Question for SAH Spouses.

[LittlePerson]

For those of you who are stay at home spouses, are you unemployed or are you employed? If you are unemployed what do you do to have money to buy presents for your spouse or children or whatever?

[Aleigh]

I don't have a job, and Dan and I have set a budget where we each get so much spending money each week. We don't consider it him giving me spending money...he works outside the home and I take care of our children and save us from having to pay someone else to do it. All of our money is our money and we both get the same amount of spending money. It might not work for everyone, but it works for us!

[Ceres]

i agree aleigh, and its one problem i have with the stay at home SPOUSE term. i stay home to care for our children, not as a spouse to my husband. stay at home parent would make more sense :D sorry to get all semantic, but this is something i feel strongly about.
we too, have agreed that each of us has our work to do. i am not sitting eating bon bons and watching soap operas here at home and even before we had kids, we pooled both our incomes and paid expenses out of the pool. we have a household budget from which i buy groceries and run the house and buy my coffees. when there are gifts to buy, or extra expenses, it gets taken out of the account by mutual agreement. i would never spend money if my husband were absolutely opposed to the purchase and he would never spend money on something i had vetoed.
as to household chores, we first agreed on a priority list for things that need doing and so with my being here at home and able to juggle things around the kids, i take care for the first couple priorities: dinner, laundry and general tidiness. after that, its whomever has time and energy. chore division comes down to a balance of mutual respect: you have to respect the job the other person is trying to do or u wont feel u can willingly do more yourself. it took us about 8 yrs to get there, with much bickering over who does what before then. finally we both decided if werent together, we would each being doing it ALL instead of roughly half so the division of half didnt need to look so precise.

[MorningDove030202]

I work every other sunday at an Animal Wellness Clinic which brings in about $125 extra a month. We have a joint checking acount, so it's our money. The odd thing is, I pay the bills, so I guess I still feel like I'm in charge of the money. As far as presents go, I make alot of home made things.... the Dollar Store here has these cute Christmas cross sitch kits that I've made 2 of already and I'm thinking about getting some more. I do cookies for some friends, so between baking and cross stitching, I have something for everyone.

Dove

[LittlePerson]

i agree aleigh, and its one problem i have with the stay at home SPOUSE term. i stay home to care for our children, not as a spouse to my husband. stay at home parent would make more sense :D sorry to get all semantic, but this is something i feel strongly about.
Ok, so what if you had no children? I am saying spouse becuase there are no children in our situation and I'm assuming that there are other couples in this nation that have a sah spouse who do not have children or will some day. Would you feel the same way about what you are saying?

[Amethyst Rose]

I'm a SAHM now, and I was a SAHS(pouse) as you put it, for a 1 1/2 years before I had my son (one year in the caribbean, and 6 months while pregnant). I still took care of all of the household chores....laundry, meals, cleaning and such, but I admit that I did a whole lot of nothing, too. My husband and I have always, from day one, pooled our money together and worked with a budget. It's not his money, it's our money, (he infact HATES it when I say, "it's your money, do what you want.") So there's no concern at all about where money comes from for gifts and whatnot.

[FlyingBear]

We have several different accounts, including a household that has both our names on it but I'm the one who holds the checkbook(s). Seabhac works, I pay the bills, run the errands and do that baby thing. We're both on an allowance. Once it's spent for the week, that's it until next paycheck. Once a week, I sit down and balance the books to see what's going where. A third of the money that comes in goes into a savings account for Sophia that we're going to be investing into a 529 for college.

With the exception of groceries, if there's a purchase that's over 50$ we discuss before hand. That includes presents which we make sure we have lists for and don't do any impulse buying. If it's not on the list, we don't buy it. Luckily we usually do secret santa with our friends, so that helps alot. We also don't buy into the hype around Giftmas/Obligation Day.

Any extra money comes from recycling and selling books and cd's to the local used shops.

:tub:

[Shanti]

I was a SAHS before we had kids but because I cant work and am on disability. We have always worked together even though we know my contributions financially would always be small. We had kids knowing I couldnt financially offer much. It has advantages. I take care of the house and now that we have kids, I take care of them and homeschool. We just have the attitude to work with what we have and eccept what we dont have. :)

[Mau]

I'm a SAHM. Have been for almost 5 years. And I'm slowly going insane :)
I just had to put in an application to work at the bar down the street because $$$ is too damn tight (hubby's been laid off). Living on one income is frickin hard, sometimes impossible. Next year I'll be starting nursing school. If I could find something legit and worth it to do from home, I would...but no such luck.

And I think some people are suited to stay at home with their children...I am not. I feel the need to be out and doing something.

[LittlePerson]

I know this isn't quite on topic but, I want to be supportive of my husband and his decisions and all but I don't want to be resentive of him. Since he quit his last job last may he hasn't found work, but he does do most everything around the house. Granted it hasn't been great since he's been sick but I do want to think of him as just a house husband. We cannot afford to start a family without another salary or get a better place, but I am hopeful that next year I'll get a raise. And if that's true then perhaps we could and he could be a stay at home dad. I want him to be happy and perhaps he'd be happier if he didn't feel pressured to work. It's been hard for him for many reasons. If we made that decision together, perhaps we could share my income and think of it as our money. But because I've been resentful about his unemployment, I think I think of my money more as my money than when he was employed. I already give him my debit card to buy household items and do laundry. I think if we talked about that it could make it easier to transition instead of me still expecting him to get a job and I could feel less guilty working overtime so much. Hmm, what do you all think?
Plus there's the reversal of gender roles and how readily it isn't accepted by society. I still work with many people who believe it is the wife who should be the one to stay at home for whether it be household or family reasons and the man to be the bread winner. I grew up believing I'd have a man who'd be the bread winner but this isn't what happened. But I have a man who does love me and I have this thought that if he truly loved me he'd be working, but it doesn't have to be like that does it? I can offically take the role of bread winner and he the stay at home spouse.

[RogueSpirit]

The way I see it is, when a couple is married, what belongs to one spouse also belongs to the other spouse. There is no "my money/their money," it's "our money." So for me, the answer to the question (if I were a stay at home spouse) is I get the money out of our funds.

By the way, I kind of get why someone would wonder where you might get the money to buy their spouse a present if they aren't working, but why would there be any question at all of where you might get money to pay for presents for your children?

[Shanti]

Hon its all really up to the both of you. If you's are happy what anyone else thinks is irrelevant.
You have to go with what makes, you two, as a couple, happy!

[LittlePerson]

Thanks Shanti. _pounce_

[Haruka2077]

I'm just starting off with this stay at home mom thing, so I'm not sure how it's going to work out. I'm actually still on my maternity leave, and I'm going back to work for 2 weeks to settle in my replacement. With a newborn it's hard to tell how things are eventually going to settle out, but I plan on doing 90% of the housework and baby care while my husband is going to school and working. We're living off his military benefits and student loans, so things are a little tight for Yule at the moment. I handle all the finances and he usually asks me if he wants to make a big purchase, or whether we have enough money for something. For Yule this year we are probably just going to try to give each other time alone together. :)

[Aleigh]

Ok, so what if you had no children? I am saying spouse becuase there are no children in our situation and I'm assuming that there are other couples in this nation that have a sah spouse who do not have children or will some day. Would you feel the same way about what you are saying?

Ahhh. I get it now. In my situation I probably wouldn't stay home if I didn't have kids, because there would be no reason for me to stay home if not for the children, and I'd go stir crazy real fast. I was bored out of my skull in the 4-5 months it took me to find a job when we first moved in together...I couldn't do that on purpose. :lol: But if there was some other reason for me to stay home, I probably would feel the same way. Everything is ours, not his or hers. He gets mad if I call it his money. :lol:

Also, if I was home and didn't have the children, I probably would have started my own home business long ago. I've been trying to for months but don't have time with the kids.

[Tinara]

I am a SAHM who works from home and goes to school fulltime. I do desktop publishing, graphic designs, and webpage design locally and I am 4 classes short of my Bachelors in Computer Science.

I was released from the Navy last January and going from that to staying at home was a hard adjustment and sometimes you feel like you will go batty with boredom *laughs* but then I think that I could still be on a ship and not watching my son grow up (he turns 2 this month) and it makes the lack of adult conversation more bearable.

My spouse is still in the Navy and he misses alot of our sons development, so to me....there is a tradeoff.

Also if I didnt have a child, I wouldn't be a SAH spouse......there isn't enough around here to keep me from losing my mind from boredom! *laughs*

[~Anamorata~]

Well...I work some, and go to school...stay at home with 'our' daughter...he's in a band, so I do work some...once we are married, I won't work for awhile...after that, who knows?

[OriginalWacky]

Basically, what Shanti said is right. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks, as long as you are happy. While I was married, at various times, my ex and I took turns staying home with the kids. Now, with The Mate, if I wanted to stay home with him (he is fully disabled), I could, but I choose to work. It's just part time, and doesn't earn even close to his pension, but we both share everything equally. Any larger purchases we talk about first, and I'm spoiled rotten. I try to spoil him too, but sometimes he won't let me. Twerp.

[Ravyn Sylverwyng]

I am also a SAHM with three children. I don't work, and my husband doesn't ask me to. Actually, any time I bring it up, he gets upset. We both know that I can't earn anywhere near as much as he does and that most of my money would go for fuel to get back and forth, child care, lunches, and the likes. As it is, I say home, take care of the children, cook, clean, and do the laundry. It works out fine for both of us. And, even before we had children, he didn't like the idea of me working. Perhaps he is the strangest man out there, I don't know. But, if I feel that I want something, I usually just ask him and he will do his best to get it, and the same goes for him. If he wants something badly, then I will do my best to cut my little extra expenses so that he can get it.

[LittlePerson]

Thanks for all the replies.

[dragenfly]

For those of you who are stay at home spouses, are you unemployed or are you employed? If you are unemployed what do you do to have money to buy presents for your spouse or children or whatever?

Well I am a stay at home spouse, mom, accounts payable, accounts receivable, financial advisor, chief, housekeeper, groundskeeper, laundromat, and a 24/7 support system for my husband and two kids. I should make more than anyone I know. But I make squat! We dont have that problem (yet). My husband is a sucker for his kids he buys them everything, I just take it and say NOPE it goes in the closet till christmas. When he wants something (whatever it is) I just say go for it, get it. If our bills are paid and the mortgage is paid who cares he deserves it. And the same goes for me, anything I want if we can afford it at the time. As far as christmas we did a lot of shopping on E-bay, for ourselves this past three months and we agreed that those things will go in the CLOSET. We never really have present problems, its just a matter of getting a little hear and there, you never feel the big crunch of christmas shopping. We do the same for family I even have wine country baskets shoved in that closet. Its a good system for us.