Of the many things I’ve struggled with, building financial stability as a single mom was one of the hardest. Specifically, building financial stability as a single mom while trying to balance my dreams and professional ambitions with the needs of my son. To be clear, his basic needs – food, water, shelter – those always came first. I’ve got those covered. It’s the path from meeting our basic needs to truly thriving that been the real adventure.
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Of the many things I’ve struggled with, building financial stability as a single mom was one of the hardest. Specifically, building financial stability as a single mom while trying to balance my dreams and professional ambitions with the needs of my son. To be clear, his basic needs – food, water, shelter – those always came first. I’ve got those covered. It’s the path from meeting our basic needs to truly thriving that been the real adventure.
Finding time to pursue your dreams and take actionable steps towards them often feels like a fools errand. It felt as if every time I started to write a blog post my son suddenly needed my attention. As a single parent, finding time and energy outside of my full time job to write thoughtful blog posts took an energy I often lacked.
I wrote this post with the intention of sharing how I’ve overcome the challenges I’ve faced on the path to stability. Albeit a painstakingly slowly path at times. I hope this might help other parents in similar situations take steps to overcome their challenges.
Meeting Basic Needs
First, your basic needs must be met. If you don’t have enough income for the basics, focus on that first. In my early 20’s, when I wasn’t making a livable income, the stress of my mounting credit card debt left me depressed. My scarcity mindset led me to think reactively and make bad financial decisions.
Eventually I landed a part time office job that led to a full-time salaried job. At that point, I was making $32,000 per year (this was around 2014) in Chicago and managed to live off about 60% of my income. I used the other 40% to pay down my debt and then build my savings.
When you’re at this point your key focus should be cutting costs and increasing income. Taking the time to meal plan and learn about personal finance can help you keep your focus. During the years I lived in Chicago I bounced through several jobs either to earn more money or because the place I worked went out of business. My faith that things would get better sustained me.
Paying off debt and building stability
Paying off debt and building stability go hand in hand.
It really took having that stable income to start to turn things around and recognize how I had been working against my own best interest for so long. For so long I had been operating in survival mode and thinking short-term.
Once I had a stable income I started aggressively paying down my credit card debt. First, I downloaded a budgeting spreadsheet from some finance blog online and learned how to use it. I came to understand my overall financial situation. After that I started reading personal finance books to learn about financial planning.
Books like The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferries and Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki introduced me to new ways of looking at money and concepts like lifestyle design. This idea that I could control the narrative of my life had never occurred to me before. Learning about finance not only helped me to get my financial life in order, it helped me to understand that I could design a lifestyle that didn’t fit the mold I had grown up seeing.
Building stability as a single mom by being financially prepared
Building stability to me means multiple income streams. It means finding a way to be at minimum a dual income household even when, as a single parent, you only have one working adult in the household. The streams of income you choose are going to look different for everyone based on skills, interests and availability.
As a single parent just starting out my career and barely making ends meet I was able to secure part-time work for $1,000 a month as a property manager. This was on top of my full time customer support job and raising a toddler by myself. I had put it out into the world and to my network that I was looking for extra work and, thankfully I had my real estate license, which allowed me to take the property management role. I would often pick up my son from day care and then stop stop to look at a burst pipe or electrical issue on the way home to make dinner. Weekends were for grocery shopping and open houses. It was exhausting.
That extra $1,000 a month allowed me to build an emergency savings and create real financial stability as a single mom. It also provided insurance in case the start-up I worked for went under. Building multiple streams of income is even more crucial when you’re a single parent and/or sole provider for your family.
Transitioning from a scarcity mindset to excitement for the future
This is the part where life starts getting a bit more fun. More interesting. For me this meant I had the mental space to start envisioning a better, more fulfilling life. I wasn’t scraping by anymore.
When the start-up I worked for got acquired I hit a turning point. My salary nearly doubled overnight and the signing bonus that came with it meant I had a downpayment for a house. After years of endless work I finally felt like I was realizing a pay off.
I bought a house and furnished it by buying everything secondhand to save money. I continued to meal plan. My one luxury was taking yoga classes during my lunch hour.
Our move put an end to my property management job. To secure a new income stream I rented out a bedroom in my house to a friend.
Get ready to thrive while building financial stability as a single mom
When you get to this point where your bills are paid and you’re comfortable, this is where you’ve got to start working on you. Chances are, if you’re like most exhausted parents, you’ve got baggage and things from your past that you’ve shoved to the back of your mind while you slogged through the last few years of nonstop exhaustion and endless work.
You did it! Give yourself a hug. Building a stable life for your family is a massive accomplishment. Bask in that glow for a couple months and allow yourself to feel that pride!
Then it’s time to go bigger. Some of the books that helped me to start healing, change my mindset and plan ahead were: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, Designing Your Life by Bill Burnet, Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin, and Work Optional by Tanja Hester.
Another crucial tool for me was journaling. I was consistently irregular. I’ve never been great at putting pen to paper on a daily basis. I have improved at recognizing when I’m getting anxious and turning to my journal to work through those feelings.
Breaking big dreams into little steps
When I look forward to the future, I am bursting with ideas of the many ways I want to build a sustainable life as I transition away from working full-time and towards financial independence. For me thats going to be a mix of my blog, rental properties, farm products, books and homeschool curriculums I’ve authored, and my investment income. I don’t have all of the skills needed yet to make these income streams happen. But I’m always looking at ways to build toward these long term goals.
Currently my focus is on turning my blog from a hobby into an income producing business. I’ve learned that while maintaining a full time job and raising my son as a single parent, I have to be thoughtful about maintaining balance.
My goal right now is to consistently publish one post every week for an entire year. Once I accomplish this, my next step will be to hire a social media manager to help me build this blog into a business. It’s taken time for me to accept that building a blog or a business is a slow, incremental, and winding road. My vision of my future helps keep me focused.
Surround yourself with the right support network
This is as much about investing in relationships with others as it is about investing in yourself.
Becoming a parent made me take a hard look at myself and realize I was not the person I wanted to be. I always had this idea of who I wanted to be someday but never felt motivated to become that better version of myself.
The concept that you are the sum of the people you surround yourself with has been around for centuries. When I first heard this concept I found it intriguing and saw truth in it. Being a parent to my son and having that responsibility gave me the motivation I needed to work towards becoming a better me.
Part of that process meant taking a hard look at the people I surrounded myself with and asking if those were healthy relationships. Not only were they healthy, but in each of those relationships were the individuals involved growing in healthy ways as the relationship matured. The answer to that question varied with each relationship.
I learned from this exercise to be more intentional about which relationships I invested my time and energy into. I sought out relationships with friends who would push me, hold me accountable, and who shared similar values.
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