Most American families have both parents working in 2018. While some mothers truly enjoy working at a meaningful career, there are many women who don’t want to work outside the home—especially if they have a newborn or toddler—and do it only because of finances.

While the cost of living is higher than it used to be, many families can survive with only parent being employed, provided they are willing to budget carefully, reduce unnecessary expenses, and embrace simplicity.

Some folks may not be aware that there is actually a cost to working. If you’re paying for daycare, you have to make over 25K annually just to break even! Yes, most employees make more than that, but they compromise their time by doing so and kids are only young once. 

So what can you do if you want to quit your job, but you don’t have/make a lot of money?

Erin Odom shares her first-hand experience with this complicated situation in her new book You Can Stay Home With Your Kids. Erin is a mom of 3 girls and 1 boy. She and her husband originally wanted a shared career in ministry, but it didn’t happen, forcing them to move to another state where her husband took a low-paying job as a high school teacher in North Carolina. (When I say low, I mean low—probably 20K less than first-year teachers here in New England are paid! I was truly shocked at how little they earn.)

Once she was home all-day, every day, she researched any possible way to live on a bare-bones budget—using cloth diapers, cooking meals from scratch, buying only from thrift stores, becoming a one-car family, and downsizing to a small apartment with two bedrooms.

Because I’ve been into the frugal lifestyle for over a decade, none of her tips were new to me; however, they are excellent tips for someone just starting out, especially newly married and first-time moms. Erin divides her book into eight sections that are easy to understand and covers many topics related to family life. It’s not an in-depth masterpiece like my favorite budgeting book from America’s Cheapest Family, but it’s a good, quick read. 

My only complaint about her book is the size itself! It’s a pocket hardcover, half the size of a standard book. Anyone who suffers from eye strain like I do will find the size of the text challenging. Obviously, the publisher had a hard time expanding 100 tips into 200 pages, so just be aware of what you’re getting. I received a copy for free to review, but if I was buying, I’d have to do a Kindle version.