Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - “I’m A Single Income SAHM On Less Than $50K: You Can Do It Too.” - With @SproutingArrows

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

It’s a damaging assumption that mothers cannot afford to stay home with their children if their husband's income is any less than a triple digit figure. Jillian Sedeen shares her emotional testimony as a stay at home mom to prove that statement is not only a flat out fallacy, she was able to accomplish her lifelong dream with less than $50,000. She walks Alex through her entire budget, how to be a stay at home mom and thrive financially, and why it matters to reprioritize investing directly i...

So you're a mom who would love to drop the 9 to 5 grind and stay home with your kids, but without a second income, you just don't know how your family could afford it. Besides, in this economy, isn't that impossible? No one is doing that unless their husband is a high income earner. Or so you think. Meet my guest today. She is a stay-at-home mom of multiple kids and her husband makes under $50,000 a year. How does she do it?

We're about to find out. I asked every budget and expenses question that I could think of. Plus, things like, are you miserable? Not being able to spend money on anything. Is healthy food a priority? What if your husband doesn't think that your family can afford to do this? How many hours a week does this guest's husband work and more? You might recognize her from her viral silk's reel on Instagram recently.

There's a trend going around where millennials are bragging about being dinks, which means dual income, no kids. my guest and her husband made a video talking about being silks. It was like a response to that, which stands for single income lots of kids. And when people found out how much her husband made and the fact that she still stayed home, they were mesmerized, as was I. So I saw that and I begged her to come on the show to share more about their lifestyle as a means of hopefully encouragement or look, just fascination and entertaining.

I think it's so interesting to hear how people live if it's like, completely polar opposite of you. Watch this episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube. Make sure that you leave lots of encouraging comments for her because she was not sure that she wanted to do a podcast interview at all. You can also encourage her by leaving

a five-star review. Please welcome Jillian Sedeen, aka sprouting arrows on Instagram, helping single-income families thrive to the spillover. I have to know how you did this. You're a stay-at-home mom on one income. How much does your

husband make? Well, that is a little complicated to answer. So our income is very variable. Right now, my husband is a window washer. And he's been doing that since he hurt his back this summer. And so right now it's a little bit slow. So when it's normal, we like budget for $3,500 a month. That's like our minimum budget that we kind of base everything off of. But like, you know, this month is slower, so we just make sure we go even tighter. So it's actually way less than people really actually think, but we do it anyways. And it's fine. You know, it works.

It still works. So if you had to give like a ballpark salary range, how much are we talking? Like a year? Yeah. He was a chimney technician before this. And so our income was going to be higher. but with his back injury this summer, that's when, you know, he was out of the job for almost two months

and then became a window washer. So I don't actually know how much we're going to end up making this year just because our year has been kind of, you know, very much in flux. So I'm guessing it's probably going to be 40 or under. That would be probably my guess. Okay. And how many kids do you have? How old are they?

We have three kids. They are four, two and a half. half and 10 months. And you're not in significant debt? No. We have a mortgage. We have home mortgage. That's only debt we have. Was being a stay-at-home mom always your plan or did you work first? Yeah, I worked first. I am actually an occupational therapist, pediatric occupational therapist. But I always wanted to be a mom like right, right away. I actually have a bachelor's degree in family studies. So I always kind of knew as soon as I was ready to, you know, have kids. I really just wanted to stay home. You have to start from the beginning to with your own childhood. What kind of

lifestyle did you grow up in? And how did your own childhood influence how you wanted to raise your own kids? Yeah. I feel like I actually had a really great childhood. I was born and raised in a town, a really outdoorsy town, Redding, California. And I was the youngest of four, and my parents were happily married, still are. And my dad was really involved in our lives and always took us camping and, you know, biking. And there's a lake there. My parents had a beat-up patio boat and we'd just go and we'd be on the boat all day. But like it always broke down.

And, you know, we had a motorhome and it always broke down. But it was like fun. You know, it was like part of, I mean, it was fun for us. kids. I don't know if it was fun. It was fun for my parents, but it was really fun for us. And it was just, it did feel like an adventure. And, you know, our family did actually go to Disneyland. And I mean, we did some really nice trips. But those actually aren't the memories that I really remember. I mainly remember all the stuff that we did practically for free. You know, all the, all the time outside, all the time, you know, that we spent just even in our backyard practicing volleyball or, you know,

just going on bike rides. Like all of that stuff costs nothing. Sometimes parents think to be a good parent, you have to do all this fancy stuff. And you really just don't need to do all that stuff. It's, it's really just time spent with your kids. That's like, that's all that kids really want, you know. So going into being a parent, I kind of already had that, like, mindset of, okay, well, despite our income or whatever, I already knew that we didn't really need to spend that much on our children or, you know, each other just because that stuff really isn't that important. And, you know, you can be a great parent without having to, you know, purchase all these things and kind of prove your love for your child by what toy they have or what vacation

you go on. Yeah, I mean, I see the foundation there that would help you when it comes to living the life that you are now of like, okay, how can I have fulfilling life-giving moments with my kids and build these family memories without having to spend a lot of money? Yeah. I feel like that's like a crucial building block that you actually had in your formative years, which is phenomenal. It was like, God totally planned that. Yeah. Well, and like I could compare it to when my parents did spend money and it didn't one wasn't better I mean the times where they did spend money it didn't make it better like the times where it was free and it's kind of you know hodgepodge like that was actually the better moments it was more fun it was more fun you know it was more adventurous you know it was more

spontaneous and you know if some if we got lost or something broke down and we got to get creative to figure it out like that was that was where like the real adventure started to happen you know. So when you and your husband first decided to have kids, tell me if I have this right, you were an occupational therapist. And so you must have had a conversation with him about now you wanted to stay home. Yeah. So even when we were dating, we had this conversation. So I wanted to make sure he was going to be okay with that. Like back when you were dating, I don't know what I would have done. I don't know what I would have done. He, you know, was very willing for me to stay at home. And he came from. He came from my wife of mine is going to stay home. And he came from. a home where his mom stayed home. And so it was easy for him to picture. And so it was just a conversation we had in the dating process. And so as we got married, that was already set in stone. So at the time, you quitting your job to stay home, how much of a salary drop were you anticipating? Yeah. So I was definitely the breadwinner. My husband is like an artist. You know, he likes actually doing video editing and all of that stuff. And he's an illustrator. And like, that's his passion. And like, I knew

that going into it that jobs for him are going to be a little bit different. Like our life was going to be a little different. He's not going to be a guy who goes to work at Costco and is there for the whole rest of his life and he's going to have the Costco retirement. That's not like his journey and which is fine. You know, I like gravitated to him because he is an artist. That demonstrates something so interesting about your marriage and the trust that you have within your relationship because that would be extremely hard for me who has been salaried working full-time since I was 18 to get married. And then if my husband, because I'm always imagining, okay, I'm going to stay home because I'm going to marry somebody and they're going to have this like guaranteed steady income that we can

count on with you. You're like, I'm not only staying home with my kids, but I don't even know year to year what his salary or income is going to look like. It could be different month to month. I think that would be absolutely terrifying to most women. I mean, it is, it can be scary. I think part of it you have to just think of it as an adventure, you know. But he said to you clearly, Jillian, I am your husband and I'm the father of her kids and I promise I will provide no matter what. So you just got to trust me. I'm going to make it happen.

And you had to step back and say, okay, I trust you. Yeah. Yeah. And even when it's like been really, really hard, it's still worked and we've still made it. You commit that you are quitting the occupational therapy job. You already know that you're going to, you're going to go. down on quite a bit of income for your household. And then you get the devastating news that your husband loses his job. Your world had to have been rocked. Yeah. Well, okay, so back up just a little

bit. So we had, yeah, we had our first kiddo and we were actually still trying to live a lifestyle of back when I still had a job. And so after we went down to one income and this happens really frequently is family's couples. They keep trying to live off how they used to live on two incomes. On two incomes. We had our hospital bill from when we had our baby and we were still trying to live how we had been living. We like started using credit cards and we just like started racking up debt like crazy because he at that time actually was just working a minimum wage at a grocery store and it was just not cutting it at all. And so we were just actually living on credit cards. Because we were not living within our means and we couldn't figure it out yet.

And so it was like four months after our baby was born where we're like, oh, my goodness, if we don't change what we're doing now, we are going to be in so much debt that we're not going to be able to pull ourselves out of it. We just like cold turkey stopped using our credit cards and like really looked at everything we were doing and, you know, started just cutting stuff out. Like that was phase one of going through her budget. And when you went through your budget that first time in phase one, what did you notice? What did you notice was the biggest expense that your family was wasting money on? At that time, we were eating at restaurants too much. Like just on everything, we're spending too much money on everything. Every category that you have in your, you know, budget and your expense categories, like everything was just too much.

We decided to just not really go on dates anymore. like out and about and we're not going to go to restaurants anymore. We still went to like fast food. Like, you know, I still liked going to Chick-fil-A and, you know, Taco Bell or whatever. And at that time, COVID hit. And Matt actually started doing Instacart. And that actually provided way more than the grocery store did. Well, yeah, you know what?

That makes sense. Yeah. Because everyone would have been ordering their groceries. Nobody wanted to go in person. Nobody wanted to go to the store. So Instacart was awesome. And it would like, gave him a lot of flexibility. And he was able to be home.

a lot and it was actually a really great job. And he was still able to do like his creative projects. We actually did that for a while and things were going well. And then Instacart was getting slower. And so he was able to get a different job that actually provided us a house. Our rent, we were renting at that time. And what area of the country do you live? So yeah, we're in Virginia in like the Shenandoah Valley.

Okay. So we were living in a little place and we had a baby. But our rent was starting to go up. up and actually we had just had another baby. And so we actually decided, you know, we weren't really sure if we could afford renting there anymore. So we decided to go ahead and sell all of our cars and we're just going to go live in a trailer and kind of travel the world. Like an RV you can drive, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we were kind of toying with different ideas. Do we want to do a motorhome? Do we want to do like an excursion that pulled the trailer and, you know, kind of live that

life or whatever. And so he had sold every single one of our cars. And we were driving around a rental car, like a car that we were just borrowing from somebody. And right before we went to go pick up our trailer to do this, and I'd already sold like my rice cooker. And I've already sold my, you know, slow cooker and, you know, all these big appliances because we're not going to fit in a trailer. I went to a yard sale. And because I love yard sales. And the yard sale was actually at a house that was for sale by owner. And the owner, the owner's family was there. And they were like, oh, come on in.

Come check out the house. We're like, I just had a yard sale. And so we went and checked out the house. And they, like, loved our family. And my husband had, like, this vision of us living there and, like, in the future. And, I mean, it was weird. This is, like, not mad at all. You know, this is not, he doesn't have dreams.

like this or whatever, like this prophetic, like vision. But he came up to me. He's like, Jillian, I think we're supposed to live in this house. And, and then the people like that were the family of the owner, because he was an older man that was now in like a nursing home, they like came up to us and they're like, we don't know what it is about you guys, but we think you shall live in this house. Oh my gosh. And we were like totally ready to just leave, you know, and we had not even, you know, been pre-approved or anything. And so they actually. waited for us to get approved and they dropped the asking price significantly they dropped it for us and waited for us to get it even though they had gotten all these offers they felt like a calling on

their heart to give the house to us and you know so it was just this crazy story and we ended up getting the house and at closing everybody's crying the family of the man they're like this is just this is Jesus, you know? And like, we feel the same way, too, just like how confidential it all felt and how it just kind of fell in our laps. Like, we weren't even looking for it. The amount that we needed for a down payment was the exact amount of selling all of those cars. Wait, you're joking. Yeah. The exact amount you needed to buy that house was how much you got to the dollar selling your vehicles? So it was, so the down payment was less. Okay. So we were actually able to get a down payment and buy a super cheap van so that we could have, you know, a vehicle.

This is like a miracle. Yeah, it was a straight up miracle. I mean, it's like such a crazy story. Okay, so then your house pay, you have a house payment? So our house payment is 13, 1350 or something like that. Okay. And you were able to pay off all the other credit card debt you guys were dabbling in. Yeah, so we had, we had thankfully paid all that off beforehand.

Yeah, we just like any extra money that we would get, we would chip, like put towards the debt and, you know, we got a big tax rebate that year. And like from COVID, like they kept giving you money like for COVID. So we just kept throwing that at the debt. And, you know, and so eventually we were able to just knock all that out. And so then you finally are like, oh my gosh, our heads are above water financially. Yeah. We've been blessed with this home. We've paid off our debt. Finally, we can breathe. And then your husband loses that job. Yeah. And then so my husband, yeah, ended up getting a job as a chimney technician. And then he did get like a back injury and had to to quit. And then we were like, oh my goodness, yeah, I don't know what we're going to,

I don't know what we're going to do. We had saved up money because the house that we bought is like straight out of 1960. It's, you know, wood paneling on like every wall you can think of. I mean, it's pretty ugly. And so we were in the right in the middle of remodeling our kitchen. We had totally torn out like the structure of our kitchen. And we had, you know, $8,000 to spend on remodeling ourselves and which we could do. You know, we could easily do that. And but then this happened and we're like, oh my goodness, now what are we going to do? You know? And so we had to just kind of switch and live off of our kitchen remodel savings, which basically became like, oh, my goodness. Now, now what are we going to do? You know, and so, we had to just kind of switch and live off of our kitchen

remodel savings, which basically became like our emergency fund. And this was our emergency. And so we just we looked back at our budget. This was like phase two of like really going through everything.

And we're like, okay, we need to be as tight as we can possibly be ever. The best moment on the red carpet at the Golden Globes was when a shivering interviewer went up to Elizabeth Olson

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Subscribe to Good Ranchers today at Good Ranchers.com with code Clark for $20 off and free chicken for a year. Good Ranchers.com with Code Clark for $20 off and free chicken for a year. Find everything in the show notes. Good Ranchers. American Meat delivered. Was there ever a conversation where your husband said Jillian, I think. you're going to have to go back to work. I was, I was worried. Yeah, that was like probably the biggest fear of mine is like, oh my goodness, I'm going to have to go back to work. And I, and I asked him that,

I was like, Matt, do you think? Like, do you think I need to go back to work? And I was totally planning on him saying, yeah, Julian, I think you probably should. But he didn't. We were both very hopeful that we were going to come out of the circumstances. But I was starting to lose, I was starting to lose hope. He was, you know, recovering and looking for another job. And all of that took like, almost two months. And so in that second like month, it was like, you know, we have like maybe a couple hundred dollars like left in our bank account. And like there's no way we can even pay our next mortgage, you know, and like, I don't know what we're going to do. And he's like, Jillian, it's okay. Like, we're going to get through this. God is going to provide God has God

is this far. He's going to keep pulling us along. And, you know, I, um, um, I. Um, You know, and he did. Were there some little miracles that happened in that season of waiting for him to get that new job that just blew your mind? Sure. I mean, it's hard to even put into words, like how money can be stretched when you don't even see it happening. Because, like, I swear there was a couple bills that we should have paid, like, in between time. And somehow we just always ended up having. just a couple hundred dollars left somehow it just it kept staying there and you know and I don't even

it's not even something that can be explained do you feel like god is doing that because these are families that are committed to to living in his design and the way things were supposed to be yeah I mean I think living this way and you know staying home with your kids it is a complete step in faith you know it's you don't always know for sure if it's gonna you know pay out you know financially or whatever. But like you always know it's going to pay out relationally. And the reward that you get is so big and so worth it that I mean, if we had to, we would probably just go live in a trailer down by the river or something, you know, just knowing that that we could be able to keep having our kids home with us and, you know, with me and stuff like that.

Now, when this was going on, and I mean, when Ish really hit the fan, when it was the absolute worst where he still didn't have a job after losing it, did you have anybody in your life that was saying, Jillian, this is ridiculous. You have got to stop staying home. You need to go back to work. Any naysayers. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, a lot of them, a lot of family members saying that. Just like, Jillian, you know, you are an OT. Like, you could go back to work. What would you say? Well, for me, I'm like, okay, I doubt I can find a job where I work one day. week. And even one day a week, I don't know if I could do that. Like, you know, that's one day every single week that I just won't be there. And you'll miss things. And I'll miss things. And lots of stay-at-home moms do do that. And I mean, that's great. I just, I don't think I could do that. And I talked to Matt about it too. And he's like, what do you think if I just work one day? And he kind of left it up to me. And so he was okay if I chose not to. Because, I mean, because for me and that, like,

of work, it's not just one day. It's like completely changing like your mindset. You're not just thinking about your kids anymore. Now you're thinking about, okay, the therapy you're providing and the goals and all the stuff that comes with work is now like filtering back in your brain. And it and it like divides your brain up into a space that I just, I'm not really read. I'm not ready to go back to. Is the plan for you guys to always be a stay at home mom like through them being adults and leaving your house eventually or are you guys like we you know I'd like to go back to work once their school age or what is your plan well right now our plan probably is to homeschool um so I mean that would involve me staying home like through through high school and everything I mean

I don't know I we haven't really thought that far yet at this point well homeschooled them at least until they're little I mean if we can find a really cool co-op that like is awesome for teenage years I could see us still doing that but if we found If we were making enough money to do Christian education, by the time they're in high school, you know, maybe that might change, you know, my mind. In order to live like this, stay-at-home mom on one income, do you guys have to use government assistance? So that is, that is a thing.

And I, I don't like to talk about it that much because the opinions about it are so big. We do, we are on Medicaid. And that is, we weren't at the beginning because, you. You know, my husband's a libertarian and, you know, it's all the views on that and everything. But it's just kind of a question where it's like, okay, would we rather not be on Medicaid, but then not be able to afford to have our kids at home? Or would we rather be on Medicaid and then get to do this? And for us, it was a really easy choice. But I know I've gotten questions about this a lot.

Like, you know, a lot of families aren't willing to do that, which is fine. and I asked them that question. It's just a would you rather question. Would you rather not be on Medicaid but not be able to have your kids at home? Or would you rather be on Medicaid but to have your kids at home? And it's going to be different for each person. What about financial assistance from family or church or anything? We have asked my parents for like a loan that we've been able to pay back like for $1,000.

Some random church person I think gave us a $250 gift card to. food lion. But I mean, that's, that's it. What does community look like for your family? Do you have like a bunch of church families that help you a lot? Do you have family that lives nearby that can help with kids? Yeah, I think community is huge for this lifestyle. And I, everybody who is living this lifestyle already, I think they all know that. And like, it's not just about camaraderie, because that is a big thing. Like, the more that you're around other people that are living like you are, you realize, wow, this isn't really that weird of a life. Well, that's what I was going to ask you.

I was going to say, are you guys the only people that you know in your life that live like this? Not at all. Or do you have other people that are single income, multiple kids? I mean, that's, I think what it blew me away with how Instagram's reaction to our lifestyle. Because it's, for me, doesn't even feel that weird. I know more families where we are now that are stay at home. Well, 30 years ago, it wouldn't have been weird. It's weird now.

I think for a family who's thinking about doing this, the more families, families that you can find that are staying home and doing this lifestyle, the better. Like, I think there's a research that's, you know, the people that five people that you're around the most is going to influence you the most. And I, oh, man, I feel like that's so true, the more that we're around other families whose kids are going to gymnastics or to, you know, they're going to go over to the jump park after, you know, church or whatever. Like, you do start to feel like, oh, like, we don't, we're not. kind of do those things. But the more we're around families who are like, hey, we're going to go,

you know, skip rocks at the creek. I mean, it sounds like hilarious, but it's true. Like, families do this. And, you know, we do picnics together. And like, there's so much fun you can have. On average, if you had to just give a ballpark average for all of your friends who are single income, multiple kids, what's the salary range for most of your friends who are also doing this? Well, people really don't like to talk about their salary. Okay, so you don't even know. I have actually tried to interview moms about this and like, hey, do mind talking about your salary? Because I think moms really want to know.

They do. That's what I love about you is that you're like, my husband makes less than $50,000 a year. We have multiple kids, one income and I stay home. It's like, we need more moms talking about this because that's the problem. It's like, I feel like you're one of the lone voices on social media that's willing to share this. And that's why people are adamant that this doesn't exist and that it's impossible. Based off what they know of my salary or our salary, they've said, they've told me like we don't even make that much. So I don't know what they're making. I know that it's less than you. I know that it's less than us. Wow. Yeah. So. That is mind blowing. And I mean, it's not like so people are like, why are you living in poverty? And it's, it's, I don't know. I feel like we're just living our normal life. Do you think it's possible that poverty is subjective? Yes. In some ways. It's like undeniable, obviously. But in some ways, what you would consider poverty. might be different than what somebody else would consider poverty.

Because somebody's saying, so you don't go get your hair done every month, you don't, you know, get lashes done and a manicure and paddicure and everything and, you know, you have a grocery budget and all this, they might say, well, that's poverty. Well, and I think like how people treat money creates poverty, you know, I think if you gave the same amount of money to two different families that have the exact same circumstances and they lived in the same area, like you take out all those factors. One family is going to just feel like they're drowning because they've, they keep, they're trying to keep spending their money, trying to keep up to like these standards that

we have that America has and they just, they can't do it. And then they probably do feel like they're just living in poverty and they just can't make it happen. Or you have that another family that makes the same circumstances, same amount of money, and they're doing fine. They're thriving because they've completely changed their mindset on it. They've completely changed their lifestyle around it. And, you know, they're not trying to keep up with this standard of living.

They've totally turned their back on it and are living a different way. This needs to be a Netflix show, what you just described. Like, you know what I mean? A reality show. You give a family this lump sum of money and then you follow them for a year and see how they turn out, right? Okay. So now if someone doesn't have, because you did say that you have community and you have family nearby that helps with your kids? Well, yeah, we have some family.

I actually the best babysitting I get is just old ladies I meet at church. I was going to ask, what the heck happened to your kids for you to come out here? My husband is actually, he's actually taking off work to do this. Oh my gosh. What an absolute angel. So if somebody doesn't have family though nearby or just family that's not willing to help, would living your lifestyle be a bad idea? No, not at all.

You just need to go find community. I think that's a great exercise because you need to find community anyways. you know and I mean you can find it in lots of places church is huge that's like our biggest asset for our family is the church community that we have and you know we don't have grandparents in the area to watch our kids for date nights or when I have to go to do a medical appointment for our kid or whatever like that's just me like texting you know the 70 year old lady that I met you know a couple weeks ago and well I would be I just wouldn't trust someone an older watching a baby.

Well, so I time it right. So I, yeah, I learn, you know, I know our kids nap times and I try and schedule like all doctors appointment. I mean, not that we like never go to the doctor, but if there is anything like that, then I try and always schedule it around a nap time. So they come and they love kids. But yeah, they're like, you know, you're not really sure. Like, are they able to, you know, this three kids is kind of a lot going on.

And so I just, they come and they sit in our kids. our couch and the kids are like in quiet time or napping and I come home before they've been out of their room. So it's a pretty easy gig. Let's get into specifics about your budget because so many people just say this is absolutely impossible or you've been accused of being a liar on social media. Some people might say like, well, if my husband has to work 80 hours a week so that we're able to live off one income, then I'm going to have no help around the house because once he is home, I can't expect him to ever help with the kids or housework. Does your husband help with any of that stuff or do you guys have it like nope you are only working i'm taking care of all of that oh no he loves our

kids he's very playful very fun you know and so when he comes home he wants he just genuinely just wants to be with our children and and he also loves cooking so i mean i'm pretty spoiled that way um and so when when he does get off like early he is he actually chooses to cook and he's a way better cook than i am because i'm not someone who loves to do that i will do that because i have to but it's not something that I love to do. Are you a couponer? So I don't like collect, cut them out or anything like that. I feel like, so our favorite store is Aldi.

They don't do coupons because it's already. My mom loves Aldi. I grew up going to Aldi and you get the cardboard boxes that you use, you know, and all that. Yeah, yeah. And so Aldi doesn't do coupons because it's already the cheapest store in town. So speaking of grocery shopping, because this is everybody wants to know this. This is a big one. This is the big one.

How much per month are you spending on groceries? So we spend about $400 a month on groceries. So about $100 or less than $100 a week in food. So this was our biggest way to save money was on groceries. Like before when we were like living our life, it was like over $700 a month. And so when you add that up, that's like, I wrote it down on my notes somewhere, but it's like over $7,000 that we've seen. saved, like between fast food and groceries.

I mean, that's huge. Families, like, just kind of narrowed it down a little bit and, you know, edited what they were buying. Like, I think they could save so much money that they don't even realize that is already there. You know, it's not making, it's not having a side gig where you make an extra $7,000 a month. It's actually just editing down what you're buying to find that money. Now, is your priority when food shopping, whatever is cheapest?

or are you still like do you care and it's okay if you don't but do you care about things like is it organic grass fed or whatever are you just like i don't care what it is whatever the cheapest stuff is i go through phases of that so i yes our family would love to do all organic we're also trying not to do like seed oils stuff like that we're trying to drink whole milk but sometimes we just it's not as much of a priority to us you know i right now probably are we're more concerned about is it on sale um like how we grocery shop, we first look in our fridge, we look in our pantry, we look in our freezer. What meals can we make off what we already have? We bought a quarter of a cow like a year ago and we're still going through that. And so we already have like bulk steak. I've been telling everybody this. I've been telling everybody that that's the way to do it. You keep it in your freezer and that you actually spend so much less on meat when you do it that way than weekly go into the grocery store to buy meat at the store. Well, then, you know, it's usually local. When was the last time you met someone new, you had no makeup on, and they said, wow, you have beautiful skin. This just happened to me this

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skin look so good. For legal reasons, I have to clarify that there is no crack cocaine in Nimi's moisturizer. or Nimi's hyaluronic acid serum has been a game changer too, which I like to combine with their vitamin C serum. That's one of my top tips as well as doing your skincare routine first thing whenever you get home so that it's just done. There's no excuses. You can go straight to bed later and all you need to worry about is brushing your teeth.

I think sometimes we just say, oh, I don't feel like doing my whole skincare routine because by the time it's time to do it, we're so tired and we just want to go to bed. Well, what if you did it first? Try conservative and Christian-owned Nimi-Miskincare at Nimi-Skincare.com with co-com. I mean Alex Clark for 10% off. That's Nemeyskinkare.com with code Alex Clark for 10% off or find everything below in the show notes. So what is an average, I mean, tell me about like an average dinner or lunch for your kids at your house. Like what do your meals look like?

Yeah. So dinner, like dinner, you know, so I would go and look in our freezer like, okay, so, you know, we could do steak that's in our freezer. There's some pierogies in our freezer. And we just got some broccoli at the store. So that would be like a meal. or you know there's spaghetti in our pantry, you know, with pasta sauce and a salad and garlic bread. You know, it's like basic, I mean, they really don't actually cost that much. So many Americans just waste so much food and like in their pantry, you know, just thinking of certain family members specifically where they go to the store without even checking what they already have.

They go and buy it. They bring it home. They already have it in their fridge. and they don't even bring out the old one out. They just push. I'm guilty of this. And then the old stuff just keeps getting further and further back. And then you go and open the fridge like a month later and it's gross and run.

And, you know, I mean, I don't even like you can't see anything in the fridge. Is it messy? Is it imperative for you guys in order to survive to live to eat a lot of processed food, boxed, bagged, frozen, those types of meals? or no. I mean, no. I mean, we eat a lot of meat. So, you know, we eat a lot of chicken.

We eat a lot of chicken. But the only way for your kids to eat is not to make hamburger helper or box macaroni and cheese. No, I mean, we eat a lot of like burgers out of like ground beef that we have in our freezer. This is another thing people tell me it does, like it's absolutely impossible. And you're telling me you guys make, you're making like $40,000 a year. Yeah. You eat this way. They say, tell me it's impossible.

I don't remember last time with our kids. I'd craft macaroni and cheese. They think it's cheaper to eat to buy hot pockets. Yeah. I've never in my life had a hot pocket. Okay. Well, that was something I was interested in. Now, are you gardening?

Do you some of your food coming from a garden? So, yeah, some of our food does come from a garden. And we do have a lot of friends who garden. So, I mean, we, you know, and we have friends who do have chickens. And so we do get a lot of eggs from them. And sometimes they're just given to us because they have surplus or, you know, they're like $2 a dozen. I mean, it's, we've thought about having chickens. for a dozen eggs.

Like fresh from their farm. Yeah. And I mean, it's like we've actually thought about doing chickens ourselves. I have so many friends doing chickens right now. Yeah, I have too many friends to do chickens right now to make it worth it for us also to have chickens. That actually is a good point. Get your friend to do it so then you don't have to and you get the benefits. As your kids get older and need more food because they're growing, are you worried about how you're going to afford it? No.

Not at all. What about clothes for your family? Yeah, well, we get all over clothes used. Okay. And I mean, all of our kids' clothes used. A lot of my clothes, too, but it's hard to find, if I could find really good clothes for me used, I'd do it. So if you've got to buy new clothes, how often do you do it and where do you go? I don't get new clothes very often.

And honestly, so maybe this is like a mom thing. I get most of my clothes now at Costco. They will love that. They will love that. They love Costco shopping. They love T.J. Max. And they like the Walmart clothes now, which I think they've been elevated. was just actually at Walmart the other day and they actually have really cute clothes now.

Yeah, they do. Yeah, they stepped up their game. Yeah. I appreciate that. Okay. These are the types of tips they like. But yeah, I get all of our clothes from, the kids clothes from Facebook marketplace or hand me downs. That's actually where we get most of our kids clothes as hand me downs, which we don't spend any money on. And I have like clothes for our kids up until they're like six, seven years old that are just in our basement ready for when they, good old enough to wear them. And, you know, and then if there's certain pieces that we're missing, you know, like harder to like rain boots or something like that. Then I might go on Facebook marketplace to find those or something like that. Yeah. How does communication look between you and your husband when you do need to spend money on something? Yeah.

Like every $20 you spend, you text him and ask him first or how does it work? No. So my husband is this is a spender. So I am this. I'm more the saver. So sometimes he will spend more than I was anticipating him to spend. And then I'll just, like, I check on my bank account or like pop off or whatever. And I'll just text him.

I'll be like, hey, I just saw you. Just saw you went there. Just letting you know, you spent this much money. And, you know, it's super passive aggressive like that. We're at our relationship now. So we'll just kind of laugh and be like, oh, yeah, sorry. I mean, that's just our relationship. I know that that might be harder for other couples.

I mean, I would say, you know, to communicate better, you know, like sometimes we've really had to have a sit down, you know, especially in our first doing this. Like, because Matt was spending so much money at his job, like at lunchtime. And you pack his lunches every day now? I do now. Yeah. But before it was, he was going to McDonald's, like, every day for like a breakfast sandwich. And it was like $20. And I was like, Matt, we can get those same breakfast sandwiches and have them in our freezer and you can make them before you leave.

Just that simple thing right there, like saved us a lot of money. And, you know, having, he still drinks a lot of soda. And so by having soda like that at our house that he can then take in his lunchbox instead of having to go and buy it, you know, that's another thing that has saved us a lot of money too. Back when he was doing that, we would have, you know, we did have to have like a sit down like, okay, so we need to get really. really serious about this. And so, you know, we had to wait until, you know, the kids are in bed or whatever and we have to have a sit down where it's just the two of us. And, you know, I don't want to be, like, judgy or naggy about it. I just want to be like, hey, this is the circumstance. Like, this is what we agreed to, right? So, you know, these choices are yours, but they do affect

the rest of us. The rest of us. You know, whatever your spending is less. You know, whatever you're spending is less we can spend on something else. How much do you spend on personal beauty stuff? Because that's, I think women are very curious about that. So I don't actually spend like any money on that. I do do Melaluka. Okay. And so I have enough customers that have my box for free. So I get all my beauty stuff there for free. And so that's all my hair products, all my makeup, you know, all of our shampoo stuff. That's all from there. Any pets in your family or did you have to kill it and need it? I'm just kidding. I'm just kid. I'm just kidding. I'm just joking. But also animal expenses monthly are something a lot of families deal with. Yeah, we do have a dog. And so her food is out of our grocery budget. Okay. And so anything we get at

the grocery store is just part of our grocery budget, even diapers and wipes and stuff like that. So her and vet bills, we don't have a vet budget for her. I actually asked Matt the other day. I was like, what would happen if she needed like something? That's what I was wondering. I was wondering if you guys are able to have an emergency fund for savings, like if something were to happen. Yeah, so we're building that. So we're doing the Dave Ramsey's steps. I don't know if you're familiar with that. First step is have $1,000. Second step is, you know, get rid of all your debt. Third step is have a four to six month emergency fund. So that is four to six months of your spend of like your income now in savings. And so that's the step that we're on right now is trying to build that back up.

and also finish our kitchen. Oh, yeah. That's right. You mentioned how sometimes you can get into that comparison trap when you notice other families at church and stuff being like, oh, we're going to SkyZone after church. How do you deal with spending money on activities for your kids like SkyZone or children's museums or places like that? Or do you just not do that as a family? Well, so I'm really good at finding everything in town that is free. like everything. And so I know that where we live, you know, the kids museum is free the first

Friday of every month. So the kids feel like they have a membership to the kids museum just because we do go that. We make sure we do go every month. And that's enough for them, you know, really at this age. And then, you know, we go to the library story time. I mean, we do enough free, fun things that the kids really don't feel like they're missing out on anything at all. Are you ever able to do anything like date nights with your husband or family vacations? We don't really have money to pay for a babysitter. So whenever like my parents are in town, we'll usually go and do like a date night, you know, out to dinner or something like that. Our kids have a pretty good bedtime. So I mean, we spend a lot of time together just the two of us, you know, so I don't, I mean, it is fun to

go out or whatever, but it's also, I mean, we're perfectly fine also to just hang out at home and, you know, I'm like that, you know, watch Netflix or I mean, you know, whatever. So. Oh, so you do have Netflix? Well, okay. So maybe this is like, now wait a minute. So maybe this is like not a good Christian thing to say. Well, I don't care about that. I have every, I have all of the stuff.

So we don't pay for Netflix. Oh, your password sharing. Yeah. Okay, okay. Sneaky, sneaky. We won't tell them. They are cracking down on that. To some mom's hearing that you have to live without in some ways sounds miserable,

not worth it. And I think they'll want to know, well, what would motivate somebody to want to live this way and have to penny pinch so much? I mean, you have to think about the reward that you are getting. You know, I get to be home with my kids. I get to, you know, when they wake up in the morning, they come into my bed and they're, you know, they're like, oh, good morning, mommy. And they just climb into our bed. And, you know, I get to have that. I don't have to rush to drop them off at daycare or wherever and then go to work and be gone all day.

and then not get to see them until five o'clock. Like, I can't even imagine that that's the entire day. To me, that's so totally worth it. To me, I would penny pinch anything to be able to get to do that. You know, and I get to be there for, you know, all the memories. And I get to be in every single one of their memories, you know. And, you know, we get to, you know, I am kind of the CEO of our house, you know. So I, you know, like when Matt's gone, it's me and the kids and, you know, what do we feel like doing today?

Do we want to go to a playground? Do we want to, you know, I get, we get to do as much fun stuff as we want to do or we can just stay in as much as we want to. Would you say that it's more important for your family to submit to Christ than the world's expectation of what a good life looks like? So the biggest thing for, you know, any Christian parent is what is being instilled into your children. and, you know, for me, that is, you know, knowing and loving Jesus. And so I get to impart that onto them all day, every day. You know, the goal would be that, you know, your kid ends up in heaven, right? And I think for me that's, like, probably the most important thing. And that I wouldn't, you know, it would be hard to give up that to someone else, you know,

when it literally is. like their soul. That is their soul. Yeah. I feel like Christian families right now, they have to be so strong in order to stand up to what's happening and to try and raise your children with biblical values and to kind of teach your children that they also are going to have to stand up. We basically have to train them to be kind of warriors for Christ, you know, and that's not going to happen, you know, in a daycare. that's not going to happen in most schools. You know, that happens.

That starts at the home. I think that there is so much joy in living simply. You know, there's a comment that I got on one of my reels that was like, what do you do all day? Just sit around. And while all these other kids do fun things, I bet your kids just share a pine cone or something. And I was like, well, we do happen to love pine cones. Yes. Does that stuff hurt your feelings?

I think it's hilarious because it's like they're so far. far gone from any kind of similar thought pattern to what we have that, you know, I feel sorry for them that that's what they think. And, you know, our kids are very full of joy. I am very full of joy. My husband's very full of joy. I think everyone who knows us knows that. And, you know, I, that's like one of my goals in life, I guess, is to make sure that our kids really do have a very joy-filled childhood. What is your plan for college tuition? Or are you hoping your kids will not want to go to college? Because that's what I'm hoping. Yeah, that's a good question. My ideas on that are still in development. Yeah, my husband did not go to college. I didn't go to college. Charlie Kirk didn't

go to college. I'm okay if they don't go to college. We are not at the time saving any money for them to go to college. Here's my thing. I'm just going to tell you my thing. I think, number one, the pandemic started a little bit of a shift with Gen Z and then I think it'll trickle down. But I think a lot of kids right now, because they are so racked with debt, it is so hard with inflation and everything to live the way we've been used to living, which you're showing that it doesn't have to be that hard and, you know, that horrible. But the thing that's ironic is like, you're so happy and fulfilled living this way. And yet these kids are graduating from college. They're working nine to five or longer with commute times. They're absolutely miserable.

They're like, I just worked so hard and paid all this money for this. And now I owe money. And it's just like this never-ending cycle of misery. And I think they're starting to realize that that way of living sucks. And I think a lot of them are starting to realize that they were scammed with their college degree, the college scam, Charlie Kirk. They're starting to realize that they were scammed getting this college degree and owing all this money. And they're like, this wasn't even worth it. And I think a lot of them are going to be telling their kids, like, you don't have to do this. And also, jobs like what your husband does, these types of special skills, trade jobs, blue-collar jobs, it's like those are the ones for our generation, I'm pretty sure you're a millennial,

right? I think so. Yeah. So for millennials, it's like all of us were told, no, you have to get the college degree, you have to get the college degree, don't go into trades, don't do any of this blue-collar work. And then it's like all these older people, Gen X who does this, they're, you know, eventually going to, they're in retirement age now. And so it's like, who's going to do these jobs? We're going to see, I mean, those people that do those, that type of work, they're making way more because there's hardly anybody available to do it. I just think that we're going to see a huge collapse in people trying to go to college.

Yeah. I mean, I definitely agree. And I think there's a lot of parents of these kids that are also realizing, like, you know, they heard this lie and they got to experience it with all the. student dad and they realize they don't want that for their children. And, you know, I think we would own, I would really only think about maybe doing college if our children were like, you know, six years old. They've always wanted to be a such and such. And then it's still the same when they're 12 and it's still the same when they're 18. And it's this burning dream that they've had like their

whole life to be a teacher or a doctor or, you know, one of those basic things that you do. You know, then maybe it's like, okay, well, this does really seem like it's a big dream. there's maybe, you know, we can see what we can do. But I mean, I wasn't like that at all. I had no idea what I wanted to be. Except a mom. Yeah, except a mom. And I feel like there's a lot of kids, a lot of these poor college kids, they still don't, they just don't know what they want to be and they're forced into this system where, you know, they just feel like they got to choose something. Well, that's my whole thing, too. Why are we pushing kids as soon as they graduate high school? You've got it now, go into college and then you figure out what you do. Absolutely not. My way of

thinking is if my kid is unsure, do I want to go to college, do I not want to go to college, I'm going to encourage them. It's okay to take a three-year break. Two-year, three-year break, intern or, you know, job shadow or figure out if you really do want to spend that money. And then I don't think there's anything wrong with being like, and if you want to go to college, you got to pay for it. But, you know, in letting them make that choice. When it comes to talking about the reward of being a stay-at-home mom. How do you plan on talking to your daughter about that? Or do you have two daughters? We have one. One. Yeah, we have boy girl, boy. And yeah, I had something I actually haven't really thought about that too much. I mean, I hope that she'll see the joy that I had with their childhood.

And I don't know, maybe encourage her to not choose to be a lawyer or not choose to be certain fields because there is a chance that she is going to want to change her mind. I would really hope that she would choose. Oh, man, I don't know. It must be hard to be a grandparent because you really, you like give up all that control. Like you don't get to have a say in, you know, how your kids raise their kids. I know firsthand how hard it can be to convince loved ones of a certain way of living to start changing lifestyle habits, being more non-toxic.

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code Alex 15 or find everything in the description. Are you worried about social stigma with your kids as they get older? Like my family can't do as much as other families. Yeah, I am. I mean, especially if, you know, and you know, who's to say, you know, if we're going to stay in the area we are and have the same friends we're going to have when they're teenagers, you know, it'd be great if we did because they are, you know, living a very similar life to us. But, you know, say we weren't, you know, we were living somewhere else. And, you know, that would be huge and that would be hard. And it would be something that we would have to like maybe rethink things.

Then I don't know. Your husband was always on board with this. You staying home. But there are so many wives whose husbands aren't or they're just like, we could not afford to do that. What is your advice for wives on talking to their husband who thinks that they can't do it? Yeah. Well, I think so first, make sure you know your why. Like, make sure you know exactly why you want to be a stay-at-home mom and make, like, be confident in that.

So when you go to approach your husband, like, you already have convinced yourself that you're not kind of like, oh, what do you think, you know? And then I think a great question to ask your husband is, so if I do go to work, who's going to be with our kids? You know, what's our plan? And then he'll say, well, daycare or a nanny. And then, I mean, you can be like, okay, well, do you think they're going to do a better job than I am, you know? Fire. Fire right there. I mean, but, but like that's the truth.

Like, mom's always going to do a better job. You can go to the best daycare in the world, you know, but it's not mom. Do you find that child care, if people were to eliminate child care and outsourcing child care, that they would be able to stay home and that is literally the expense, ironically, that is keeping them from staying home? Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah. I mean, I think families really looked at it and looked at the how much child care costs, no matter how you're doing it, no matter if you have a nanny or if you're, there's going to daycare. I mean, it's so expensive. It's crazy how much it is. I mean, if you look at it and you're like, oh, but we're still, you know, even if we take out daycare, we're still $10,000 short. You can find that. You can find that in your budget. Like, you can find that in your expenses and just cut it out. Like, like, it's. Like, it's. it's really not that hard to find the money. And then you could, I mean, if it's something that you really want to do, you can do it. Yeah. You really can.

If you feel like your mortgage is too high, like if you have a mortgage set for two incomes, I mean, I would say you should move. That's just, that's just me. And, you know, not get married under the assumption that you will always have two incomes because so many times you do that and then the wife decides she wants to quit her job and stay home with her kids. And then they're screwed. And that's why they feel like they're trapped.

And we can't afford that because they bought a house under the assumption that they would be living on two incomes. Yeah. I mean, I would say my biggest piece of advice would be as soon as you get married, just start living on one income right away. And so that you're already used to it, you're already getting the kinks figured out. And, you know, there's no surprises when, you know, you do have a baby, you know, that you're already on one income. And then you already have, then you have all the savings from, you know, while the wife is. is still working, even though you're only living off that one income, you're building up so much savings to put towards whatever debt you have. I think there's some moms who are really apprehensive to embrace this. Maybe part of them does think like, man, I would love to be a stay-at-home mom,

but part of them thinks, if I were to be a stay-at-home mom, I don't know that I would be a good enough one. I don't know that I have what it takes to get on the floor and play with my kids or come up with different activities to do every day or or be, you know, imaginary with them. And they just think they're not good enough. You're not going to be perfect at this day one. You know, this is this is something that you learn as you go. And there's thankfully so many resources out there to help to help you figure it out. You know, like a baby's not going to expect you to be this perfect mom.

They just want you to be there, you know. That's really all you need to do is you just need to be there. You know, be there. take care of the baby, you know, be present for, you know, its needs, be responsive. That's something anybody can do. And, you know, and as they get older, you know, and, you know, some moms aren't moms that do like to get on the floor and play with their kids. Does that make them a bad mom?

It doesn't really, you know. Every mom is different. Every mom is different. And, you know, like how you interact with your children is going to be different. And some moms like bring their kids into the kitchen and they're baking all the cookies and, you know, they're making it happen. And, you know, some moms, you know, they do all that baking while the kids are napping and there's, that's not there. But yet maybe they, you know, they do something else. Yeah, I heard advice somewhere.

I don't remember. It might have been in a parenting book I read or on a podcast they listened to or something. But I just remember some mom was talking about how like you can't look at another mom and say like, well, she's so good at doing things outside. and you just hate, you know, outdoor activities or whatever. It's like you don't have to, they said, be this mom that's so good or loves doing an activity that you don't personally like doing. And it's okay to find other people in their life. If you have, you know, an uncle nearby or a neighbor mom who loves taking her kids out, you know, and I don't know, running through the sprinkler with them and that's just not your jam. Then be like, oh, look, you know, Miss Teresa or whatever, you know, I'm making up a name, is going outside.

Like, let's run outside with her or whatever. and just like kind of figuring out strengths in your community and having that community to find other adults loving adults who you trust in their life that can kind of fill in those voids of areas where you feel like man that's not my strength as a mom but somebody else you know can kind of pick up on that yeah now if you're listening and you think like okay I hear you Jillian but I've I've gotten rid of so many expenses you know we've looked at our budget and all this and there's no way we could do it if we didn't have some sort of supplemental income I know that you cover this in your ebook, which I'll ask you about. But could you give a couple ideas of like, look, if you really, really feel like you can't do this without you helping your husband a little bit, what are some ideas on supplemental income for a stay-at-home mom? Yeah, I mean, there are so many different ways to make money.

I mean, we've done a lot of them. I mean, okay, so one thing that we did, right, actually, when, right after we had our baby, and I even went with my husband to do it, we actually collected the bird scooters. We charged them. And that was something that we did. And, you know, and I even did it with a newborn baby, you know.

And there's Instacart, you know, we were able to survive off basically just Instacart for a very long time. And, you know, Grub, we've done Grub Hub. You know, there's so many side gigs that you can do. And, you know, I do a lot of buying and selling. I mean, I go through our house very often because I do not like. like clutter in our house. So whatever I can find to get rid of, I sell. And, you know, especially when my husband was out of a job, like, we needed $1,000, like, as fast as possible. And I found it like as fast as possible. And just by like selling stuff we really didn't need. You know,

we had like a worm farm that like we were not even paying attention to anymore. And okay, well, there's $150. And, you know, there was like the wood paneling. that was in our kitchen, like from the 1960s, took all that down, sold that for like $200. Wow. And, you know, just like random stuff that you would honestly have thought you could just trash. People will buy it, you know? And so if you need, that is the easiest way to make money is just look around your house, sell some stuff. And so you've put together like a digital handbook on everything that we've discussed today, but also a lot more.

and it's to help families thrive and survive on one income. What is it called and how can people get it? Yeah, it's called one income and thriving. It's like an introductory ebook for families that are considering living this way or have just started to live this way or even families who have been on a single income for a while but need like a refresher on how to be frugal. I actually, it just started as a frugal living guide. That's where I had started it.

But I kept getting all these questions from moms being like, oh, what do I do? I want to start living like this. And I have no idea where to even start. So I kind of started at the beginning. Like, how do you even find your why? Like, why do you even want to do this? How do you talk to your husband? How do you start shifting your mindset? How do you find your community? You know, how do you start changing your habits, you know? And like, I, I kind of think about the lifestyle change like people like losing weight. And like the people who, you know, everybody wants lose weight. Everybody wants to save money. So it's just like the same kind of comparison. So the people who lose weight and thrive are the people that really take ownership of it and it becomes their lifestyle.

And they become like those gym people, you know, like the fit people that, you know, it just starts becoming easy for them. They just, they don't even think about it anymore. Like it's just their life now. Or, you know, and then you compare it to the person who is trying all these diets, nothing's working. It always feels hard. You know, they never take ownership. of it and and they just give up. It's the same exact concept when you when you compare that to saving money. It's you have to like find a way to take it and like take it and live and like thrive on that and have it be an adventure and to think of it as how do you find adventure and joy in in saving and living frugally and because there is a type of

person that succeeds at that and there is a type of person that doesn't succeed at that. And so you just have to kind of figure out which type are you, you know, because you might, you might not like this lifestyle at all. Would you say that it's important enough that even if you don't like it that people should reconsider? Well, yeah. I mean, well, that goes back to the losing weight thing. It's just like, okay, so even though you don't really want to lose weight, probably still should.

The health is so important and so is sticking with your, I mean. I feel personally like it is so important to, you know, the benefits for you, for your kids, for your whole family, for the future. I mean, just the ripple effects. Just to be clear, Jillian, you're not a liar. You really are staying home on one income. Yes. Yes, of course.

Okay. And where can they get this ebook? It's phenomenal, by way, and beautifully done. I look through it today and read through it and it's great. It's very simple. It's easy. There's like checklists and things like asking if your husband's not. convinced she's got a whole thing,

list of questions that you can ask him or things you can say and, you know, check off different things. It's very helpful. Thank you. So we do have a website, sprouting arrows.com. And we're on Instagram, Facebook. At sprouting arrows.

Sprouting arrows. We even have a YouTube page somewhere around there, TikTok. Awesome. Well, I know that you were like, oh my gosh, I'm being asked to go on a podcast because I had one viral reel or whatever, a couple viral reels.

So I know you're like, this is the most bizarre ask I've ever been asked, but I cannot thank you enough. And you're, you flew in here so quick. And then you're immediately flying back out so you can get home to your kids. And I thank you so much for being willing to do that. And I know that my audience, so many of them right now are like, okay, I am feeling either so encouraged because I've been struggling with, did I make the right decision? Or they're like, okay, I have hope that maybe I can really do this because they heard your story. Yeah. Well, I want to thank you for having me on.

And I mean, it did come out of nowhere, but I really appreciate it and getting the chance to talk. And I hope that there is some mom out there or husband or family that, you know, sees our story. And it's like, wow, if they can do it, we probably could too. I know. I know for sure that has happened. So thank you, Jillian, for coming on the spillover. Yeah, you're welcome. All the links for Jillian and her ebook are in the show notes.

I've been asked a lot to find someone to talk about the financial side of being a stay-at-home mom. and I thought Jillian would be perfect because she is as real and normal a person as it gets and the fact that they are not high income I thought would be particularly interesting and also hopefully helpful. If you already stay home, I hope this encouraged you, solidified your decision and if you've been wanting to but didn't feel like it was possible, hopefully this gave you some hope. Any additional thoughts, observations about this episode and interview, please share them in the Kutervative Facebook group.

you know, you can kind of banter there with other moms. Like, is this woman crazy or does she have it right? Has she figured out the secret? If you liked this episode, go back, listen to my episode from last October with psychoanalyst Erica Komazar on why it's imperative to be home if you can the first three years of your child's life biologically and scientifically. Now, I have a lot going on to my family right now health-wise. And so it's kind of up in the air if there will be an episode next week or not. Typically, we have new episodes of the spillover every Thursday at 9 p.m. Pacific, midnight Eastern, anywhere you get your podcast and Real Alex Clark YouTube. I hope that there's one next week, but if there isn't, please scroll, listen to one that you haven't yet. I started the

spillover in 2021, and I have never missed a new weekly interview with fascinating people and experts with the goal of entertaining and educating women on how to live completely counterculturally. Each episode is available to watch on The Real Alex Clark, You channel. If you have not subscribed, please do. It would be incredible if you shared this episode with your friends and family or followers on Instagram. Please leave a five-star review if this podcast has ever taught you anything new. I'm Alex Clark, and this is The Spillover. Love you, mean it. Bye.