This is a good read if you are contemplating having kids in the near future:

"I just want to be able to provide for my kids."  Provide what?  Expensive name-brand clothes?  The latest, biggest toys?  Outtings every weekend?  Not exactly my definition of providing for my kids.  Don't get me wrong.  I used to work, and it was because I felt like I had to in order to pay off some bills, NOT because I wanted to.  Ask my husband.  I'd cry every morning on my way to work because sitting in front of a computer at some office working for some boss was not where I wanted to be.  I wanted to be a mother to my child.  Then I would come home after work every day, totally spazzed out because there was an overwhelming amount of housework and laundry and cooking to do, and all I wanted to do was spend a few hours with my baby until bedtime.  House cleaning and laundry went out the window, which made me even more miserable and depressed, so not only was I unhappy at work, but when I was at home, I wasn't any more happy because there just wasn't enough hours in the day to get everything done.   But despite all of that, there are mothers out there that WANT to work.  They see putting their child in a daycare beneficial for their child, and that it allows the mother to still be herself by having a career in the outside world.  I guess I just hate the whole idea of riding the fence.  Either you A) Want to be a mother and give it everything you've got OR B) Have this big career in which you focus your time and energy to.  Not both.  Both things are wonderful by themselves, but put the two together and it's like oil and water...it just doesn't mix.  Or at least not the way you may want it to.  It truly makes me sad to hear people talk about how bad they want a baby, but they plan on going back to work 6 weeks or 12 weeks later and they say "I will let my so & so take care of it, and that way if my baby is sick, I can still work."  First of all, don't you think if your baby's sick, YOU will want to be the one nurturing the baby?  And don't you think your baby will want YOU?  It's like saying you want to work full time, but you only want to parent part-time.  Let me put it into perspective for you.  This is how my daily schedule went during the work week:

6:45 a.m.:  Get out of bed and get ready for work.
7:45 a.m.:  Get son up and dressed and bag packed (He went to work with my husband every day...family-owned business)
8:00 a.m.:  Drive to work.
8:30 a.m.:  Arrive at work
4:30 p.m.   Drive home from work.
5:00 p.m.   Get home from work and start making dinner.
5:30 p.m.   Husband and baby arrive home
6:00 p.m.   Eat dinner
7:00 p.m.   Clean up kitchen
7:30 p.m.   Give baby bath
8:00 p.m.   Read to baby/Play with baby
9:00 p.m.   Put baby to bed then begin to get self ready for bed.
10:00 p.m.  Go to bed.

So I had one good hour, per day, of quality play time with my baby, and if you want to count supper time as quality time, that's another hour, and then the 15 minutes in the morning spent getting him ready.  So there, 2 hours & 15 minutes per day per work week.  That's only 10 hours and 15 minutes spent with my baby PER WEEK, and then of course there's the weekend, which most of Saturday was spent cleaning and doing laundry, and Sunday a good portion of the day is spent at church.  But I was at work sitting at a desk in front of a computer 40 hours per week.  So yes, even though I carried a lot of responsibilities as a mom, I still only felt like a part-time mom with a full-time job outside the home.  And I hated it.  And I even resented my husband for it because he didn't make enough money.  Please understand that I UNDERSTAND that some mothers HAVE TO WORK, but MOST the ones I know that work don't really have to.  Your children may have to wear hand-me-downs, you may have to clip coupons and carry the calculator into the grocery store with you so that you don't overspend, you may have to stop taking a vacation EVERY year and just go every other year, you may even have to cut cable TV, you may even have to cut out some of your hobbies, but I think all of that AND MORE is well worth it to be able to be home with the children you brought into this world.  They are only little for such a short time, so ENJOY them. 

Another thing is, take into consideration how much money you'd actually not be spending if you stay home:

1) Daycare is $600 to $800 (or more!) per month
2) Gas to and from work (especially with gas prices THESE days)
3) The extra-nice professional clothes you have to have for work
4) Eating out for lunch (Trust me, even if you think you'll be good and take your lunch, lots of times you won't, especially when your co-worker asks you out to lunch, and even if you do take your lunch, you'll end up not eating it and walking down to the nearest deli)  $7 a day at the cheaper places in town.

There are also some nifty perks if you stay home.  If your income is lowered (ours was lowered by over half), you will more than likely get a nice tax return every year. When I worked, we had to PAY $1700 in taxes.  The next year, we had much less income to claim, and we GOT BACK $2300.   You can also qualify for WIC (or whatever program your state has) to get free baby formula, cereal, juice, etc.  AND you may even qualify for free health insurance through the state for your kids.  We did. 

But it's really not about MONEY.  It's about the fact that you OWE IT TO YOUR CHILDREN to be home with them, and it is more than worth the sacrifice.