I put together a comprehensive list of all the financial considerations to help determine what the impact would be if I stay home from work. Readers added the things I overlooked. It’s not a decision I’m making lightly. My husband and I have been discussing it at great lengths, sometimes in circles.
Thanks for all the emails and thoughts; especially those of you that shared your personal decisions. It’s one of those topics that really doesn’t have a right answer. You make the best decision with the information that you have right now.
The Results
I ran the numbers using both my full time salary and my 4 day workweek salary. Wow! It was very eye opening to see that we effectively only get to use about a third of my salary. Of course, a lot of it has to do with some very large expenses we have, paying for an in-home nanny and Uncle Sam! We pay our nanny over $20,000 per year. In addition, the tax bite on a second income is huge.
What I really want to do is stay home. However, even with my “new” lower salary, we’ve determined it doesn’t make sense financially for me to stay home. Although we haven’t ruled it out for the long run, it’s the decision that makes sense for us right now. Here were some of our considerations:
- As I stated yesterday, I have the larger salary in our family. It’s one thing to scale back to one income, it’s another thing to take away the higher of the two.
- We’re planning more children and I have an option for a leave of absence in the future that may be worth using.
- I’m currently planning to go back to work 4 days a week for seven months. It was a schedule that I was very happy with 2 years ago and I maintained a good work/life balance.
- I scaled our retirement contributions back to 23% last year and to 15% this year. It makes virtually no change to our long term plan. If I were to stay home, I would reduce it to 11%, also having no real effect.
- We want to do some more planning for the new business before having to rely on it.
What This Means
While I ultimately want to stay home, I do feel that I owe my family a level of financial security that my job currently provides. My children are in wonderful hands with our nanny and I’ll only be going back part time for now, which is the best of both worlds.
However, I do feel some “mommy guilt” for going back. I guess I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. I come across pretty cut and dry when I start talking about the bottom line, but my family always comes first. They always will. I wouldn’t be going back to my job if it wasn’t a flexible, family-friendly working environment. I don’t travel much and for the most part I can take off when my kids are sick, have an appointment or a function I want to attend. I still want to stay home and I’ll be working towards that for the future.
The Future
I’ve come up with a plan to make some changes over the next two years. What I’d like to do is financially set ourselves up so that when we have another child in the next 2-3 years that it wouldn’t make any difference financially which decision I make.
I’m setting a goal to make a $2800 per month difference in our finances. I’ve already started brainstorming some possibilities to make this happen:
- Remove $1170 from our budget. I’ve identified $812 that I can easily eliminate over the next two years. Paying off our car or selling it and paying off the motorcycle. Both were financed because the interest rates were lower than savings rates. However, with the recent cuts, that’s not so much the case.
- I could drop our retirement savings by $800 month, but I’m not ready to do that right now. I would be able to do that in 2 years without much change to our overall plan.
- That leaves roughly $830 a month that I would need to earn per month to cover the difference. We’ve launched the first part (My Dollar Plan) of our small business. We have plans to add 3 additional components, but we’ll likely need the next two years to get them completely up and running before we would feel comfortable depending on any of the income.
Action Plan
With this decision made and the creation of 3 additional long-term goals to supplement our dollar plan, I’m finally ready to put together our 2008 goals. Look for it soon!
In addition, I’ll be working hard to make the choice for me to stay home in the future easier by doing the following:
- Remove $1170 per month from our budget.
- Replace $800 per month in retirement savings.
- Earn $830 per month from our new side business.
Thanks for sharing the details of your thought process! It was interesting to hear about.
Every family’s situation is different, and it changes as we go through different seasons in our life.
My mom ended up with a job earning a lot more than my father. I was a baby, and the only way they could afford to, well, live, was if he stayed home with me and she continued working. They simply couldn’t afford paying someone to watch me. Unconventional, but it worked for us.
A four-day workweek really does seem shorter than a five-day.
Best wishes with everything!
February 1st, 2008 at 8:47 am
It looks like you’ve put a lot of thought into this and made a good decision for your family. I like you you’re not stopping with going back to work, but that you have a plan for 2-3 years down the road as well!
February 1st, 2008 at 9:24 am
Good for you, Madison.
As long as you keep thinking about improving your work/life balance, it will start happening.
All the best to your meeting your goals!
February 2nd, 2008 at 1:18 am
It has meant sacrifices here, but it has been great to give the kids something that we both would have prefered!
February 2nd, 2008 at 4:05 am
Sounds like a great decision for you!
My child is now 18. After living through the work/life struggle, I would advise any mom to always keep a toe dipped into her career no matter the number of children at home. The “toe” could be occasional contracting work on projects that relate to the career and even volunteer work that puts the skills of the career to work. Whatever the situation, keep on _networking_ and keep that career identity.
Two big reasons: a woman needs a portion of her life to be about her and not about kids and you never know when life may change, forcing you to return to your career/income.
Best of luck!
February 2nd, 2008 at 6:22 am
It was very interesting reading your posts on this topic. I actually consider myself “lucky” to make a lot less than my husband since I know it will make it easier to switch to one income when we have kids
February 4th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Congratulations on navigating this emotional minefield with your values and future goals intact. It sounds like you guys are super focused and committed to a well thought out plan, and I have every confidence that this will only mean good things for you and your family’s long term happiness.
February 6th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
My wife has stayed at home with our six children and we\’ve never thought twice about what we\’ve missed out on financially because of it. It\’s simply made such a difference in our lives and for our children.
Quite frankly, I\’m jealous. I\’d love to be the one that gets to stay home with them. Perhaps someday I\’ll get enough of the \”multiple streams of income\” going to where I can be home more, but we\’ll see.
Good for you for trying!
February 11th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Don’t do it! The benefit to your kids (and your relationship to them) is priceless. (Just look at all the comments you’ve received on this and other posts telling you how others didn’t go back to work and never regretted it.)
So what would I suggest instead?
1. Cut expenses. Some will drop as a direct result of you not working, but others can be added because you’ll have more time to focus on them (such as taking time to food shop using more sales, coupons, etc.)
2. Have your husband work on growing his income.
3. Start a business at home. You have a good blog here — and you can probably build it into something that earns you $1k-$2k per month if you work at it and stick to it.
My wife has stayed at home with our kids and always says she’s been so blessed to do so. And I think it’s made a HUGE difference to our kids and our relationship with them.
February 12th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Thanks for this post. We aren’t ready to have kids yet but off and on I’ve been thinking about the best ways to prepare our household. The way you laid things out will make planning a little easier.
Also, I think the most important thing to consider is what is best for your family.
February 14th, 2008 at 12:14 am