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I am a "Stay at Home Mom" to two kids. Yes, they are in school now, but I am still a stay at home mom, cause that's where I always am, other than my spontaneous trips to consignments shops and walmart. I love my kids, my husband, my camera, and my used book collection, not always in that order. (And don't tell my husband about that loving him part. I don't want him to get all comfortable and confident, I need to keep a handle on him, haha!)

So anyway, back to the sahm part. Being home means cutting corners financially, and I have no problem with that most of the time. I do LOVE to shop, but can make that work out ok by shopping on ebay, at yardsales, and my favorite, consignment shops. I got a TON of limited too bargains for my kids this weekend before a monster headache that turned into a migraine set in. (Poor Blake for having to deal with me during this....puking headaches suck!!)
We loaded up on some bulk items at Sams, and took our handy dandy notebook (yes, I have watched too many episodes of blue's clues) and kept up with what was truly a deal and what wasn't. I got bathroom stuff, cleaners, some groceries and meat, laundry detergent, toothpaste, and a few other things. The point is so that I can buy 90% of my groceries at Save a Lot, and bypass Walmart whenever possible. I love the better selections that Save a Lot now has, and you can't find better quality meat anywhere in town.
Ideally, I buy groceries once every two weeks. This normally works out okay. I make "too much" on purpose so that Mike can take leftovers to work. This also means we often have a 3 course meal and that's it. You don't get a lot of variety here, when you are trying to be thrifty! Honestly I don't see why there's anyone that can't do this. It isn't too fun to limit yourself, but I would rather put that money towards VACATION than twinkies any day!
I keep up with where our money goes in pretty defined detail on billpay. I think it is a good way to shock yourself into seeing where you blow the most. 3-4 bucks eating breakfast out every morning is crazy. If you spend $4.25 a day on breakfast, in 5 working days, you blew $21.25. If you spend $7.25 on lunch for 5 days, you spent $37.50, and that's without leaving any tips.... So, add that up, and you spend a whopping $58.75 a week on breakfast and lunch alone. And that's only one person......so if you have a husband and wife that both do it.... $117.50
Then figure in spending $19.50 per night for 5 nights of supper, for a family of 4-ish. That's $97.50.
A total of $58.75 + $97.50 = 156.25 (assuming there's only one working person doing this spending) per week.
$156.25 x 4 weeks per month = $625.00 per month eating out
Whoa.
That's crazy. You just ate your housepayment!
I know it can be easy to say "can you just grab something?" but I really have tried to not do that since I quit working almost a year ago. I have only had a full time job for one year of our marriage. The rest of the time, I have stayed home with my kids, and stretched the money. I am looking into getting a different internet provider now, since I hate my cablevision cable connection. I can get it through AT&T (formerly Cingular) for about $60 per month. I would like to do that, and get satellite tv back. I am still shopping around on that one though. I can eliminate caller id on my home phone to make up part of the difference. Can we afford it even if I don't? yes. But I don't wanna.
As everyone knows, we are still looking hard for land to build a house on, so I am watching the bank account like a hawk!