You often hear of people saying that they don't make enough money after child care is paid for to continue working so they become SAHMs. But for those of you are/will be working moms, I assume that you do have a good amount leftover so that it is still "worth it" to continue working. How much take home pay do you have left after paying for child care/other expenses?
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I have changed my feelings on this. I used to feel like if I took home less than a reasonable wage for my industry, what's even the point? Why would I want to go to work to make minimum wage? So a little while ago, I would have answered "30K - $40K." However, a couple things have changed my mind.
First of all, I don't feel totally comfortable putting a dollar value on what staying home with my (future) kids is worth. I kind of feel like it's saying either, "I don't want to stay home, but I might as well," OR, "I want to stay home with my kids, but I like the money I make more." I know that's not really the case, but that's how it feels when thinking of it in these terms.
The terms I have been thinking of it in instead are: (1) Will working, or not working, be good for me as a mother and us as a family? and (2) Is the lack of additional income going to keep us from achieving our goals as as a family? I still haven't made up my mind about (1). As far as (2), right now, I think the answer would be "yes." At DH's current salary scale, we would have to adjust many of our goals considerably - including being able to save for LO's college - if I stayed home.
All that to say, I don't have a specific number anymore!
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@daniellemybelle: thanks for your very thoughtful response! that makes a lot of sense. i have added an "other" option in case you want to vote for that!
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@Andrea: Hey thanks! I guess my point is that while it used to sound piddly to me to take home, say, $10,000 after childcare, now I think - We could put that $10,000 a year in a college savings account! If I am happy working and it's good for our family, even an extra $10,000 can make a positive difference.
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@daniellemybelle: i think it does depend. if you really enjoy your work and have suitable child care then $10k is probably great! but let's say you're miserable at work and do not have good child care options, then i probably wouldn't continue working for $10k.
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@Andrea: Definitely! That's why I said it really does come down to if working is right for you & your family!
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I don't know what the dollar amount would be for us. My husband is the "breadwinner", but I do pretty well too. I'm paid twice a month and a good day care will be about 50% of one of my paychecks (assuming I don't change my tax deduction). FINANCIALLY it makes sense for me to work full-time because we can do a lot with that money (fixing up the house, more vacations, nice things, etc) but I'm really entertaining the part time option to make our lives easier (I could run errands, do things around the house, etc) which it's hard to put a price on. If my husband started making like 50% more money next week I might think about quitting though...
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I have a friend who is in her dream job- after day care for her 2 daughters, she brings home $10 per paycheck. She is happy and it works for her and her husband. I don't find fault with anyone's decisions, everyone has to do what works best for their family.
For me the money doesn't even factor in, I really want to stay at home while my kids are little. I do work a day or two a week since I enjoy my job- I just don't enjoy it as much as hanging out with my son.
Right now we are in the process of adjusting to our new budget, it is a lot tighter and not much fun worrying about money- I gave up a very good sized paycheck. But I also took my sanity into account, by staying home I can take better care of the house, cook, and be happier than if I did daycare and a 40+ hour work week.
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I think one of the big questions which is just as important as how much take-home pay would you have after childcare expenses, is how much (generally pre-tax money) are you missing out contributing to retirement savings compounded over the X number of years you plan not to work.
If I quit my job now, I would lose about 40-45k of my take-home pay (after deducting daycare expenses), and who knows how many tens of thousands of dollars in compounded and employer matched retirement savings.
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@yoursilverlining: good point - thanks for bringing up retirement! i don't have any retirement plan through work so that is not part of my personal consideration.
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So I see two different questions in your question. One is how much do you have left over vs how much is enough. The Mr would need to earn $25kmore than he does now to reasonably cover child care expenses. (2 babies, one in school, one with nanny or day care). And that's probably low balling it... But we're counting that going to work might be good for him in other ways, so that's factored.
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Well, for us it came down to monthly take-home leftover. We have been sending a lot of money each month to our mortgage and want to continue doing that. That eats a big chunk out of our paychecks but it will be worth it when she's 13,our house is paid off and we can send her to private high school., if we want to.
After that, we both put away to our 401ks and max out our IRA's. We then put money away to replace our cars someday. Once that is all done, we looked at how much we each could get a month for play money, gas money and grocery money. Finally, we needed a buffer after all of that to put into general savings.
I feel our decision for both of us to work is so we can provide the best life possible for our daughter and provide ourselves a good cushion for someday when we don't want to work anymore. We actually will be able to not work someday. That is what's most important.
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I kept working after #1 because I wanted to continue save, put into retirement, and pay my student loans. after #2, I did stay home though because while I would still take home some leftover $, it didn't seem "enough".... Honestly, we didn't even calculate it out completely. We just knew that with two kids now, our family life would benefit much more from me staying home with them vs outsourcing to a nanny/daycare or a combo of both. my husband works long hours and he has realized that he feels more taken care of too when I'm not stretched too thin. so it works for us for now. I will go back to work someday though... Part-time would be ideal.
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