Considering leaving a good job ($120K) in mid-thirties to be a SAHM
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Anonymous
But it's not a legitimate question, because the OP has clearly identified that her reason to stay home is because she wants more time with her baby. Having a father doesn't solve that problem, so it makes no sense at all. If she was looking to solve a problem like "we can't find daycare that feels safe to us" or "our kid needs therapy and needs a parent at home to carry it out" or "we think kids do better with a parent at home" then your solution makes sense, but those don't seem to be the problems she's looking to solve. |
Anonymous
Before you quit live off of you DH's income for at least 6 months. Save your entire post tax salary. Is there anyway you can move to part time? |
Anonymous
| Try and go part time. I wouldn't quit my job,especially since your husband doesn't make a lot of money. |
Anonymous
| I think it's irresponsible to leave work when you're a major breadwinner. |
Anonymous
I lived this life as a SAHM in NW DC and our HHI was $250k. I still felt like the poor mom among everyone I met at playgroups, parks etc. Generally the only moms who SAH in NW are those with a major breadwinner backing them. It would honestly be very hard to SAH with a tight budget-- the things that keep you sane as a SAH are pool memberships, part-time preschool, trips out for lunch (with and without kids), spontaneous trips for frozen yogurt, classes/sports for the kids, etc. Never mind all the crazy travel that everyone in NW does-- the trips to the West Coast 4 times a year, international travel, ski trips, etc. There is a lot of money in the SAHM crowd in NW DC. If would be hard (not impossible but hard) to exist in this community and have to watch every spare dollar. |
Anonymous
+1 but I don't really exercise because I find it boring. I just walk everywhere and do my own yard work for exercise. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Not if you are able to live on one income and have the savings and insurance to account for contingencies. There is no rule of life that says everyone should maximize their income potential at all times. He who dies with the most toys does not win. |
Anonymous
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My DH and I both work and we pull in about 135k. We have no debt except our mortgage which is roughly $2200/month and a car at $250/month that we have 3 years left to pay on.
We get by on that salary here in the suburbs of DC (Fairfax) but it's tough. Granted, we're paying daycare costs ($400/week) but if you subtract out what we pay in daycare a year, it brings us down to right about what you're saying your household income will be if you quit working. We have no extra money for anything really. We are "comfortable" but that's about it. We're certainly not maxing out our retirement and we are definitely not saving money. So while I totally agree with where your heart is on this, I think you will really struggle with the reality of it. If you can find a way to make it work, have at it. I would definitely recommend doing what others suggested and banking your salary for six month while living solely off his and see if you can do it. When you see how much you'll have to cut back, you might change your mind. Truthfully, I'd love to be a SAHM but I wouldn't do it unless we won the lottery or something. LOL! I can't bring myself to lose all those years toward retirement pensions and savings. If my DH and I had met and married young back when I was only making $35k/year, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought since daycare would have equated to my monthly income. But since I married at 30 and had my first kid at 33, I was making about $65k at that point and that was hard to give up since my monthly income was double what I would have paid out in daycare. Tough decision. Good luck OP. |
Anonymous
Best DCUM post of the month. |
Anonymous
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Definitely live on one income for 6 mos to a year before quitting. Some expenses (esp. childcare) will go down when you quit but you'll find other expenses as part of enjoying a SAHM life.
I was a SAHM for 7 years with DH's salary rising from $90K-$140K over that time. The main financial limitation was that we weren't saving for college (but most of my friends didn’t save for college either during the paying-for-daycare years) and put off home renovations we wanted to do. But I could afford to do the baby gym/music classes, travel regularly to visit family, belong to a gym, make necessary house repairs, etc. (but we also had a low housing cost since we bought in the late 90s) I was confident when I quit because we’d lived on 1 salary and saved the 2nd from the time we married (DH and I made about the same $) so we also had a healthy savings cushion. You’ll want to be certain that the contracting/freelance jobs are really available. During my 7 yrs at home I consistently did freelance work with former colleagues. About a project every few months, although more are different times. I let everyone in my network know I was available when I resigned and then never had to seek out work. As a result, when I wanted to go back FT, I quickly found a job at the same level that I left and slightly higher pay. After 4 years my salary is only slightly lower than DH’s, we’re on track with college savings and did the home renovation I’d be waiting for. If the freelance work is more vague then I’d say try to work out a regular PT schedule. If you want to go back after 10 yrs you need to have a solid track record during those years. I wouldn’t count blogging at all toward that. I have absolutely no regrets about taking time to be a SAHM. I LOVED that phase of my life, look back on a lot of happy memories, and built great friendships with other moms (which I’m finding much more challenging to nurture while being a WAHM to elementary school kids!). But I don't think I'd look back on it as positively if I hadn't worked to keep up my career at the same time. |
Anonymous
| What's your current childcare situation? Is it fabulous, or not? |
Anonymous
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I went back to work after my first and I am now at home with my second. I have been home with my second for almost 3 years now. I did not leave an income as big as yours.
Here's my take. For one month save every single receipt for every penny you spend. That will give you a very reasonable look at what you spend each month. Save every pay check you make that month and see what it is really like being on one income. Defiantly stay current in your field with part time or a little freelancing. You may only want to be home for a few years, ten years is a lot! When kids start Prek it's usually a good time to start looking at going back to work. (i think). Are you thinking of having another? You could wait until you go on maternity and see what its like being home and then decide. I love being home most of the time, but I am now looking forward to going back. You can make the most out of your time at home. It's what you make of it. Somedays are relaxed and at the park. When I'm trying to work, she sits in front of Sesame Street. 
I'm interested to hear what you decide. Good luck!! |
Anonymous
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OP, I can't read through all the replies, but just want to give you my perspective.
I think your strength is that you have a career to go back to. I have been a SAHM for 10 years and badly want to re-enter the workforce, but I don't have a "profession" per se, just work experience in a pretty good job. That is making it very hard for me to go back. I think if you have a "career" and if you make some effort to stay current, you will be able to go back. At the moment I'm feeling desperate to use my brain and while I don't exactly regret staying home with the kids, I wish I had had a more specific career first, so I could get into something more easily now. I actually LIKE to work. (But I did also love being a SAHM.) |
Anonymous
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I re-framed my term of unemployment. I left a well-paying job for good reasons and have no regrets about that. It did take a very long time to find work. Right now, I am anticipating a July 1st start date, meaning that I will have been out of work for two years. During this time, I've invested seriously in my children and household. It has been a true gift. At first, I was too mired down in the frustration of finding myself seemingly unemployable. At the one year mark, a mentor challenged me to re-frame my situation. I was a SAHM, working on my writing. She was just offering a way to spin, but she hit on the truth of my circumstance. That is exactly what I had been doing. The job I am now expecting is a great fit for my family, now that I've been able to thoroughly establish systems at home and bring my children to a stronger place, academically, socio-emotionally, and developmentally. There's a lot of flexibility. The pay is no great, certainly not by DCUM standards, but it will allow me to more than meet our basic needs and max out savings. We learned to prioritize our expenses while I was out of work and developed a solid means of passive income. I'm going back to work because I need to feed the part of me that reflects my professional excellence. I crave the intellectual environment and collegial atmosphere. I want to socialize with grown ups again. 
Taking time off from work to dedicate yourself to parenting is a desirable luxury. Don't underestimate your own needs when taking this step. You don't want to view this as a sacrifice, and that's exactly what you'll face after awhile. PPs have suggested living on one income for a minimum of six months to test out the viability re finances. I would also use that time to quite actively seek out part-time work. Contract work can be intrusive. You get used to a schedule, work hard to make sure it takes hold, then a contract assignment comes in an you have to scuttle all your efforts to make room for a large responsibility. Part-time work from the start is just a routine part of your family life; it's something to build around and provides consistency which is the key to success with your children. I've gained a lot from this experience. I would encourage you to take your own needs seriously. Right now, time off from work may seem like great fun, but it will get lonely out here. It is VERY easy to fall away from the professional network you take for granted right now. I'd use these next six months to intensify my involvement in professional associations, join meet ups, look up useful conferences coming up in the next year. If I had held onto any of these, I wouldn't have had those moments of embarrassment, when I felt I'd given too much of myself away and saw others advancing while I had to live by a different metric. Money is only one issue that you need to mull before making this decision. And, yes, ten years is far too long to go without having a meaningful connection to your professional world. Even though it's only been two years (three, if you consider my last job wasn't part of my career track, it was just a job), I have to start all over. If you were part of my small circle of highly-accomplished, go-getting, Type-A friends, we'd be sitting at my dining room table going over an Excel spreadsheet and a built-out calendar to cover the next two years. We'd work to ensure your balance. The mommy part is what you're focusing on, maybe even the marital partner piece as well. You may be able to afford the transition financially, but you really need to focus on what it will cost you emotionally and professionally. Are you prepared to take an internship in order to re-enter the workforce? Are you wiling to start off making half of what you currently do when you decide to go back to work? How about answering to people far junior in their experience? I'm very lucky to have had a mentor who knew me well enough that she essentially created a position for me. Nothing on record would indicate my capacity to do the work assigned to this position. I have busy work (contract, part-time consulting) on my resume covering the last three years, which has made it very difficult to present my talents to potential employers. The bright side is that I have no regrets about how I spent these last years, and that I now know what my new career track must look like in order to maintain what I've built. It's been humbling, so humbling, because I had a brilliant reputation. Strong mind, excellent worker, outstanding product. The measurables of the last three years in now way reflect what I once had. Factor yourself into this equation as you move forward. I don't mean to neg on your vision. It's just so easy to build an idea around what you can provide without taking into account what you will need. Think on that a bit more. Prioritize yourself when making you plans. |