Anonymous wrote:Op, what is your HHI? I work a very low paid part time job so I can be home in the afternoon for the kids. It hurts my ego to have such a low paying job after all the education I worked hard for, and we don't take fancy vacations or have the kids in as many activities as they want, but it has been worth it for us. The balance would be too hard otherwise.

+1 this describes us as well

DH outweighs my salary by about 60-40%. A few years ago I went to a 80% schedule. It meant a 20% paycut but has made life so much easier. Teleworking isn't an option, but even without it, I'm home in time to pick our 8yr old up at school and even run an errand or two before I do so.

On your salary, I know you can't outsource everything, but think about the areas where you can. For us, the splurge is a weekly cleaning lady so that we don't have to spend time cleaning toilets and sinks, mopping floors, changing beds. We do all of our own cooking and I grocery shop, but I know families that swear by Blue Apron and Hello Fresh-type services which are more expensive but definitely easier. Look at grocery delivery or the Harris Teeter pick-up lane.

The other thing that has made a huge difference in our lives, has been staying in the same neighborhood for a decade and building a support structure of other families. Some have extended family in the area, and some don't, but it's huge when at the last minute we can reach out to each other for things like childcare. I have one neighbor who WAH, so if I need a package signed for she can do it rather than having to come home from work. Friends and I regularly grab each other's kids at school to ease the burden on each other for late day meetings or traffic jams. We are already planning carpool for summer camps in August, for example. My village has been huge for us in the absence of family nearby.

Hire a local HS student for sure for a few hrs a week. Can you downsize? How many bedrooms? How many kids? If you could free up the income from the huge mortgage by downsizing in your area you could buy yourselves a nicer life - fewer parent work hours, more babysitting, less space to clean.

Similar, too. Debating going to 35 hours in the office (still checking blackberry outside and working from home if needed). Just to get an hour back in the afternoon.

I've thought about hiring a high school or college student 3 times a week for the 4-6pm timeframe. Have given up on that, yet.

We are all in this boat too OP and most of my friends are, too. We don't have a cleaner but considering getting one 1-2x a month.

I think you need help somewhere, OP. First thing, if your kids are at SACC, they are old enough to spend 15 mins. contributing to house cleanup every evening. Definitely hire a maid service to help with cleaning. It will be the best money you ever spent.

We are in the same boat, both WOH, no family in the area. I would say in my neighborhood, the families are evenly split between those who have family help and those who don't. Those who don't spend more to outsource but yes, it's exhausting.

I would say 75% of my friends are in this situation? More the norm than not. I do this with a spouse that has a job with 30-50% travel; I have friends who do this and who are single parents. I think it helps to be in a place where it's the norm rather than not.

We have a weekly cleaner and we straighten up the night before she comes. Post-weekend is the messiest -- we are pretty tidy during the week, since we aren't home!

Can the kids do homework in aftercare? I basically boycott homework, but my kid is young and I may change my mind on that.

What do you mean by 'afterschool activities'? At school, or do you mean that you are shuttling the kids to a soccer practice or some such? All our afterschool activities are incorporated into the school's aftercare program. That would kill me. And I think our aftercare is set up so that it CAN accommodate FT working families -- that's what I mean by being in a place where this is the norm.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, what is your HHI? I work a very low paid part time job so I can be home in the afternoon for the kids. It hurts my ego to have such a low paying job after all the education I worked hard for, and we don't take fancy vacations or have the kids in as many activities as they want, but it has been worth it for us. The balance would be too hard otherwise.

$200k, we know it's not bad, but have a VERY expensive mortgage to keep commutes under an hour. All my co-workers live out in Howard county etc and commute 1 hr+. Most of them have parents living with/near them to help with kids.

Pretty sure can't swing house manager with current budget, and cutting salary 20% will mean moving and the non-telework spouse commute time will escalate -- not sure if that will help?

It's sad that 100k wouldn't be sufficient in this area! But I get it (you were responding to me). Our HHI is 150k and I bring in a very small percentage of that, but we don't have the downtown commute to contend with, so I get why you're stuck.

What about a college student in early Ed who you hire to come to your house before you arrive and get dinner started and help with homework?

Sounds like us. In our case, I am the only one with leaving early/arriving late flexibility and I also have the shorter commute.

Instead of one of us dropping to part-time/50% WAH, we used every organization technique we could manage to reduce the running around on weekends. For example, laundry gets done during the week and not all left to the weekend. (I love you, Delay Wash button!)

We also minimized after-school activities and aimed for things close to home. (No travel soccer for us.)

Today I WAH one day a week which helps tremendously.

We both WOH full time and have no family nearby. It has definitely been challenging but we opted for a full time nanny since our kids are younger 4 and 1 and she is very helpful beyond just caring for the kids - she does their laundry, cooks meals for them, keeps the house clean and does what's necessary to clean up after them (vacuums, cleans kitchen, etc). She also helps with our laundry or other household tasks when the baby is napping and older is at school.

I know it's a cost thing and harder to justify when you have older kids - but since we don't have any family and we both have demanding but well paying jobs, we decided we would just have to outsource what we can to get by.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, what is your HHI? I work a very low paid part time job so I can be home in the afternoon for the kids. It hurts my ego to have such a low paying job after all the education I worked hard for, and we don't take fancy vacations or have the kids in as many activities as they want, but it has been worth it for us. The balance would be too hard otherwise.

$200k, we know it's not bad, but have a VERY expensive mortgage to keep commutes under an hour. All my co-workers live out in Howard county etc and commute 1 hr+. Most of them have parents living with/near them to help with kids.

Pretty sure can't swing house manager with current budget, and cutting salary 20% will mean moving and the non-telework spouse commute time will escalate -- not sure if that will help?

Oh, and salaries are 50/50 HHI -- so no obvious choice on which job to cut back on (other than for all other families it was the mom who did it)

Anonymous wrote:Op, what is your HHI? I work a very low paid part time job so I can be home in the afternoon for the kids. It hurts my ego to have such a low paying job after all the education I worked hard for, and we don't take fancy vacations or have the kids in as many activities as they want, but it has been worth it for us. The balance would be too hard otherwise.

$200k, we know it's not bad, but have a VERY expensive mortgage to keep commutes under an hour. All my co-workers live out in Howard county etc and commute 1 hr+. Most of them have parents living with/near them to help with kids.

Pretty sure can't swing house manager with current budget, and cutting salary 20% will mean moving and the non-telework spouse commute time will escalate -- not sure if that will help?

Op, what is your HHI? I work a very low paid part time job so I can be home in the afternoon for the kids. It hurts my ego to have such a low paying job after all the education I worked hard for, and we don't take fancy vacations or have the kids in as many activities as they want, but it has been worth it for us. The balance would be too hard otherwise.

This was us. It was hard on our marriage. My kids are 4 and 6, and we now both work from home. 3 years ago, I took a 20% paycut to work from home a few days a week. This has turned into working from home 95% of the time.

So at our school, we were trying to coordinate with other families over summer camp, and we realized in our DD class, we are the only family with both parents WOH without local grandparents/aunts/uncles to share the load.

Majority seems most of the moms end up with a part--time job, or with significant telework arrangements.

We know one family with both parents working, but their grandparents pickup their kids everyday.

We both work full-time (40+ hours) with 30-45 minute commutes, and telework is not an option. We often have to catch up on email or be on-call at night.

We split shift, so we can get home not TOO late, and kids can do some afterschool activities, but getting dinner on the table and keeping house tidy is impossible. We had a cleaner for awhile, but it didn't help b/c it was the daily explosion of dishes, pots, pans and kids afterschool detritus that is the real issue. We need to get the kids to be more responsible for chores, we own, that but since as soon as we get home we trying to get dinner on the table and homework done there isn't much time for hand on parenting and enforcing chores. We consider dropping afterschool activities, but our kids natural instinct is not to be physical (in SACC they hang out inside doing crafts), so this is important to encouraging physical fitness. No backyard so can't just kick them out back while I make dinner, and not sure they would actually move rather than dig for worms

Weekends are slog of laundry, errands, catchup cleaning, but really house is kind of always a disaster so we can't entertain. We really need someone on deck, but it isn't like we can afford a house manager or live in nanny. And leaving early/late for split shift I'm sure is not helping our career advancement but only way we are hanging on.

Curious to hear from other families with both parents WOH without family nearby, and do we need to make some hard choices to get one of us down to part time or 50% WAH?