Post # 1
Member
3007 posts
Sugar bee
Hi Bees,
As I have posted before, my husband and I are starting to talk seriosuly about starting a family. Most likely this early summer. I have a bit of a conundrum though.
So our plan was always to have me stay at home as my husband is a fairly high level executive and works really long hours. We were both happy with that arrangement. Well since we discussed this, my husband has had a pretty big pay cut. The company we actually both work for isn’t doing too well. It’s possible we will both have other jobs soon.
So I have been trying to calculate how much money we would need to make to pay all of our bills. Right now, with our current jobs, we save quite a bit per month. So I did the math and found out for me to stay at home, my husband would have to make significantly more than he does now. About 1k more per month (after taxes).
Again, we are both looking for other jobs, so it is possible my husband could find a job that pays more and then this won’t be an issue.
However, my main question is if you are a stay at home mom or if you were in the past, did your partner make enough to cover all of the bills with their own take home pay? Did you save while you were pregnant to allow you to stay at home? Did you work part time to fill in the gaps?
We would have no problem now sacrificing 1 or 2k/month to save for when we have children. However, I want to know if this is common?
The jobs I’m looking at for myself right now pay quite a bit more than what I make now so we would possibly be able to save even more than we do now.
Sorry if I’m this post doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to cover all my bases lol.
TLDR: If you stayed at home with children or if you are currently, does your partner’s income cover all of your bills? Do you work part time to cover it? Or did you save before to cover each month’s expenses?
Post # 2
Member
2619 posts
Sugar bee
Not staying at home yet, but will be soon, when baby arrives in April. My husband makes enough money to cover our monthly expenses, while still saving a fair amount for retirement, small vacations, and unexpected expenses. Before I leave my job, we’ve saved a good amount that we’ll keep for our emergency savings, enough for our next car, and already bought a house, so we aren’t trying to save for a down payment or anything big like that. We won’t be able to take as expensive vacations for awhile as we have been taking for the past few years, but we think that’s worth it for me to stay home.
Post # 3
Member
3007 posts
Sugar bee
lahela017 : Awesome thanks for your response! That’s great he can cover everything.
We also already own a home and won’t have to make any large purchases soon (hopefully)!
And my goal before ttc or around the same time is to have a 6 month emergency fund. We have almost a 3 month now, so I don’t think it’ll take too long.
Thanks for your insight!
Post # 4
Member
462 posts
Helper bee
When you’re doing your math, don’t forget to include the additional expenses of raising a child. You said in order to cover your current bills, your H would need to make $1k more. There are future bills you need to consider, too. In addition to the big things like cribs and strollers anda constant supply of diapers, if you are in the U.S., your H will have to cover your health insurance and the baby’s under his plan.
Post # 5
Member
3007 posts
Sugar bee
izzabella : Yes I have thought about some of that as well.
I have no idea how much more health insurance would be. But honestly I’m not as worried about the baby supplies. We will be lucky enough to get a lot of hand me downs and find things second hand, etc.
Thanks for that point!
Post # 6
Member
1259 posts
Bumble bee
Not quite what you were asking, but my husband is going to be a stay-at-home dad when our baby arrives in July. I make more than twice what he makes and will be able to cover all of our expenses (including baby expenses) so I selected the first option in your poll.
Post # 7
Member
28 posts
Newbee
I’ve been a Stay-At-Home Mom for 21 years. Keep in mind that some of your bills may actually go down. When I quit my job, we saved on auto maintenance and gas as I was no longer commuting daily. Clothing bills went down; I wasn’t buying expensive suits that required dry cleaning and I began to wash and iron DH’s dress shirts to save $. The grocery bill went down, as we cut back on takeout and convenience foods since I was able to cook more “from scratch.”
Breastfeeding vs. formula is something you’ll need to decide, but I will say that I don’t think I could have kept up with the pumping necessary if I had stayed at my full-time job…and breastfeeding is much cheaper than formula.
My DH is a financial executive as well, and he believes that my staying home helped him advance in his career. How? Because he was able to work late when the boss asked him to and not have to worry about getting to the daycare on time. He never had to miss work to stay home with a sick child (although he did miss a couple of days over the years when I was too sick to take care of the baby). He could say yes to the business trips because he didn’t have to worry about the logistics of whether my job was going to take me out of town at the same time (something that had happened on a few occasions before).
It was not an easy decision to give up my career to stay home. We considered having DH stay home instead as we were earning about the same salary at the time, but he ultimately had the most potential for career advancement (with commensurate compensation). Twenty-one years and 4 kids later, I have absolutely no regrets.
Post # 8
Member
3007 posts
Sugar bee
bayoubee : that is exactly what I meant! Thanks so much.
Post # 9
Member
3007 posts
Sugar bee
jkent9024 : That’s amazing you’ve been able to support your husband. That’s exactly why I would like to stay at home.
I also do think we would save on some things that you mentioned. However, I already cook at least 5 if not 6 nights a week. We could be better about not going out for lunch. But overall, you made great points. Thanks for sharing those details 🙂
Post # 10
Member
126 posts
Blushing bee
sarathemermaid : My man makes enough to support all bills, I still work though. I always thought a good rule of thumb is to make sure that if you relied on your husbands income for the time being in having children, if he lost his job, would you guys survive months without that income, and for how long? Just remember that worse case scenrios happen. But congrats on the planning, best wishes!
Post # 11
Member
2876 posts
Sugar bee
sarathemermaid : I had my daughter 5 weeks ago so I am currently on “maternity leave”. I use that term in quotes because I technically don’t have any leave. I was working 2 jobs when I was pregnant – I was working contract as a civil engineer and part time as a real estate agent. My engineer contract ended 2 weeks before I gave birth. I didn’t receive any benefits at that job and will not go back to it. Instead, I am taking a few months off and will go back to real estate.
So right now my husband is paying for everything. But I worked my ass off at those 2 jobs in order for me to take several months off. The plan was originally for me to take 6 months off, but I’m not sure if I’ll take that much time off since I will be missing out on prime real estate season.
We aren’t able to save nearly as much as when I was working (pretty obvious). Yes, he has a good job, but our health insurance increased significantly adding the baby. We wound up getting a different car for me in order to accomodate a car seat (it was nearly impossible to get it in my old car) and I have been unable to breast feed so we had to go the formula route right away. My husband has massive student loans (had before we got married) and while we’re doing OK, I like having more of an emergency cushion.
My husband’s brother was just recently diagnosed with testicular cancer and is going through chemotherapy. He is 5 years older than my husband. My SIL (BIL’s wife) doesn’t work and they have 3 teenagers. He was getting his chemo treatments on Fridays so that he could get some rest over the weekend and miss as little work as possible. But he was just hospitalized with neutropenic fever and is forced to take FMLA to recover. It has put a huge strain on their marriage because his wife has refused to go back to work, stating that there would be no one around to get the kids off the bus or get them to their activities. My ILs (hubby and brother’s parents) have offered to help – and her parents have offered to as well – but I’m not sure if she’s stating that wouldn’t be enough or what her adversion to going back to work is. So my husband and I have talked a lot about this because he works in healthcare and sees this happen all the time. Bottom line, as long as we can afford it, I will continue to work part time. I have also seen the marriages of a few of my sister’s friends end at around the 7-10 year mark. My sister has many friends that are SAHMs that are screwed because they completely gave up their careers to stay home. They are having a lot of trouble getting back into the workforce because many expect to go back to the level they were when they quit and have done nothing to keep up their skills while they stayed home.
So I personally think the best of both worlds is to work part time. That way you’re not completely giving up your financial independence and you wouldn’t be screwed if something happened to your spouse. But I was always taught not to be dependent on anyone else.
Post # 12
Member
28 posts
Newbee
ysel : I agree that you need to plan for possibilities. Though I didn’t work, I kept up with the changes in my field and kept in contact with former co-workers. Should the need have arisen due to DH’s job loss, injury, or (worst case scenario) death or divorce, I would have been able to step back into the workforce, although granted with a few slips down the rungs of the corporate ladder.
We were also diligent in saving enough $ to build up a cushion in case any of those things were to happen. We’re finally at the point where I’m not sure I’d need to work should DH no longer be able to…although if he was home all day, I might need to get a job to get away from him for a few hours for my own sanity! 😆
Post # 13
Member
126 posts
Blushing bee
jkent9024 : Haha! what a stress releiver. All of this sounds very good to hear. Personally, beign in that position, i’d opt to make sure I was there raising my child instead of someone else.
When I was younger, I always had a babysitter take care of me, os my relationship with my parents was non existent until I reached middle school. Maybe be with your babies as much as possible if you can 🙂
Post # 14
Member
1893 posts
Buzzing bee
- Wedding: September 2017 - Pearson Convention Centre
Not home yet. I’m not due until the beginning of May and I’m planning to work until then. We have always saved my income and my husband’s income covered everything. We are planning on having 3 children all close together, so I’m planning on being a stay at home mom for 10 years.
Post # 15
Member
1463 posts
Bumble bee
My experience is that we can live on one income but we don’t get ahead. My husband has enough income to comfortably cover our bills (and we live comfortably so could reduce our expenses) but our savings are pretty stagnant. Having said that, a significant portion of my husband’s total remuneration goes into a superannuation scheme that will pay off our mortgage within 5-10 years (we’re in New Zealand and it’s part of his career).
I did return to part time work between my second and third baby which helped us build up our savings again and replace some appliances but I’m now back to being at home looking after the kids.
I’m a great believer in life being about seasons and figure that spending time at home with our children is more important than gaining financial ground at this point in our lives.