Making a decision regarding your family’s financial stability is no easy task. This is especially true when the list of pros and cons are long. But for many families, the rising cost of child care is a huge factor in the decision to keep one parent in the home while the other continues to make a living.

It may seem like your family could never possibly live on just one income but it is highly advisable to look at the situation very carefully before ruling it out completely. There will always be a way to make the necessary things work for your family, even if involves a bit of sacrifice and some getting used to the idea.

Track Your Cash

The first place to start is by tracking your spending to find out where your money goes. This must happen before you can decide where your family can cut out costs. Because this decision is essentially larger than just creating a budget, it is recommended that you track your spending for a longer period of time than you might while constructing a budget.

A good period of time is three months in order to get a clear understanding of month to month expenses. When tracking your cash, it is very important to account for every thing your family spends money on in a day - from the convenience store coffee to the pack of gum. You can keep tabs in a notebook or set up a spreadsheet on the computer, provided you keep up with it everyday.

Some of the important categories to note are mortgage, utilities, child care, groceries, dining out, medical expenses, savings allocations, home and car repairs, car note, gas, insurance, credit card payments, and the other common expenses such as gifts, work-related, other transportation, or clothing.

Consider the Cuts

Once your cash has been adequately tracked, you need to work through the processes of finding the expenses you can reduce and work on your plan for cutting them considerably. Start a new spreadsheet. List your categories from your previous spreadsheet with the current amount beside it and total the amount at the bottom.

Under the total amount of the categories of expenses, write the total income from both working parents and then underneath that number, calculate the income you would have with only one income. Whether or not there is a cushion, it’s time to make some cuts.

You can create a third column on your new spreadsheet and label is as NEED/WANT. Next go down your list and mark each category as a “need” or a “want”. When first trimming the costs, mark all of those expenses related to one partner going to work, such as gas, day care, office lunches, presents, and the like.

As you cut out the costs, mark a 0 in a fourth column labeled “NEW TOTAL” The next step is to cut out the “wants”, such cable television and finally start trimming the needs. It will not be easy to cut out the likes and it may take some consideration to reduce the “needs” but it can be done.

Get Creative

Instead of paying a high priced gym membership, grab some work out tapes from the library and spend a lot of time outside, running around with the kids. Instead of eating out often, spend time with the kids making fun meals for dinner.

Can you get by with only one car in the family? There are a lot of things that can be done to make staying at home for a mom or dad a reality. It takes determination and a sincere drive to do what is in the best interest of the whole family.