I also really enjoy baking when I have the time so that alone makes it with it. This also saves our family money in the long run because I can focus on healthier ingredients to make out food with rather than eating all the pieces premade food the grocery store sells.

3) Speaking of healthier ingredients, I have the time to have a garden

We would love a huge garden one day but right now we have a few raised beds where I'm growing lots of tomato plants and a few pepper plants. We eat a lot of sauce in the winter so we're hopeing to eventually get enough red ones at the same time to can some this year, we will have to see what happens.

4) Cloth diapering

The average parents spend around $3000 on diapers in just their baby's first year of life. If you consider that the average child potty trains around probably 2.5 years even taking into account that they probably use less diapers a day as they get older, you're still looking at close to $6000 on average to diaper 1 child for their live time. That's approximately $200 a month per child. My cloth diaper stash total with all the accessories added in is less than $500 and not only with it work for one child's diapering lifetime but I will be able to raise them for severance of my children in the future if necessary. Even if you add in the increase it may cause to your water bill and needing to buy laundry detergent a little more frequently you are still coming out ahead before you're first baby even or grows the newborn stage. If I worked 40 hours a week, I don't realistically see how I could also do diaper laundry every 2-3 days. Leave your email hear If you want to hear more about this in a future post.

5) Hair cutting

Not only does this save us money when I cut my husband hair (I don't always do it anymore, but I used to be the only one who cut it) I make money with this skill but doing hair for some of my friends and family. A scissor cut I charge $20 and clipper cuts are $10 so significantly lower than most salons or barbers. This was particularly helpful when I was in college and living on campus, I cut a lot of my classmate's hair, and they were happy to pay a friend and for less than the salon would charge also with the convenience of being walking distance. It's not as easy now with living far away from most of the people I know but I still have a few regulars who come about once a month to every couple month.

6) Sewing

I have made several pieces of clothes for myself, made clothes for my daughter and have mended a lot of my husband's pants, I also use this skill to make gifts for people and so far, I've been able to do it mostly with fabric scraps my grandma gave me, so it has essentially been free for me so do these things aside from my time investment. I also love sewing, so I get to do a hobby all while saving my family money.

7) DIY projects

I am able to make things like a shelf next to my bed or the baby gate at the top of our stairs for minimal money because I'm home. These things could have been pretty expensive to purchase new (especially since the gate would have needed to be custom to fit our weird staircase) but I was able to make each for just a couple bucks. There are other things around my home that I've DIYed to help beautify our home also.

8) I don't drive every day

Since I don't have a commute, I drive our vehicle way less and this we don't pay as much for gas. I run errands on Fridays and occasionally will meet up with friends or family during the week but that's all the driving I do that I wouldn't be doing anyway as opposed to a 1 hour commute each day. With the current gas prices, I'm sure this saves us lot of money each week let alone over the course of the months or a year.

9) Meal planning

I plan our meals so we can purchase things like meat and other ingredients in larger quantities to get a lower price on them. This also helps us save money because I grab less random things on my way through the store because I have a list which gives me direction for my shopping rather than just looking for sales or gabbing what looks good in the store.

10) Buying things in bulk

Going along with the meal planning and cooking from scratch I buy all my dry goods in bulk from our local Amish and Mennonite run store which saves money because bulk price is almost always less than the price of smaller portions sizes. I also enjoy spending our money at a store that I can support the values of too.

I hope these ideas inspire you give you some new ones to try in your home. I also hope this inspires some of you who don't think you could stay home that it might be much more possible than you think.