A New Type of Dad – Child Raising and Coupon Clipping [VIDEO]

- Submitted by KSFA listener, Brad Warner

When I walk into my children's daycare and activity group, the first thing I notice is the amount of dads that are there. It seems to me, as one of these so-called 'stay-at-home dads', that there is an increasing number of these fathers who have turned raising their children into their careers.

Stay-at-home dads have been increasing steadily for the last 10 years. According to the U.S. Census Bureau:

The estimated number of stay-at-home dads in 2010 was 154,000. These married fathers with children younger than 15 have remained out of the labor force for at least one year primarily so they can care for the family while their wives work outside the home. These fathers cared for 287,000 children.

via Newsroom: Facts for Features & Special Editions: Facts for Features: Father's Day: June 19, 2011.

Whether due to the recession or changing ideas about gender roles, more dads have be forgoing careers in favor of a lower paying, but more rewarding, career.

The number of fathers staying at home to raise their children has increased 66 percent since 2000.

via Stay-at-home dads gaining ground - Morning Call.

After seeing so many stay-at-home dads week after week, I started to get encouraged. We began talking about our lives and the roles that we play in our families. Something that quickly came up was what we did to budget our money.

Now, you've probably seen shows like 'Extreme Couponing', but we take a more technology-focused approach than that. When looking for coupons, we typically visit sites like onlinecoupons.net, couponcode.net, and coupongirl.com. We are able to focus in on the products that we need the most, including  kitchen and bathroom products, soaps, razors and shampoos. Clothes are also a big hit, since all of our kids grow so fast, we don't want to pay full price for any of the things they'll outgrow in a few months or so.

Toys are also surprisingly popular on coupon sites. The educational games that our kids love to play with were items that we had researched online and gotten the best prices for.

Now that we know we all spend so much time looking for these similar things on our own, we've started working together on our coupon activities. We've become a well-oiled, stay-at-home, couponing machines. It has made for some entertaining child meet-ups, with all the kids playing and the fathers watching over them while talking about the biggest savings on diapers.

It has been nice to find a large group of fathers that can relate to many of the issues that I face everyday - we've become our own kind of support group. It has also been beneficial to our household budget, because we've been able to save vastly more amounts of money thanks to so many eyes looking for great deals.

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Warner and friends aren't the only ones living this way - thousands of other fathers are finding themselves in the same situation across the country. Here's a look at a 2010 report from CBS News about the growing number of Stay-at-Home Dads:

http://youtu.be/Ie12wBn9HOg