My DH and I were in pretty much this exact situation one year ago. I decided to stay home with my baby. Here's what changed:

"Set" expenses:

Mortgage 1500 - same
HOA dues 0 - same
Car payment 700 - now 0 we won't be buying new cars again until the wheels fall off the ones we have.
Car insurance 140 - same
Student loan 0 - DH and I both payed as we went so neither have student loans.
Groceries 400 - now 800 (we ate out a TON before I stayed home. I cook 7 meals a week now and DH takes leftovers for lunch).
Gas for car 200 - now 300, I used to metro to work and only drove occasionally. Now I drive every day.
Phone/tv/net 100 - now 300 (we didn't have TV, now we do b/c we never go out.)
Other utilities 0 - 0 (Our utilities are taken care of in our rent.
Pet costs 10 - 10
Dry cleaning 20 - 0
Gym 30 - 0
Cleaning lady 140 - 0
Other misc. expenses 200 - 50
Savings 1000 - 0
Home-equity loan 0

Basically, yes, you can afford to SAH especially since you have some really low fixed expenses. Your mortgage is crazy low. I cut out 1. gym (I can run for free) 2. cleaning lady (I clean my own house - sort of) 3. savings (we saved a lot for years; we'll be ab;e to save again when DH gets another raise) 4. never get my nails done, get pedicures or massages anymore. 5. We literally eat out once a month if that. Yes, it's depressing. 6. No Kennedy Center for us! 7. We used to take 2-3 awesome vacations each year. Those are gone. 8. I buy our clothes second-hand

So, basically, all of our "fun" money and our savings got cut. Otherwise, we get by. Would I do it again? Well, I'm used to not having any frills now, but it took a little while to adjust and during that time I felt a little resentful, but now I don't care. Also keep in mind - when my baby turned a year, I decided I wanted to go back part-time, but I worked in tech and even if you're only gone for a year - that's a hell of a long time. So, I'm basically unemployable now and will need to get some additional training before I can go back to work even part-time. Also, check with your DH. Mine was 100% FOR me SAH. He doesn't believe in daycare (I do). I can imagine he would feel a LOT of resentment if I chose to SAH and he wan't on board.

It looks to me like you can stay home. The biggest thing in your favor is that incredibly low mortgage payment. I wouldn't worry about the ethics of quitting right after maternity leave. My husband owns a small business and has told me that it doesn't bother him one bit when women do this. His view is that it's a benefit that they earned and he isn't paying for it so what does he care. No company should put work on hold waiting for someone to return from maternity leave. That is poor planning and not a good way to run things. Do what is best for you and your family.

OP, just quickly adding up your expenses and considering your husband's income, it seems to me that you can afford to stay home. I see several things in your budget that could be trimmed. In particular the tv/phone/internet -- was that a typo or do you really pay $350 a month for those things? Your grocery bill will increase of course, but there are expenses associated with working that you won't have when you stay home -- new work clothes, lunches out, Starbucks, dry cleaning, commuting costs, and of course day care. Now, with a $90k salary, you will definitely be taking a hit to stay home because your income would cover child care, work expenses, and still leave with you with additional income.

As others have said, you should definitely consider your husband's job security, his future income potential (will his income increase over time?), and when/whether you plan to return to the workforce and in what position. I am a SAHM and for me it was a no-brainer because: (1) I have three kids (worked until I was almost due with the 3rd); (2) my husband's job is secure; (3) I was planning to leave the field I was working in anyway, and when I reenter the workforce it will be in a different field; (4) my income was not substantial after child care and commuting costs were deducted, plus I had a very long commute. It made sense for my husband to be able to focus on his career and work the hours he needed to to advance, and not to have to worry about sick days, snow days, etc. Financially things are tight and we don't have the DCUM prerequisites (6 months of expenses, 529s, huge retirement savings). But, I believe that there is value in SAH. It's not a must, kids were fine when I worked, but for my family there is value in having a SAH parent that can't be measured in dollars. So now that you know you *can* do it, the question is how much you value SAH and how much you would be willing to sacrifice financially in order to do it. There is no right answer, no matter what the DCUM majority says. It is about your values and priorities.

Keep the job. You make 1/2 the household income, and you have a lot of debt. Plus, babies are expensive. I have twins, was on LWOP for half of my maternity leave (yes US maternity leave policies are the worst) and I have to work. But, I like my job.

Once again another great entry. I actually have a few things to ask you, would be have some time to answer them? <a href="http://www.r43ds.info/" title="r4i gold">r4i gold</a>

Anonymous wrote:PP with the boss who left, that sounds like a separate issue--a crappy boss who left you holding the bag and then left. Don't confuse that with a working woman's right to take whatever maternity leave is given to her, because it's pretty paltry to start with in this country.

If your boss had been male and had had a heart attack and had been out for 12 weeks, left you holding the bag and came back and quit or went out on long term disability, would you think it was unethical for anyone to use FMLA or STD again to its fullest extent? Don't confuse a crappy boss with a benefit from your company's leave policy.

There is a huge difference between a pregnancy and a heart attack. Last I heard, you don't plan for 9 months for a heart attack. So the scenario that you describe is hardly a corollary. I'm sorry, but I agree with the PP that when women do this, it makes other employees wary of hiring women of child-bearing age or, heaven forbid, a woman who is already pregnant. Have you earned your benefits? Yes, and you should be entitled to them. But if you plan to leave you should at least have the class and the respect for your colleagues to stay for a few months and to help transition your replacement into the role.

I really don't know any company or person that, when they see a really qualified woman for a position, doesn't hire her SOLELY because she "could" get pregnant.

Now, the fact that she may not "fit in" or feel like "a friend" or whatever it is that people hire, yes, I get that there's that kind of pervasive discrimination where people hire who they know and who they feel comfortable with, and guys hire guys.

Listen, I agree that maternal leave in this country is a fucking disgrace. So on an individual basis I totally get why someone wants to do this. but the reality is that it is going to screw another woman over. Why? Because no one wants to hire a woman in her child bearing years. And companies don't want to offer leave packages because they think women aren't coming back anyway. Yes, it's a clusterfuck. And I understand why someone would want to take advantage of this system. But don't kid yourself -- it is fucking someone else over, usually another young woman.

PP with the boss who left, that sounds like a separate issue--a crappy boss who left you holding the bag and then left. Don't confuse that with a working woman's right to take whatever maternity leave is given to her, because it's pretty paltry to start with in this country.

If your boss had been male and had had a heart attack and had been out for 12 weeks, left you holding the bag and came back and quit or went out on long term disability, would you think it was unethical for anyone to use FMLA or STD again to its fullest extent? Don't confuse a crappy boss with a benefit from your company's leave policy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you're going to be one of those women who take advantage of maternity leave benefits financially and then quit within two weeks of going back?

Groan.

Your REAL question should be whether this is ethical behavior. The answer is no.

I left my job after my maternity leave. No ethical qualms whatsoever.

Did you know you were probably leaving all along? If so, that is 100% unethical IMO.

Why is it unethical?

I'll share an anecdote that explains why I feel this way. In a previous job many years ago my director was pregnant when she hired me. She went out on leave about three months after I started. I was trained and left with instructions to keep all of her plans in motion (which, by the way, were pretty crappy, ineffective plans considering the large initiatives we were undertaking). She took a four month leave and came in during her last week of leave to say she wouldn't be coming back. So all eyes turned to me, and when I explained to the CEO why I felt her work had been ineffective and why I did not feel we were well positioned to meet our objectives on deadline, it was left to me to clean up her mess with only 2.5 months left in the fiscal year. Those 2.5 months were some of the most stressful in my life.

I am convinced this woman knew when she hired me that she wasn't going to be coming back - which explains why she hired someone underneath her who was obviously more capable of doing her own job than she was. In essence, she wasted several critical months that could have been better spent improving programs/processes/etc. I am a woman and a working mother now myself, and to this day I have 0% respect for what she did.

I crushed those fiscal year goals, BTW - she left me hanging and I wanted to prove just how shitty she had been at her job anyway. In hindsight I should thank her - I received and took full advantage of an amazing opportunity because of her dishonesty and incompetence.

And bottom line - I think women who do this make it much harder for mothers to be treated fairly in the hiring process and in the workplace. I've experienced that discrimination firsthand and feel that I have women like my former boss to thank for it.