Budget to Transition to SAHP

[Anonymous]

to be supportive here, I have been living on a similar salary for 2 years with a 3000 dollar mortgage and 2 kids and unemployed husband. Somehow I have not dipped into savings and still manage to put away 5% into 401K and save about 200 per month for kids college.

what saves us is the occasional cash infusion. tax return, gift money, or occasional temporary job from husband. but then the extra money seems gone quickly, with new tires or dying appliance.

so I do think it is possible. the biggest thing we have cut out is travel and eating out. we have had some travel, but often out of town family paying for us to visit. or using credit card points for hotels.

[Anonymous]

I like the idea of staying home, but also caring for another child.

Your child will have an automatic playmate + you would have some extra spending money per month.

Win win.

[Anonymous]

The DW needs a weekend job of some sort. Some sort of income to pay for extras. She could avoid a 50 hour work week.

Another option is to spend 60k of your savings. At the end of the day, thsys what savings is for. What is 200k in a low rate CD going to do for your anyway? Just make sure you have enough for a year of living exoe ses if the dh loses his job. Allocate 1k a month for five years. Still find 200-300 in the budget to cut back on. There has to be something. The 1k a month should pay for the overage you calculated and anything like new tires, broken ac etc. Summer pool pass, anniversary dinner. This is only OK if you're contributing to retirement. This is assuming the DW gets a job when the kids are in school (in 5 yrs). A better compromise would be for your wife to spend 2-3 years at home.

Remember that you have a fixed rate mortgage and hopefully will make more money over time. This isn't a permanent situation. Your kids will go to school and your wife can do more part time work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The DW needs a weekend job of some sort. Some sort of income to pay for extras. She could avoid a 50 hour work week.

Another option is to spend 60k of your savings. At the end of the day, thsys what savings is for. What is 200k in a low rate CD going to do for your anyway? Just make sure you have enough for a year of living exoe ses if the dh loses his job. Allocate 1k a month for five years. Still find 200-300 in the budget to cut back on. There has to be something. The 1k a month should pay for the overage you calculated and anything like new tires, broken ac etc. Summer pool pass, anniversary dinner. This is only OK if you're contributing to retirement. This is assuming the DW gets a job when the kids are in school (in 5 yrs). A better compromise would be for your wife to spend 2-3 years at home.

Remember that you have a fixed rate mortgage and hopefully will make more money over time. This isn't a permanent situation. Your kids will go to school and your wife can do more part time work.

Can anyone identify part-time work that will generate $40k/year? That seems like a hard thing to line up unless you already have a job with a company and scale back (which is still not easy).

[Anonymous]

Yeah I am a woman who would love to work part time but is hard to find something is professional unless you are scaling back your current position.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DW needs a weekend job of some sort. Some sort of income to pay for extras. She could avoid a 50 hour work week.

Another option is to spend 60k of your savings. At the end of the day, thsys what savings is for. What is 200k in a low rate CD going to do for your anyway? Just make sure you have enough for a year of living exoe ses if the dh loses his job. Allocate 1k a month for five years. Still find 200-300 in the budget to cut back on. There has to be something. The 1k a month should pay for the overage you calculated and anything like new tires, broken ac etc. Summer pool pass, anniversary dinner. This is only OK if you're contributing to retirement. This is assuming the DW gets a job when the kids are in school (in 5 yrs). A better compromise would be for your wife to spend 2-3 years at home.

Remember that you have a fixed rate mortgage and hopefully will make more money over time. This isn't a permanent situation. Your kids will go to school and your wife can do more part time work.

Can anyone identify part-time work that will generate $40k/year? That seems like a hard thing to line up unless you already have a job with a company and scale back (which is still not easy).

That's about what I make. I work between 20 and 25 hours a week. I bring in about 35-40k a year. I am an administrator in a small non-profit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you can shop for cheaper home ins & car ins ?
We found erie is the cheapest for us. Home & 2 cars for $1600 per year ( home is 1M value for replacement cost )
If you pay for internet like $35 per month, get ip phone like nettalk for $40 a year. Nettalk customer service is bad but the phone is working OK of us. Get 1 cell phone from free from H2O with pre-pay service like 5 cents per minute. $100 is valid for 1 year & pay for other 4 phones & $100 can be used for all 5 phones. Only use cell if you must. At home, you can use nettalk. Good luck.

I am wary of super cheap car and auto insurance; when you need it -- you NEED it. Right now we have Geico and State Farm. Heard good things about Amica and will look at that.

We only have a landline phone for emergencies (ie, derecho and having 911 work if kids are home alone). We could use that exclusively with Google Voice for unlimited national calling and use cell phones less, but really any modern adult needs cell phone b/c the way plans are more fluid and payphones have disappeared. we like the idea of prepaid phones though so will look into it; but i feel this is nibbling on edges; are groceries and fuel expenses about nominal for family of 4?

Why not go to Tmobile like I suggested upthread? I pay $117 a month total (including all taxes and fees) for unlimited calling, text and 4 gigs of data per phone. I think you can add another line for like $20 so that puts you at around $135 per month. Your bill will be less if you're a fed and can get the govt. discount. That's an easy $100 savings without feeling any pain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you can shop for cheaper home ins & car ins ?
We found erie is the cheapest for us. Home & 2 cars for $1600 per year ( home is 1M value for replacement cost )
If you pay for internet like $35 per month, get ip phone like nettalk for $40 a year. Nettalk customer service is bad but the phone is working OK of us. Get 1 cell phone from free from H2O with pre-pay service like 5 cents per minute. $100 is valid for 1 year & pay for other 4 phones & $100 can be used for all 5 phones. Only use cell if you must. At home, you can use nettalk. Good luck.

I am wary of super cheap car and auto insurance; when you need it -- you NEED it. Right now we have Geico and State Farm. Heard good things about Amica and will look at that.

We only have a landline phone for emergencies (ie, derecho and having 911 work if kids are home alone). We could use that exclusively with Google Voice for unlimited national calling and use cell phones less, but really any modern adult needs cell phone b/c the way plans are more fluid and payphones have disappeared. we like the idea of prepaid phones though so will look into it; but i feel this is nibbling on edges; are groceries and fuel expenses about nominal for family of 4?

Why not go to Tmobile like I suggested upthread? I pay $117 a month total (including all taxes and fees) for unlimited calling, text and 4 gigs of data per phone. I think you can add another line for like $20 so that puts you at around $135 per month. Your bill will be less if you're a fed and can get the govt. discount. That's an easy $100 savings without feeling any pain.

It's not that cheap. You have you buy phones too. I ran th numbers versu our grandfathers plan and not huge savings. Looking at sprint too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DW needs a weekend job of some sort. Some sort of income to pay for extras. She could avoid a 50 hour work week.

Another option is to spend 60k of your savings. At the end of the day, thsys what savings is for. What is 200k in a low rate CD going to do for your anyway? Just make sure you have enough for a year of living exoe ses if the dh loses his job. Allocate 1k a month for five years. Still find 200-300 in the budget to cut back on. There has to be something. The 1k a month should pay for the overage you calculated and anything like new tires, broken ac etc. Summer pool pass, anniversary dinner. This is only OK if you're contributing to retirement. This is assuming the DW gets a job when the kids are in school (in 5 yrs). A better compromise would be for your wife to spend 2-3 years at home.

Remember that you have a fixed rate mortgage and hopefully will make more money over time. This isn't a permanent situation. Your kids will go to school and your wife can do more part time work.

Can anyone identify part-time work that will generate $40k/year? That seems like a hard thing to line up unless you already have a job with a company and scale back (which is still not easy).

That's about what I make. I work between 20 and 25 hours a week. I bring in about 35-40k a year. I am an administrator in a small non-profit.

How did you find this job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DW needs a weekend job of some sort. Some sort of income to pay for extras. She could avoid a 50 hour work week.

Another option is to spend 60k of your savings. At the end of the day, thsys what savings is for. What is 200k in a low rate CD going to do for your anyway? Just make sure you have enough for a year of living exoe ses if the dh loses his job. Allocate 1k a month for five years. Still find 200-300 in the budget to cut back on. There has to be something. The 1k a month should pay for the overage you calculated and anything like new tires, broken ac etc. Summer pool pass, anniversary dinner. This is only OK if you're contributing to retirement. This is assuming the DW gets a job when the kids are in school (in 5 yrs). A better compromise would be for your wife to spend 2-3 years at home.

Remember that you have a fixed rate mortgage and hopefully will make more money over time. This isn't a permanent situation. Your kids will go to school and your wife can do more part time work.

Can anyone identify part-time work that will generate $40k/year? That seems like a hard thing to line up unless you already have a job with a company and scale back (which is still not easy).

She doesn't need to pull in $40k/year ... I think even $10-$15k would make a difference for your family.

I read your update about pulling from savings and I don't think that's a bad idea but I wouldn't do it until the kids are in high school. What if something comes up and you need that money? It sounds like you're supporting either her or your parents. Can you compromise and have her look for work again when your youngest is in 1st grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you can shop for cheaper home ins & car ins ?
We found erie is the cheapest for us. Home & 2 cars for $1600 per year ( home is 1M value for replacement cost )
If you pay for internet like $35 per month, get ip phone like nettalk for $40 a year. Nettalk customer service is bad but the phone is working OK of us. Get 1 cell phone from free from H2O with pre-pay service like 5 cents per minute. $100 is valid for 1 year & pay for other 4 phones & $100 can be used for all 5 phones. Only use cell if you must. At home, you can use nettalk. Good luck.

I am wary of super cheap car and auto insurance; when you need it -- you NEED it. Right now we have Geico and State Farm. Heard good things about Amica and will look at that.

We only have a landline phone for emergencies (ie, derecho and having 911 work if kids are home alone). We could use that exclusively with Google Voice for unlimited national calling and use cell phones less, but really any modern adult needs cell phone b/c the way plans are more fluid and payphones have disappeared. we like the idea of prepaid phones though so will look into it; but i feel this is nibbling on edges; are groceries and fuel expenses about nominal for family of 4?

Why not go to Tmobile like I suggested upthread? I pay $117 a month total (including all taxes and fees) for unlimited calling, text and 4 gigs of data per phone. I think you can add another line for like $20 so that puts you at around $135 per month. Your bill will be less if you're a fed and can get the govt. discount. That's an easy $100 savings without feeling any pain.

It's not that cheap. You have you buy phones too. I ran th numbers versu our grandfathers plan and not huge savings. Looking at sprint too.

Fair point about buying the phones. I got 4 Samsung Galaxy Avants for $100 each ($150 with $50 rebate) and it's a nice phone. I think also have one phone that's only $50. You'd break even in about six months and then save $100 per month thereafter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, you have $250,000 in cash savings? Pay down the mortgage and refinance.

Why would we do this? We have 3.85% interest rate which is tax deductible. I am earning 2.2% on the CD it is in and it provides us enormous flexibility (like considering to stay home and use it as cushion, hence why we haven't plowed it into stocks or investment property).

If we paid down mortgage and refinanced, we might push down our mortgage to the $2700 I looked at earlier, but that is still unworkable. Being able to paydown the house so we have a $230k mortgage is beyond the means and two bedroom condos in our neighborhood go for $700k (our TH is $850k).

Moving seems like the only way; so for everyone SAH on $100k incomes, you live out in exurbs in sub-$400k houses?

So to answer your question here, we live in the city, in a house, in a very nice neighborhod, a few minutes walk from a metro, primarily on my husband's 75k salary. It is very doable, but not with your current expenses and it doesn't seem like you're willing or able to make the more drastic changes that would make this a good decision for you. We max out TSP and roths for each of us, go on several vacations per year, eat organic foods and still save additional each month. To make this work we live VERY frugally otherwise and earn extra income in other ways like me babysitting, dog walking, renting out a room in our house etc. You have to pick and choose what means the most to you and it sounds like your house means the most.

We cannot buy in our area (well its possibke, but we couldn't get anything nearly as nice as what we have). Meanwhile rent prices have not kept up with housing prices here and we found an especially affordable home that costs less than half what you pay per month. If you look at the rent vs buy calculators for houses in our area, they will tell you that with that large of a discrepancy in rent v buying prices, it is a better investment to rent and invest the difference in an index fund. You could lose the second salary, but you have to really think outside the box and make those big changes you consider off the table.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you want to do this, I recommend you accept that you need to make some drastic changes.

Your expenses are too high to be a one income household and you will enter a world of stress if you don't make some adjustments to your lifestyle expectations. All I hear above is why you cannot make any changes.

[Anonymous]

I have similar income, PITI, 2 kids, and SAHP. We buy clothes at thrift stores and ebay. No cell phones. No life insurance. Similar vacation funds. Similar kids activities. Less petro as we live close-in and I bike to work. We occasionally rent a room out. Max TSP. Good luck. It's hard to not keep up with Jones' in a rich Jones' world, but not that hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DW needs a weekend job of some sort. Some sort of income to pay for extras. She could avoid a 50 hour work week.

Another option is to spend 60k of your savings. At the end of the day, thsys what savings is for. What is 200k in a low rate CD going to do for your anyway? Just make sure you have enough for a year of living exoe ses if the dh loses his job. Allocate 1k a month for five years. Still find 200-300 in the budget to cut back on. There has to be something. The 1k a month should pay for the overage you calculated and anything like new tires, broken ac etc. Summer pool pass, anniversary dinner. This is only OK if you're contributing to retirement. This is assuming the DW gets a job when the kids are in school (in 5 yrs). A better compromise would be for your wife to spend 2-3 years at home.

Remember that you have a fixed rate mortgage and hopefully will make more money over time. This isn't a permanent situation. Your kids will go to school and your wife can do more part time work.

Can anyone identify part-time work that will generate $40k/year? That seems like a hard thing to line up unless you already have a job with a company and scale back (which is still not easy).

That's about what I make. I work between 20 and 25 hours a week. I bring in about 35-40k a year. I am an administrator in a small non-profit.

How did you find this job?

It was one of those times when everything falls into place in perfect order. Some people might say it was luck. I believe it was more than that. I was working full time in a job that was super stressful. My kids are all older....one high school junior left at home... so childcare wasn't an issue. However, my DH hated that I was working full-time. I was exhausted and we both feel that our home runs more smoothly with me at home. I told my DH that if I could find a part time job making at least 35k a year I would take it. The next day a friend of a friend called me in crisis saying her office administrator had left due to a family emergency. She knew I was working full time as a program director and that I had been the office admin at a law firm before we moved. She offered me the job that day.

It's been three years and I still love my job! 20-25 hours a week. Very flexible. Great environment. I love that it's a non-profit with a mission that I am passionate about. Honestly, I'll probobly still be working here at 70. I would volunteer for the job if it weren't a paid position.