How To Tell If You Can Afford To Take The Summer Off With Your Kids

How To Tell If You Can Afford To Take The Summer Off With Your Kids
It’s summer and the kids are home for the next few months. Working all day and leaving them to fend for themselves can be a hazard, especially if your children are very young, and boring for both them and you. You will want to stay home with your kids and share in their lives, but can you financially afford to do this? While most mothers will jump at the chance, you have to go through some careful planning before you can readily answer this question. Make sure you know all of your expenses, as they will be the key to whether or not you can stay home with your kids.

Measure Expenses
Make a list of all the expenses you have in a month. Not just the big expenses like bills and food, but the amount of money you spend on entertainment, magazines and anything else that you are spending money on. If there are any birthdays or parties that will happen in the summer, make sure you write down their cost right now.

Also make sure that you count other expenses that you may not be spending money on immediately. For example, your kids may need summer clothes or bathing suits, so make sure you count all of these expenses, too. If you are planning a summer vacation, then make sure to set a budget. Overestimating the budget, because you and your children will probably want to buy a few extra things, will make things more comfortable.

You need to know the real amount of money you spend every month, otherwise you might run short near the end of the summer.

Subtract Work Expenses
While work makes you money, it also costs money to get there. Do you spend money on gas or public transportation? Remove those costs from the expense list. Do you buy food at a restaurant during lunch? You can also remove those costs. Think about all the money you use for work and remove it from the expense list.

Cut the Fat
Now that you know what you are spending money on regularly, you can start cutting the fat. Is there anything you spend money on that is unnecessary? For example, if you have a magazine subscription, you could cut that off for a few months to save some money. You could also limit your phone plan, unless you are using the most basic plan, to limit your costs.

Do whatever you can to limit your expenses comfortably. While you could also get rid of cable, Internet and many other things, this would be uncomfortable for you and your children. Think about what you reasonably can do without, and work to remove that from your expenses.

Check your Bank Account
Check your bank account and see if you have enough money to support taking the summer off. If you have enough in your checking and savings account, then you can take the summer off without any worries. If you don’t, then dig a bit deeper.

How much room do you have on your credit cards? While you shouldn’t rely on your credit cards for all the expenses, and you shouldn’t push them to their last dollar, putting some of the expenses on credit isn’t a bad idea.

You should also check other assets you have. Are there any bonds or checks floating around that you haven’t cashed? These can be used to build up your bank account. If you still don’t have enough, then there is one other thing you can do.

You can try limiting your working hours, or you can stay home for half of the summer and work the other half. This is even better if you get paid vacation. While this isn’t as good as staying home the whole summer, it can still give you some time with your kids.

Conclusion
Staying home all summer with your kids is great, but be smart about it before taking off for the next few months. Tally your expenses, find out how much money you have available and see if you can reasonably take off from work to be with your kids. If not, then try to give yourself at least a few weeks with them by taking a small work vacation.

Author Bio
Becky Harris writes for U-Pack moving companies whom are dedicated to keeping families close together.