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When you had your kids, you probably never imagined dropping them off at daycare and spending the whole day apart. Instead, like most moms, you had visions of spending hours cooing at them as they ate their last bite of rice cereal, watching them discover their surroundings and uttering their first words. 

But, as many moms are painfully aware, the need for that second paycheck requires you to work outside the home. And yet, mabye you yearn for the possibility of leaving your job and settling into full time stay at home motherhood.

Can you afford to make it happen?
"I'm sure that finances are among the biggest challenges for any moms who are trying to decide if they can stay home with their children. As a good responsible mother you want to do what seems right for you and  your children, but at the same time, it has to work within the family budget, " says Mary Hance, author of 99 Things to Save Money in Your Household Budget.

Hance adds, "So I think the first step is to sit down with the budget and see what it would look like without the income you are currently contributing."

Tips for moms wanting to stay at home
According to Hance, these budget tips may help moms who are contemplating staying at home.

Do more with less
The bottom line is that you will  clearly have to do more with less. It's not just a matter of subtracting your income and coming up with your new situation. It's a bit more complicated, but maybe a little brighter than you might of thought. Of course with a reduction in income, you can also count on a reduction in your taxes. And if you are not working, you are not going to be spending on daycare, or on business clothing, parking, dry cleaning, lunches, eating out, etc.

The nitty gritty financials
This is the way a local financial planner calculated it - a family with a $100,000 income that decides to do without the wife's $40,000 paycheck can expect to drop expenses by about 24%. The calculations showed that expenses of a family with an initial income of $100,000 will range from $60,000 - $70,000 a year, so when  a portion of that income is eliminated expenses must drop to $46,000 - $53,000. That should help you figure out if you can make it work.

Shrink your grocery bill
The best place to start is by shrinking your grocery bill dramatically with aggressive couponing and creative menu planning.  There are lots of decent - even fun - meals you can make for a family of three or four for around $5 or $6. 

Forego paid recreational activities
Recreation costs could be brought down to almost nothing by taking advantage of all of the free offerings in your community: programs at the library, parks and bookstores and more. You may have to make sacrifices like not eating out, or going to the movies,  or other ticketed events, but if your goal is  for you to be able to stay home with your children, foregoing those luxuries is not a very big price to pay.

Hubby needs to be on board  
Hance adds that the dad must be on board as passionately as the mom to make this stay at home arrangement easily workable. You can't be pinching pennies on every front and have him going out to the golf course or concerts or electronics stores all the time. Make a pact that you can make this work as a team.   
 
Find like minded families
Seek out other stay at home moms who are on a serious budget, too, is important. Not only can you share ideas and resources like Websites and information about good consignment and thrift sales, you can figure out good mom to mom trades - like babysitting coops, play dates, equipment sharing, book sharing, magazine sharing and so on.   
 
"One Tennessee mom I talked to went from full time work that paid about $45,000 a year to staying at home," says Hance. "She said that by the time she subtracted $1,300 a month in child care expenses, $150 in gas and all of the incidentals such as dry cleaning, parking, clothing for work, lunches out, and paying for services around the house that she didn't have time to do when she was working - like yard service, house cleaning, alterations -  the difference was actually pretty absorbable. And, of course, absolutely worth it to her."

You tell us: How have you managed to make being a stay-at-home mom work for you and your family?

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About the author: Melissa Chapman is a NYC-based RealMomsGuide contributing mommy blogger, who also contributes to SheKnows, writes a weekly newspaper column, blogs and contributes feature articles for a variety of media, and is a mom to the three loves of her life- her daughter, her son and her ShihTzu  Mellie.