It’s easy to debate the financial loss of income that occurs when a parent stays at home with their children. The easy part is can you really afford to do it? Can you live on one income and survive? Do you have medical benefits? Will you still be able to save for retirement? Or do you make enough to pay for daycare? Will you spend less by not working? These are the easy and obvious questions financial questions regarding a loss of income.
Of course there is the emotional and personal issues with staying at home. Are you suited to it temperment wise? Can you handle being at home emotionally and mentally? Do you like working? These are family issues which can’t be measured against anyone but yourself.
So what is the hidden financial costs/benefits to staying at home? My DH has asked what about the loss of promotions and raises that would naturally happen if you were working instead of staying at home with your children? Where would you be in your career if you don’t stop working and what would you pay be?
An example would be getting 3% raises for 5 straight years = 16% net income raised and over 8 years = 28% net income raise. Also you’d keep your job skills sharp and learn new ones. So it’s not just the loss of income now but the loss of future raises.
How do you reconcile this loss of future income? Can you really financially ever reconcile it? I don’t think so. I don’t think it can be a financial question. Mostly because you don’t know how you’ll feel. You don’t know you’ll have a healthy child able to go to daycare if you wanted to work. And you don’t know that you’ll be employed in this economic environment.
What’s your take on it?
17 responses so far ↓
1 dogatemyfinances // Jan 6, 2009 at 10:16 am
Depends on your career as well. I’m thinking some would be easier to jump back into, like maybe nursing or trombone lessons. It’s the corporate ladder that you miss out on.
2 FruWiki Meg // Jan 6, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I stay at home — even without kids (or plans for them). Without going into a lot of detail, I’ll say that I didn’t plan this, but obviously things didn’t go as planned.
I do work from home some, but it’s not significant income right now (though I hope maybe it will be one day and I’m looking for ways to augment that income). I make other contributions, though.
For example, I help out around the house (though I will admit that I’m not Martha Stewart), I garden some, and I help with the pets (including our two hens). More importantly, though, I manage the household and am, I guess you could say, a life coach for my husband.
While I don’t want to take anything away from his accomplishments, my husband would be the first to say that he wouldn’t be where he is today if it wasn’t for me. I’ve networked for him, polished his resume repeatedly, kept him informed of relevant local and business news, given him plenty of advice how to deal with company issues, built websites for him, and just generally helped him better see what he needed to do and how to do it. In the 7 years we’ve been married, he’s gone from being basically an unemployed/free-lance computer tech to the CTO of a multistate company — which found out about him in the first place because I talked about him so highly to the right people.
On the other hand, I’ve also been the one who got us living frugally. We ran up a lot of debt, especially when he was unemployed. However, I took what I learned online about frugality and finances, shared it with him, and helped us get finally get on track financially. And of course, staying home has also let us spend less on things like an extra vehicle, more clothes, gas, etc.
I know a lot of people think I’m crazy for staying home (that or lazy), but it’s easy for me to see the benefits. My husband’s income is about three times what I’d be making right now — if not more. And our cost cutting measures have enabled us to keep our regular expenses down to… well, what I would have been making. (Most of the rest we’re throwing at debt and savings.)
Honestly, I don’t think that I would have had the time for all of that if I had followed my original plans. (Heck, if I followed my original original plans I probably wouldn’t be married.)
Are there things that I give up? Sure! It’s easy to get into a rut where I just stay home and don’t go out and see people nearly enough. And yes, if my husband and I did split I probably would not be as well off financially as I would otherwise. However, I can get out more if I make a point to and I am working on ways to make more money without sacrificing those things that I like about staying home.
But bottom line, my husband and I both love the fact that I can stay at home right now.
3 FruWiki Meg // Jan 6, 2009 at 12:27 pm
LOL! That turned out to be a lot longer than I thought!
4 Beef Up Your Piggy // Jan 6, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I agree with dogatemyfinances. Teachers, Nurses, etc have an easier time of finding a job once the kids are in school. I work in corporate/govt arena and you would be plain out of luck if I missed 5-7 years of work experience and training. That being said, I have had friends successfully do this and are very happy to have done so. I do think it boils down to what you prioritize in your life. If I could afford to stay home, I’m not sure I would but can absolutely understand those that do. But they have to understand they are losing more than just their take home salary. They are also losing extra money put into retirement accounts and the compounding interest as well.
5 JB // Jan 6, 2009 at 1:30 pm
“I don’t think it can be a financial question.”
Great statement. There are lots of things you can’t measure (especially financially)… both pros and cons of staying home.
It does depend a lot on the job and the income received.
But one big benefit that I think we’ll have when my wife stays home (in March), is that it will be a lot less stressful. No stressing about getting all the laundry done on Sunday night. No stressing about who’s going to pick up one of the kids from school. No stressing about what to do for dinner because both of you get home at 7:30.
6 fengshui // Jan 6, 2009 at 1:31 pm
My solution is working part time. I can still be with my child most of the time, but still keep my foot in the door professionally, and still put away for retirment and college fund. Seems like a win-win to me!
7 fengshui // Jan 6, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Fruwikimeg- although in your case, it happened to work out to your advatage, I think that is a very rare incident. Not many people at all would be able to climb the ladder and advance to tripling their income by having someone network and polish their cv for them. My hubby wants me to work….. but then again I think that he knows that I would go mad if I didn’t work at all.
8 Debtfree2009 // Jan 6, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I left my corporate career 14 years ago. There is no way I could go back into the field (chemistry/research). I have been considering doing something different once the 14yo is off to college but have no idea what.
I will say that I don’t regret staying home with my children but I’m going through that phase of “what in the world will I do” when the kids are gone.
9 Kristy // Jan 6, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I think this is a personal decision that only you and your DH can make. It is not only about finances, but about personality.
I deal well with stress and am better off working. I am actually pretty good at balancing working, childcare, household stuff, etc. I also have a husband that shares in the responsibilitis of childcare and household chorese. We cook almost every night of the week and we have a balance. Ask me again when baby # 2 arrives in April and I may have a different answer! LOL!
That being said, I could not take a few years off and reenter the workforce at my current salary. I also would have to keep up to date as my field changes all the time. Not everyone has an easy time reentering the workforce. Not everyone wants to though either. This is personal…good luck making your decision.
You can always change it if you don’t like the decision you made.
10 JB // Jan 6, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I wanted to add one more thing…
My wife, who stopped going to college a few years back, plans on not working when our 2nd child comes in March. However, she does plan on taking at least 1 or 2 classes a semester to slowly finish her degree while taking care of the children.
11 FruWiki Meg // Jan 6, 2009 at 4:02 pm
@fengshui
Very true! I certainly don’t think our situation would work for everyone, though perhaps there are still a good number of people out there who could do what we do and just don’t know it. Either way, I know how lucky I am to have a husband who is so smart and talented, even if his business and people skills sometimes need help. And I’m very glad that he appreciates that I’m there to help him with those things that he’s not as good at. We make a great team.
My take on the whole matter is simply that every couple should find out what works best for them — regardless of gossip or other societal pressures. Personally, I look forward to the day when more husbands and dads can be the stay at home spouse without being called bums. My dad raised me while my mom worked and he was anything but a bum. It’s just what worked best for them since he had retired early due to health problems.
12 fengshui // Jan 6, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I agree w/ you Meg about the SAHD thing being appreciated. If we decide that me working PT and DH working FT is too much, then my DH would stay home. It makes sense for us since I make more than twice what he does. My father would be disturbed by it, but I don’t care. He’s very old school.
13 LAL // Jan 7, 2009 at 10:10 am
I agree it depends on the field. Interesting perspective Meg that you’ve improved your DH’s career by staying at home. I liken that to military wives who stay at home because they move so often it’s hard to get a job. Their jobs are caring for the families and moving when necessary on a minute’s notice.
14 FruWiki Meg // Jan 8, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Interesting connection, LAL! I almost joined the military myself. I wonder sometimes how my husband would have handled that, lol. He wasn’t the only reason why I changed my plans, but I think I knew deep down that he wasn’t prepared to follow me around the world. Not to say that he wouldn’t do it for me — but I don’t think he’d feel very good about it.
15 Andrea // Jan 9, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I think the more important questions are, do you enjoy playing with small children for several hours per day? or would you end up poking your eyes out after several hours of block play? Do you know how to encourage a child’s gross/fine motor skills, intellectual abilities and social skills? There’s a tendency in society to infer that it is easy but it is not a natural skill for everyone. But like everything if the desire is there, it can be learned and most of success is time spent on task anyway. ex if you want to be a great runner, run more. Also- kids need to play outside, is it really cold where you live? Do you enjoy playing outside when it’s 20 degrees outside??? Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of pluses, flexible schedule, easier to carve out time to exercise, etc. but I think it all comes down to how you want to spend your time.
16 LivingAlmostLarge // Jan 9, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Truly, I think SAH is a thankless job honestly. You get a lot of crap for very hard work.
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