It pays to stay at home for me -$1350 a month

If anyone wonders how much money they will MAKE by staying at home there is a way to find out. I have thought about this recently and come up with answers for myself and anyone else that may be considering making that leap.

I do have a few jobs that do actually bring in revenue for my family. I do the mystery shop thing and I sell on eBay. I actually do quite a bit of mystery shopping some months and during the fall I do a LOT of eBay, so much eBay that it takes up a lot of time and I can’t do as much when it comes to saving/couponing. So I am trying to stockpile, but I do still manage to save.

The first thing I did was try and figure out what I was spending on groceries. I don’t know how much that was; it was well over $1200. According to the government it says that the Liberal Plan for my family of 5 (based on ages and sex) is $1445 a month (and doesn’t include the 4 shedders). That seems about in line with what I was spending, though I guess I could ask my accountant husband for these figures (but this is more fun). I was making no attempt to save money, not really. I might stock up (at the time I thought I was stocking up) on something that was on sale, but I never used coupons. My attempts at savings was going to BJs and spend $400 (more than half on what we didn’t need) or make that trip to Walmart every few weeks, but I would still swing by Harris Teeter nearly every day and spend an additional $20-$75 each time. Now I have given myself a grocery budget of $400 a month. This budget includes all grocery store items, including cat food/supplies, shampoo, paper products, basically anything that can be purchased in a grocery store. So by staying at home and using coupons and following sales I have SAVED us $1,000 a month right there.

Then I figured in my mystery shopping. Right now I am averaging about $250 a month in mystery shopping, which includes reimbursement for food. I try and use my $400 a month grocery budget to do this mystery shopping. I mystery shop restaurants, grocery stores, big box stores, clothing stores, and specialty stores. So there is another $250, which is probably a conservative amount.

Then I started doing rebates this past winter. I do the store rebates at Rite Aid and Walgreens, though I do not do them every month. I do Ebates (pays quarterly) and I also do the beer/wine rebates (no beer or wine purchase necessary). I also will do 'Try Me Free' rebates and other rebates that are typically seasonal. Kellogg’s just had one where I had to buy 10 Kellogg’s items and I got a $10 refund, or the Pert/Sure school supplies rebate, where I had to buy $5 in pert or sure and $5 in school supplies and I get a $5 refund. In most of these cases, you don’t have to actually SPEND the amount shown; you have to BUY the amount shown. So When I bought the Pert/Sure items I spent less than $3 out of pocket because they were on sale and I had coupons. The Kellogg’s one was even better, Harris Teeter was running a promotion on one day and for every 10 items I bought at HT, I got a form at the store to get a $10 gift certificate at the store. I have also gotten 2 $25 gift cards for Best Buy for buying American Express Gift cards. That only cost me $10 for each card (really $5 I got ECBs from CVS for that deal). I make anywhere from $100-$200 a month in rebates.

So, I save $1000 by staying home, I make $250 for mystery shopping and my rebates get me $100 a month. I make $1350 a month! That is about a part time job I think! This doesn’t take into consideration the fact that if I did work, we would eat out more, and most likely spend more because I wouldn’t have the time to save money. Also my eBay is not included in there.