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Mama's Money Map

Mama's Money Map

Written by: Jenni Sisson
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 Join our community of stay-at-home parents as we learn to manage, save, and invest our money — all while keeping family as our first priority.2022 Economics Leadership Management & Leadership Self-Help Success
Episodes
  • 007 Can I Afford to Be a Stay-at-Home Mom?

    007 Can I Afford to Be a Stay-at-Home Mom?
    Mar 2 2025
    Stable relationship with your spouse. Track your spending. Reduce your expenses. (Housing, food, transportation, then extras.) Earn while you’re at home. Calculate expenses you will no longer need.Plan for benefits.Reduce your liabilities.Look into assistance if you qualify. Transcript: Welcome to the Mama's Money Map podcast, the Personal Finance podcast for stay at home moms and families who want to save more, spend less, and invest the rest all while keeping family as their first priority. Today we're gonna talk about the logistics of actually being a stay at home parent, whether you can afford to stay home with your kids. Now, I say the question of can I afford to stay home with my kids quite a lot. I actually just recently had a great conversation with my sister-in-law about this, who's thinking about having kids and. I'll tell you the same thing I told her, which is it may be more doable than you think. I know there's a lot of hubbub on the internet about how much money it takes to raise a kid, and I think the number they came up with is frankly ridiculous. It's like a quarter million dollars and like I know I haven't spent that much raising all my kids, so I know while that may be an average, it's doable for less. If you're willing to change certain things in your life. In my experience, the question isn't can you stay at home with your kids? The question is, are [00:01:00] you willing to change the things in your life to make staying home with your kids possible? Now, I’ll use some extremes to illustrate this, on the one hand. You could live a basically Amish existence. You could live in a log cabin with no running water and no electricity, and it would be really easy financially to stay at home with your kids if you did that. But most people aren't willing to live this way. And on the other hand, there's a lot of people that have higher ticket lifestyles that aren't willing to make certain cuts to stay at home with their kids, and that's their choice. But most of us live somewhere in between. And by adjusting some of these things in your life, you can make staying at home possible if that's a priority for you. And I know having a parent at home during the early years of rearing kids is a big priority for many families. So it's just a matter of what adjustments you're willing to make to have one of the parents stay home. So in this episode, we're gonna cover some of these levers you can pull to make it [00:02:00] more possible for you and explore some ideas that you hadn't thought about changing your budget, changing your lifestyle to make, staying at home more doable. So full disclosure, not all of these are gonna apply to every situation. Some of these will be easy, no-brainers for you. Some of 'em you've already thought of and others may be completely impossible given your situation. So think of these as choices, options, leverage you can pull to make your ship go faster, but you don't have to pull them all. In fact, it was probably impossible that you do pull all of these levers. But combining them will propel you faster. The first one isn't directly related to finances, but it's a foundation you really need to set if you're going to consider staying at home, and that is a stable relationship with your spouse. Now, no, marriage is perfect, but I really don't recommend quitting your job to stay at home if you're in a rough patch with your partner. I know we don't like to talk about this or think about this, [00:03:00] but in the event that things go south in your relationship, the stay at home partner is out of the workforce and without the means to financially support themselves in the event of divorce. And so the premise of having one spouse stay at home is basically that the other is the main economic provider. And so when partners deeply specialize into chief provider and chief caregiver roles, they have to work together or the arrangement just falls apart. So if you're already staying at home, do preventive maintenance on your relationship Go on date nights, even if that's just Netflix after the kids are in bed. We've totally been in that state where date nights are free and that's okay, but make sure you carve out time and space for you and your spouse and maintain that relationship because it's really the foundation on which a lot of your economic structure is built. Other things you can do, send each other cute texts, have deep conversations, go to therapy if you need to. We've benefited from [00:04:00] that on a couple occasions, so we don't always think about maintaining that spousal relationship as having a financial benefit, but you can definitely see when people get divorced and things definitely fall apart, not only emotionally, but also financially that maintaining the relationship. Has a direct financial benefit. Now, in saying this, I'm not suggesting that anyone stay in a, in abusive marriage. Obviously that's the choice for you, but we're talking about ...
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    20 mins
  • 006 How to Have Tough Money and Division of Labor Conversations with Your Spouse with Ed Coambs

    006 How to Have Tough Money and Division of Labor Conversations with Your Spouse with Ed Coambs
    Jan 29 2025

    Ever wonder how to bring up sticky emotional or financial subjects with your spouse? Talking about money can be hard, especially when stay-at-home spouses and working spouses can see the world, work, and money very differently.

    In this episode, financial therapist Ed Coambs joins us to explain how couples can approach difficult financial conversations with empathy and understanding.

    (Amazon links are affiliates)

    Wheel of Emotions

    https://amzn.to/3DH7VyP

    CDFA - Certified divorce financial analyst

    https://institutedfa.com/find-a-cdfa



    Ed’s book - The Healthy Love and Money Way

    https://amzn.to/3ZZuQgn

    Interested in Financial Therapy? Go to www.healthyloveandmoney.com and set up a free discovery call to see if it’s right for you.
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • 005 Retirement Accounts 101 - Understanding the Differences Between a Traditional IRA, Roth, 401k, and HSA

    005 Retirement Accounts 101 - Understanding the Differences Between a Traditional IRA, Roth, 401k, and HSA
    Feb 29 2024

    In this episode, Retirement 101, we demystify the complexities of retirement accounts, covering the most common types: Traditional and Roth IRAs, 401(k)s, and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). While we can't cover every retirement account in detail, we focus on the main options most families are likely to encounter.

    From contribution limits and tax implications to withdrawal rules and more, we break down each retirement account's key features to help you make informed decisions about your financial future. Whether you're just starting to plan for retirement or fine-tuning your existing strategy, this episode offers valuable insights to guide your journey.

    Disclaimer: This episode provides educational content about how retirement accounts work and is not financial advice. For comprehensive information, consult your retirement account provider, HR department, or the IRS website.

    Handy-Dandy Retirement Account Comparison Charts

    SHOW NOTES

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    IRS info on Traditional IRA tax deduction limits:

    https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/2023-ira-deduction-limits-effect-of-modified-agi-on-deduction-if-you-are-covered-by-a-retirement-plan-at-work

    General IRS info on Traditional IRAs:

    https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/traditional-iras

    Roth IRA contribution limits:

    https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/amount-of-roth-ira-contributions-that-you-can-make-for-2023

    General IRS info on Roth IRAs:

    https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/roth-iras

    General IRS info on 401(k)s:

    https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/401k-plans

    List of reimbursable purchases with HSA:https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p502.pdf

    https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p502.pdf

    General IRS info on HSAs:

    https://www.irs.gov/publications/p969
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    29 mins
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