants.  Since these things aren’t quite as easy to do with a baby, it didn’t seem like a big deal to get used to not doing them.

This strategy worked great for us, and it has allowed her to stay home while we are still able to live comfortably.

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