You don't have to be a monk to meditate.
Read this delightful passage from the Dalai Lama's book about the preparation for meditation and finding the right environment.
"A conducive environment should be known by these five characteristics: providing easy access to food and clothes, being free of evil beings and enemies, being free from disease, containing good friends who maintain moral ethics and who share similar views, and being visited by few people in the daytime and with little noise at night.
Limiting your desires refers to not being excessively attached to many or good clothes, such as religious robes, and so forth.
The practice of contentment means always being satisfied with any little thing, like inferior religious robes, and so forth.
Not being involved in many activities refers to giving up ordinary activities like business, avoiding too close association with householders and monks, and totally abandoning the practice of medicine and astrology" .
The practice of meditation need not be austere, monastic life and meditation is not the same thing.