SAP sacrifices

[Anonymous]

What sacrifices do you make to be able to financially afford a SAP?

[Anonymous]

What is a SAP?

[Anonymous]

I think they mean SAHP! Just guessing!

[Anonymous]

OP here. Sorry, I meant SAHP.

[Anonymous]

We watch our monthly bills very closely. Our vacations are simple (week at the outer banks) instead of adventurous.
We watch how much we eat out. (Average once or twice a month as a family and one date a month).
We shop at ALDI and almost never Whole Foods.
We rarely shop at the farmers market any more (but we love Hungry Harvest)
Honestly, my parents save for our kids education now. We will later when I go back to work. That allows us to feel less like things are tight.

Things we don’t scrimp on:
Retirement (15%)
Good food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We watch our monthly bills very closely. Our vacations are simple (week at the outer banks) instead of adventurous.
We watch how much we eat out. (Average once or twice a month as a family and one date a month).
We shop at ALDI and almost never Whole Foods.
We rarely shop at the farmers market any more (but we love Hungry Harvest)
Honestly, my parents save for our kids education now. We will later when I go back to work. That allows us to feel less like things are tight.

Things we don’t scrimp on:
Retirement (15%)
Good food.
New shoes for kids and us.
New clothes for adults.
Hair cuts for the adult in the workforce (everybody else gets their haircut at home

Some poster as above. We also mostly purchase used clothes for the kids. Not sure that saves money as the used clothes probably cost the same as Cat and Jack at Target would.

[Anonymous]

We gave up our aggressive savings plan to retire early and a pension. Vacations were usually visiting family. Went with cheaper camps in summer - for a few weeks only. We purchased a smaller older house. The sahp gave up career. It was not the first choice, but the choice that worked best for us. Both of our children have special needs that needed more time than we had when we both worked outside the home. The sahp picked up several of the therapies too.

We were still able to save for children’s college and for our retirement years.

[Anonymous]

When I worked we always saved one of our incomes and lived on the other. When I became a SAHP all that took a hit was our savings but over time that began to grow as well. Early in our marriage we discussed this savings approach as a way to give us flexibility if at some point one of us wanted to stay at home. When I decided to stay at home we didn't face a financial crisis. That early decision in our marriage really paid dividends and I give my DH credit for the idea.