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At what point would you go back to work/ how "tight" does it have to be?


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Awkward title but hopefully it makes sense.

 

Money has been on my mind lately. With the kids getting older and expenses growing my belief that we can live on 1 income indefinitely is not as sure as before. Groceries keep going up(and feeding my kids real food is a priority), vehicles eventually have to be replaced(all of ours are 15 yrs+), homes need maintenance, some children *need* braces, older kids cost more money, medical expenses can pop up unexpectedly for anyone etc. etc. 

 

On one hand, I know we are far more fortunate than the vast majority of the world, on the other we don't live in a 3rd world country and I would rather not have my kids living *that* far removed from normal society(and no that doesn't mean that they have to be decked out in Under Armour and doing 5 different activities each). We're naturally fairly frugal or we wouldn't be driving such old vehicles and shopping for clothes at Goodwill but the dollar only stretches so far. We do need to cut some now as we've gotten lazy but at a certain point there is nothing more to cut, you need more income.

 

Dh thinks I'm being negative, no, I'm generally the optimist, right now I'm just trying to face the facts. I don't know that we can continue to face upcoming growing expenses without increasing income in some way. Dh is fairly topped out where he is and for his health needs not to work massive amounts of overtime(although that is always his suggestion). He is doing some work on the side that pays well but it is sporadic and we don't know how long it will last. I'm working on a side job but my time is limited with the kids home and I am not in a career that is high paying as it is. 

 

Do you have a line?

If you cannot afford *xyz* ?

*This* much debt?

*This* little savings?

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I have similar thoughts.  Then again, I don't think I can earn an amount of money that will make a huge difference AND still homeschool (and remain sane).  So I think sometimes I'm just gonna have to say no to an expense (obviously I'm not at a point where I have to say no to food and transportation). 

 

At the moment I have some impending major medical/dental expenses (for me).  I'm kinda stuck between a rock and a crazy place with this though because I won't be able to address the medical/dental issues if I'm working.  But I need the money.  I am at a point where I might decide to have less desirable/effective fixes because they are less expensive. (Ah welcome to the American health care/insurance system.)

 

 

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((hugs))  I think this is an individual decision based on your family situation, and I sympathize.  I hate, hate, hate money problems.

 

That said, for me, it would have to be really, really, really, really tight and also for more than just a "season."  We made the decision when I was pregnant with dd for me to stay home, and that still is really important to us.

 

However, money is finite, and you can't get blood from a stone.  

 

((hugs)) Best of luck in your decisions.

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I wonder about this, too.

 

I guess the main line for me is when I feel like I am worried about our fixed expenses - things like our house.  Or as you mention, groceries.  I have been shocked a few times recently with a grocery order where I was choosing very frugally but it was still a significantly large bill.

 

My struggle does tend to be with kids activities - we pay out a fair bit for some - music lessons in particular.  If we really need to cut back, that is where we would have to do it.  There are a few other things we could cut, with relation to vacations for example, but they are not the same kind of regular expense.  Am I willing to do that - I'm not sure that I am. 

 

Before we had a new baby, I was thinking that I might try and go back to work sooner rather than later.  My husband had a second job which he left when he got a raise recently, so it came out the same - but he was very unhappy with that job and stressed by doing to much.  So, it would make more sense for me to work.  My thought was, once my son was into his school work well enough that he'd be ok with the public school expectations, I might send him.  Now, it's more complicated as I will have a little for a while yet.  Even so, I may need to think about something in the evenings..

 

It's a difficult problem. 

 

 

 

 

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It depends on what kind of income you might be bringing in, weighed against the costs involved with working.

 

For me, it made sense to go  back to work full time.  But we did need a more reliable vehicle for me once I did that.  I didn't need a fancy wardrobe but I did need some new items of clothing.  I think I paid about $200 upfront for that, mostly Target Tees, Goodwill little light jackets to wear over them, and some pants from Target and Walmart.  

 

Our goal was always to have me go back to work to pay for the boys' college expenses AND get the rest of my retirement funded through the state.  My oldest is now in college, although it is community college so it isn't that expensive, but we have another who is a senior next year who will need more $$.

 

This past year, 100% of my salary/take home went to paying off debts.  We had a HELOC and a car that needed to be paid off.  That pained me, but it had to be done.

 

This year we have a little left of debt and the rest will go into a college fund.  

 

PS:  I should add that I LIKE working and I only stopped because I have a special needs son who needed my attention.  I actually didn't like being a SAHM. 

Edited by DawnM
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Looking 5-7 years down the line, I decided that I would need to back to work in order to ease the financial burden of paying for college. They will all be in school at once if they stay on their current track. I just don't think I can see my husband working harder than he is now while I stay at home during the college years. He never asked me to go back to work, I decided to for myself. I'm in school now so that in 4 or 5 years I'll be back in the workforce earning a very good salary.

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I don't have a specific line, but since I have a child not old enough for school yet, it doesn't make financial sense for me to work because after taxes, childcare, and commuting expenses, I likely wouldn't bring home enough to make it worthwhile. I do have a college degree and some work experience, but I don't want to go back to anything I've done before and don't have a degree that would make it easy to get another job. Once we are done having babies (another year or two at the most) and our last baby is a few years old, I might go back to school and then work at least part time to help more with college and retirement. But we want a parent home. It takes a lot of energy to run our household and family, and it's important to us that we keep the children home if at all possible. We have a few for whom the public school would definitely not be a good fit.

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I always worked part time when I home schooled to keep my union seniority. If you are already working part time, you have a good idea of what would change if you worked full time. The teen years are big money eaters, that is for certain. there is just no winning because teens need the money, they eat more, their clothes are more expensive, and their activities cost more. I worked as much as I could when my ds started CC to pay cash for it, and often felt stressed. I think it's easier to belt tighten when the kids are small, rather than older.  

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I think about this too. My kids are little right now and we want a couple more. I imagine it will take more money the older they get. I think when they need me less I'll work a bit. At this stage I wouldnt missit for the world. As long as we can afford to change the baby's diaper everytime she pees we are good. If we got to the point of leaving her in a wet diaper I''d work. I see this a lot in my family and it is sad I think. Anyway we have plenty to eat and waste a ton on a lot of fun, so we could cut back LOTS before it came to me working. Dh would yave to cut out his 2 packs of cigarettes a day habit before I'd work too. That is like a $10 a day habit.

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I think about this too. My kids are little right now and we want a couple more. I imagine it will take more money the older they get. I think when they need me less I'll work a bit. At this stage I wouldnt missit for the world. As long as we can afford to change the baby's diaper everytime she pees we are good. If we got to the point of leaving her in a wet diaper I''d work. I see this a lot in my family and it is sad I think. Anyway we have plenty to eat and waste a ton on a lot of fun, so we could cut back LOTS before it came to me working. Dh would yave to cut out his 2 packs of cigarettes a day habit before I'd work too. That is like a $10 a day habit.

 

:ohmy:   That is a huge expense.  $300/mo for cigarettes?  I had no idea.

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I don't have any line or formula, but I think for me, I'd be okay with typical debt like a home mortgage (as long as we could pay it month to month), but if our credit card debt was only increasing with necessary things like food and medical and we were not able to bring it back down, then it's definitely time to re-think how we're doing it.  We'd probably try and figure out how much extra would make a difference each month. $1000? $1200?  If my working part-time somewhere would cover that difference and it didn't interrupt our home life too much, that would be a good and fairly easy solution for us.  I was able to go back to work part-time in the afternoons when our kids were older and were fine with me leaving them alone from 2:00-5:00 every day, and those hours (plus some eBay selling and a few other small home jobs.) were enough for us to cover some extras and make a difference. 

 

We were quite frugal for many years, and living in a small town really helped with that.  Almost everything is walkable so we only needed one car.  My parents owned a cabin in a lake area so that gave us a free vacation every year.  Cost of living is low here, and there are really aren't many kids activities even offered in our area!  My kids were able to take part in public school sports teams, plays, choirs, etc. at no charge which really helped.  I still remember how much it pained me when extra expenses popped up that probably seemed pretty small to some, like when my kids were on the swim team and at the end of the season parents were asked to give $15 each to the team captain so they could buy a nice towel with the kid's name embroidered on it as a special end-of-the-season gift to each team member.  Little things like that really ate into our budget -- that's how tight our budget was.  Our kids generally got part-time jobs at 14, and were able to mostly pay for their own summer camp experience if they wanted to do that (and our church usually paid half as well).  But we did have to say no to more expensive camps like state swimming camps, which our kids probably would have enjoyed and benefitted from.

 

But we were able to just make it work without going deeper into debt and everyone was happy and not too stressed.  I was glad I could start working part-time when our oldest was just flying the coop and our youngest was middle school age.  That helped, and coincided with my dh's business doing better...  just in time for college!

 

I will say that what helped with all of this was the belief that at some point my dh's business would do well.  Of course there was no guarantee (and we went through some very lean times while waiting!).

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:ohmy: That is a huge expense. $300/mo for cigarettes? I had no idea.

Yeah it is horrifying. He wants to quit, but hasnt yet. We live where things are cheap. When we visit family near Philadelphia they were quite a bit more. Like I said I would NOT miss my babies growing up for this. He would have to quit. Luckily we have what we need.

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I'm the opposite. The worse our finances, the more I feel I can't/shouldn't work bc the harder it would be to do all the stuff I do now plus work. It's takes money to work and there's many ways I save us money by staying home that would be much harder for me to do if I had a job. And in my lack of work history and skills, any job I got would likely not pay much, have benefits or be very flexible.

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If I were unable to meet our basic needs and some of our wants I would return to work. For us, that means being unable to fund their undergraduate studies, summer camps here and there and a trip once every other year or two. Once DS gets to 7th/8th grade, I plan to return to work to help us transition to retirement with ease and get established in a new community.

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At this point, we would incur school costs AND we would still need to outlay significant childcare costs to cover before/after school and breaks. If the public schools were a more viable option for my kids, I would consider it because I am pretty miserable as a SAHM. If we had to pay private tuition x 4 plus the additional childcare plus another vehicle, wardrobe (can't wear random yoga pants and holey t-shirts to court), continuing ed, etc., etc., I would not be bringing home much of anything. If I could find schools that were good fits for my older kids that were financially feasible, I would do it even at a slight loss to be honest. Alas, here I am in my holey shirts, talking to imaginary people on the interwebs...

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For me the line was medical insurance. I can make good money so when I went back to work, we paid for a private teacher with my take home pay.

 

I did quit once dh got a job with benefits. We gave it about a year to make sure and i quit.

 

Every so often I think about how much we could do if I worked and put the kids in public school. But it's not worth it.

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I'm the opposite. The worse our finances, the more I feel I can't/shouldn't work bc the harder it would be to do all the stuff I do now plus work. It's takes money to work and there's many ways I save us money by staying home that would be much harder for me to do if I had a job. And in my lack of work history and skills, any job I got would likely not pay much, have benefits or be very flexible.

 

I also look at it that way.  Working would cost me money.  I have to make an amount that makes it worthwhile.

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I'm the opposite. The worse our finances, the more I feel I can't/shouldn't work bc the harder it would be to do all the stuff I do now plus work. It's takes money to work and there's many ways I save us money by staying home that would be much harder for me to do if I had a job. And in my lack of work history and skills, any job I got would likely not pay much, have benefits or be very flexible.

 

 

This is us, too. Especially having little bitty ones, and in Louisiana, where public school was not an option. It would have cost more for me to work, and D's call schedule made it absolutely impossible. There just was no way to cover nighttime childcare and daytime childcare, and commuting expenses, etc on my income. That's why I came home in the first place. 

 

Ironically, now D is making enough and has a reasonable enough work schedule that I realistically could work. Our concern now is that the stress and inconvenience of working would be detrimental. I would lose a lot of time with my kids, even just picking up the odd shift. I have a million options here that did not have before. If we needed the money, I would work. But we don't, really. I want to work because I love my field and it's extremely rewarding. Not because we need it. 

 

For us, it really comes down to practicality. Work out a calendar, and run the numbers. what would it look like on a real, practical basis? Is it worth it?

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I've just decided to go back to school so I can go back to work in 4-5 years.

 

Our tipping point was when big but not completely unexpected expenses became a stress point and problem. For example - fixing a well, replacing fireplace liners and new wood stove, needing a new fridge, paying a plumber to find and fix a leak in the plumbing, unexpected medical expenses. No scrimping and saving on our part could give us the $$ to pay for these big expenses, so we decided the solution was a higher income. 

 

The jobs I could get now wouldn't have the payout to make a change in lifestyle worthwhile, and I still have a preschooler who I wouldn't want to send to daycare. So I'm going back to school to focus on a field with a higher expected salary and that will eventually allow flexibility with schedules and working from home. We are hoping to continue homeschooling with maybe hiring an au pair or nanny for 1-2 years to help with the homeschooling while I get settled in the field.

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I never really worked in the first place after we got married.  I had a few temporary jobs but no real career.  I don't think that I could get a job that would be worth me going to work at the moment.  It would have to be something major, like DH being disabled or worse before I would really consider it at this point.  His paychecks are decent, but recent major medical expenses are straining our budget, as is having teenagers to feed.  I have thought about trying to get a job, but I would need more training to get a decent job, and that would be an added expense so not really worth it.  I do have a degree and training, but it has been years since I did anything other than volunteer work with my skills.

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I'm going to answer without reading other responses first. 

 

Personally, I always said I would definitely go to work if we had to worry about basic monthly bills - mortgage, groceries, healthcare. Some people are good at juggling money and and making payments 'just in time,' but dh and I would both be too anxious to be good parents under those conditions. 

 

I would have strongly considered going back to work if we couldn't do any extras like lessons or simple vacations. 

 

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When I sit and look at our tax situation, the cost of quality day care, and tutoring for my LD kids, it doesn't make sense for me to go back to work outside of the home.

 

My line in the sand:

*needed medical care

*preventing being homeless (entirely)

 

We drive old/high mileage vehicles and make a number of other tradeoffs to keep me home.  Dd is going to preschool this fall only because I hit a physical breaking point to how much I could take on, and it's cheaper than hiring tutors for my LD kids. 

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We've not reached *that* point yet but I feel we need to get some more cash into short-term savings pronto. I'm not feeling very secure at this moment. We did have $X in savings and I felt we were fairly well-prepared but then dh had some leaner years and we didn't cut back like we should have. We've tried to get it built back up but we've not been very successful, I finally told dh we're going to have to try something new because this method isn't working. Having retirement savings isn't much good if you have to wipe it out to deal with some emergency. I'm also not going to sacrifice retirement just to keep the kids at home. There is no telling what support systems and safety nets will be in place by the time we are old enough to retire and I don't want my children to be saddled with our care and keep if at all possible, raising a family is hard enough. Or end up in poverty, I worked for Senior Services for a bit it is mind blowing how poor so many of our elderly are, deciding between food and medicine, can't afford to do anything, at the mercy of charity and government programs.

 

At this point, we are a year off from my youngest being k age. I'm happy enough with the local schools, the more so the more time I spend there. I've long thought that I might put the youngest 2 in school anyway for various reasons. I believe my son needs to be kept home if at all possible but luckily he is getting old enough I'd not worry so much about him being home(unless we had an emergency it would be a year minimum before I even considered going back to work). So, we would not have massive tuition or childcare expenses. Yes, we would have an increase in some expenses but we'd still end up ahead with me working full-time.

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For us, we'd have to be at the point where even a couple hundred bucks a month would make a huge difference, because that's all we'd end up with after paying for daycare and everything. It might even come out to be negative income if I factored everything in. Dd is (and future dd will be) on the state health insurance. If I made even a small amount of money it would put us over the income limits and we'd have to add them to dh's work insurance, which is expensive and doesn't have great coverage. Realistically, it'd be pretty stupid to lose that in order to stick dd and future dd in daycare/public school to go off and work for barely above minimum wage.

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We always planned on me going back to work when we finished with homeschooling. DS will be in public high school in the fall so I'm starting to look for work now. I can't imagine not wanting to bring in some family finances. In our case, my income--small as it will be--can go toward college savings and retirement. We feel very strongly about paying for college for DS; we can attribute so many positives in our lives to not having student debt and want the same for him. I'm happy to work in order to help provide that same freedom and start in life for him.

 

Assuming we were still homeschooling, I wouldn't wait until our family finances turned dire before changing course. Homeschooling has been an enormous privilege but not something I would risk our security for. We do like to maintain a certain lifestyle and if that became difficult or unsustainable on one income, I would go back to work without question.

 

For me, there aren't really expenses that working outside the home is likely to affect. We live in a small town so no increase in driving, gas, or parking; I already have a nice wardrobe so I wouldn't **have** to get many clothes; we pack lunches, etc. With one teenager and no younger ones, we have no child care costs since he can be fully independent.

 

I'm planning to work part time, during school hours so my afternoons can remain at home. That would be more than enough time to still tend to meal prep, errands, household upkeep etc.

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We have considered me going back to work many times as well as my husband taking a weekend job to supplement. It is not hand to mouth like when our kids were under 5 and my parents bail us out but it is still tight. We have no retirement savings which is scary to us because his parents are always hinting for their kids to give them cash for wants, they have more than enough for needs currently. The issue is that his only sister is "forced" into early retirement and his only brother has been unemployed a few times. So no one has a stable job at the moment but all have school aged children.

 

If my husband is unemployed, I'll be looking at temp to perm jobs immediately. We know too many engineers our age who are having a hard time finding a job while unemployed or took a long time to get another job. The 40s and 50s is a tough age to be unemployed when the universities are churning enough engineering graduates. There is far more engineering undergrads applying for internships at where my husband now works than there are vacancies.

 

My husband is looking at liquidating his vested company stocks to be able to upgrade to a slightly bigger condo in the same area which is cheaper than the surrounding cities. He only thinks about liquidating stocks when money is feeling tight. We were planning to upgrade in 10 years when we bought this condo unit and now it is 11 years. I think my husband feels a little claustrophobic because he is used to 3 bedrooms/2bath apartments growing up, and ours is a 1 bedroom/1bath with DS12 reaching his height.

 

A fresh graduate full time salary here after tax would still be enough for me to pay for low end private high school for both kids. If my kids go to public high school, that would save us a lot in outsourced classes cost because we won't need to outsource English or foreign language or fine arts and the district would pick up part of the tab for dual enrollment. Of course I would need to get a job but I already have a working wardrobe and lots of companies within walking distance so the financial break even point is very low. The public high school school bus picks kids up at 7:30am and drops them off at the nearby library entrance at 5:30pm so no after school childcare required.

 

:ohmy: That is a huge expense. $300/mo for cigarettes? I had no idea.

My FIL spends that much when working on drinking Guinness Stout during lunch break and at home. Now that he is retired with no pension and MIL is a full time temp, he cuts down on drinking but still drinks at least a bottle a day.
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That is a hard one. I have always worked up until this last year. I have worked more becasue I love my job and the challenges it provides. However, it became more a liability. It meant we needed to have our kids in school and since I refuse to use our public school system then we pay private school prices. It bumps our income into a higher tax bracket which results in us paying way more in taxes and because I have a kiddo on the spectrum it means I have to outsource his therapy which costs. It also means we pay more college expenses out of pocket for our older two. At the end of the day we were actually paying way more and toiling more through me working. Once we crunched the numbers it made sense to do it this way. If we did need extra money I would have to do something part time that didn't pay as well for it to be lucrative.

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It would make more sense in terms of taxes for us to cut expenses than for more income to come in, either for dh or for me. Choosing which activities for the dc to cut is the tough part for me. If I could somehow earn enough to pay for their music lessons without getting taxed a crazy amount, it would be great. As it is now, any income I make has to go straight into a registered retirement savings account. That will help in the future, but not for cuurent expenses.

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Our goal was always to have me go back to work to pay for the boys' college expenses AND get the rest of my retirement funded through the state.  

 

This is my hope.

 

DH feels like he has to pay cash for his kids to go to college, as his dad did with him and his 2 siblings. DS8 would start college in 10 years, but DS 8mos would be going into 4th(?) grade at that point. I would like to homeschool everyone until they are entering highschool, if I have the option. Worst case scenario, I do not want to go back for *at least* two more years (when DS3 would enter kindergarten) so that I would only be paying for daycare/preschool for one child.

 

Also, I have to work 2 more years to be vested in my state pension. I left teaching when DS5 was born, and plan to return. However, I will have to do some coursework before I can go back, as my license is expiring and there were some new requirements that came online just as I was leaving... I plan to start doing that coursework within the next year so that, if something comes up and I need to go back sooner, I will be employable.

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We lose money if I go back to word on childcare, alone, not to mention the tax brackets. We would have to be in serious danger of destitution or bankruptcy for it to make sense unless he became disabled or died.

 

I can't ever match his earning, but if I put my mind to it I could make 50% of them, less any costs of actually going. So it's really not a conversation in this house. It helps that he wanted me to stay home from the time we married onward ;)

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I'm the opposite. The worse our finances, the more I feel I can't/shouldn't work bc the harder it would be to do all the stuff I do now plus work. It's takes money to work and there's many ways I save us money by staying home that would be much harder for me to do if I had a job. And in my lack of work history and skills, any job I got would likely not pay much, have benefits or be very flexible.

Thank you for putting this into words well. That's what I was getting at - I save my family a lot of money at home, probably more than I'd ever be able to bring in unless DH was literally unable to work. He loses productivity having to pick up slack if I hold a job, and I'd have three children in daycare. Yeah, no.

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Awkward title but hopefully it makes sense.

 

Money has been on my mind lately. With the kids getting older and expenses growing my belief that we can live on 1 income indefinitely is not as sure as before. Groceries keep going up(and feeding my kids real food is a priority), vehicles eventually have to be replaced(all of ours are 15 yrs+), homes need maintenance, some children *need* braces, older kids cost more money, medical expenses can pop up unexpectedly for anyone etc. etc. 

 

On one hand, I know we are far more fortunate than the vast majority of the world, on the other we don't live in a 3rd world country and I would rather not have my kids living *that* far removed from normal society(and no that doesn't mean that they have to be decked out in Under Armour and doing 5 different activities each). We're naturally fairly frugal or we wouldn't be driving such old vehicles and shopping for clothes at Goodwill but the dollar only stretches so far. We do need to cut some now as we've gotten lazy but at a certain point there is nothing more to cut, you need more income.

 

Dh thinks I'm being negative, no, I'm generally the optimist, right now I'm just trying to face the facts. I don't know that we can continue to face upcoming growing expenses without increasing income in some way. Dh is fairly topped out where he is and for his health needs not to work massive amounts of overtime(although that is always his suggestion). He is doing some work on the side that pays well but it is sporadic and we don't know how long it will last. I'm working on a side job but my time is limited with the kids home and I am not in a career that is high paying as it is. 

 

Do you have a line?

If you cannot afford *xyz* ?

*This* much debt?

*This* little savings?

My line would start with paying for basics such as housing, health insurance, co-pays, and reasonable utilities plus food. If any of those were truly iffy, I'd be back to work in a heart beat.

 

I was fortunate, when dh was not making the kind of money he is now, and our kids were young and we were trying to keep them out of daycare, I ran a music studio out of my home five afternoons and three evenings per week with a local teen hired to take care of the kids during lessons and rehearsals, and then I took performance gigs on the weekends. That is how we made it. With a child that had a heart condition, being unable to afford health insurance or co-pays and deductibles was literally a life and death thing so not optional.

 

Now I am feeling the pressure to do two things, shore up retirement because being single income for so long, we didn't save enough, and pay for college. We are managing both now, but it will be so much better when I go back to work. I will be working ten hours per week doing STEM education consulting next year, my last year of homeschooling. Ds graduates in May 2018, and I have been guaranteed 30 hours with the possibility of 40 during the school year for 2018/19. It will be enough to pay for two boys' tuition and books, plus a little bit for retirement, and my commuting costs while giving me the summers off when the boys are home from college so that I can spend time with them, and also we can manage family vacations which I really treasure  because once they all graduate college and move on to their first full time jobs, that will be the end of that. Make memories while we can.

 

I am grateful to have found this work. If it turns out we need more, I do have a line on some paid accompanying/rehearsal accompanying work for evenings and weekends. What I'm hoping is that when youngest ds graduates college, I can still work five years in that job and back my paychecks for retirement. That shore things up nicely for us, and make it so I can stop working when dh leaves the IT rat race. He doesn't want to retire, retire...as in no work, no pay. He wants to just take part time consulting work, and get out of the pressure filled end of things while his health holds out so we can spend some time together. Men on his side of the family have a long genetic history of not making it to "ripe old age". I really want some time with him before his health tanks if at all possible.

 

But, decent shelter, health insurance, co-pays and deductibles, heat and reasonable amount of electricity plus groceries that includes a decent amount of veggies, fruits, and lean proteins would top my list of "we need to be able to afford this in order for me to stay home."

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I have no idea how taxes would play into all of it for us.  

 

But of course if we actually really needed the money for needs of the house I would.  If I had no savings I would.  If I didn't have a retirement fund I would. 

 

Other than that I would look at cutting things and getting the teens to work.  But when all of them or older and you have some free time, maybe I would do it.   

 

 

 

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Thank you for putting this into words well. That's what I was getting at - I save my family a lot of money at home, probably more than I'd ever be able to bring in unless DH was literally unable to work. He loses productivity having to pick up slack if I hold a job, and I'd have three children in daycare. Yeah, no.

 

This is something people don't always consider. Sometimes I call myself my husband's personal assistant.  I do all the stuff except home repair/improvement projects that I simply can't do.  So even after my kids were old enough to stay home and get their homeschool work done on their own, I didn't ever think about going to work. It made more sense to always be the one to shop, take kids to appointments (and we had a lot of doctor appointments for a period of time), get the cars serviced, all that jazz.  He is/was able to concentrate on work and when off work, enjoy time off rather than doing more chores. 

 

Now that we are done homeschooling, I am thinking about it.   But before that, it was never worth it.  But we also were never in danger of being completely broke.  So far, anyway.  :-)

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My children are grown now with one out of the house, one still living at home and one at college. DH makes good money for us to pay all our necessary bills and have disposable income left over so things aren't tight. However, retirement is around the corner. DH is 11 years older than me and he retires in 10 years when he's 70. We've kicked around the idea that I may have to get a job when he retires but I'll be 59 years old. Two of my kids don't drive yet so I can't work so I can be available for them. It's not necessary I work so it's not necessary they be forced into driving. Honestly, the only way I'd go back to work is if we couldn't pay regular bills and have left over money for fun things like eating out each week. We only do one vacation each year to visit my inlaws in another state. Our cars are paid for. We have no expensive hobbies. We live in a home we can afford without stress at all. At my age and skill level, I'd probably get a minimum wage job and hope to bring home at least $800/month. Basically my bottom line is if money becomes a worry at all. We've been very fortunate so far not to have to worry about money I expect things to tighten up when DH retires but at this point in time we don't expect worries. We'll see how the economy is and expenses like health care. I would never go without health care. 

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I can't speak to the future but right now my husband would have to die or divorce me with a raw deal for me to go back to punch-a-clock work.

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Retirement age is the big question mark for my husband's side of the family. My husband's sister was hoping to retire at 65 but she is on early retirement from the Air Force after 25 years. So now she is job hunting because they need to be dual income with elderly parents to support and kids in college. Her husband is a community college lecturer and could retire at 65 but he could also be retrenched (unlikely) or "forced into" early retirement.

 

My BIL has been unemployed a few times and wants to work for as long as he can be employed as he has three school age kids. His wife is in freelance sales and income is erratic. So they are more worried about unemployment than retirement. My BIL would be happy to be still employed when he is in his 70s.

 

My husband's workplaces rarely have employees over 50 years old. He is in the tech industry though where layoffs are quite frequent even though his current employer rarely layoff compared to his previous employers. We haven't been saving for retirement (other than maxing the 401k employee contributions) because we are saving emergency cash for layoffs.

 

My dad was a teacher and delayed retirement to 75 but was getting his pension from 65 years old. My mom could have retired at 65 from nursing if she didn't have rheumatoid arthritis worsening in her late 50s. Her fellow nurses without medical issues retired in their late 60s.

 

My FIL was forced to retire in his 70s when his boss retired and the son took over the family business. Since FIL doesn't have a pension, MIL who is 8 years younger started working temp jobs. Their daughter gives them cash regularly as she has the most stable job and family income, even with the early retirement.

 

My husband's grandma is still alive at close to a hundred years old which isn't a bad thing except the grandchildren are paying the bulk of the medical expenses like nursing aide as most of her children are SAHMs or retired. While most of my husband's cousins have "decent paying" jobs, it is being the sandwich generation that is tough on cashflow. Many are dual income just to cope financially.

 

My side of the family is mainly self employed so they work until they can't work anymore health wise.

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Retirement age is the big question mark for my husband's side of the family. My husband's sister was hoping to retire at 65 but she is on early retirement from the Air Force after 25 years. So now she is job hunting because they need to be dual income with elderly parents to support and kids in college. Her husband is a community college lecturer and could retire at 65 but he could also be retrenched (unlikely) or "forced into" early retirement.

 

My BIL has been unemployed a few times and wants to work for as long as he can be employed as he has three school age kids. His wife is in freelance sales and income is erratic. So they are more worried about unemployment than retirement. My BIL would be happy to be still employed when he is in his 70s.

 

My husband's workplaces rarely have employees over 50 years old. He is in the tech industry though where layoffs are quite frequent even though his current employer rarely layoff compared to his previous employers. We haven't been saving for retirement (other than maxing the 401k employee contributions) because we are saving emergency cash for layoffs.

 

My dad was a teacher and delayed retirement to 75 but was getting his pension from 65 years old. My mom could have retired at 65 from nursing if she didn't have rheumatoid arthritis worsening in her late 50s. Her fellow nurses without medical issues retired in their late 60s.

 

My FIL was forced to retire in his 70s when his boss retired and the son took over the family business. Since FIL doesn't have a pension, MIL who is 8 years younger started working temp jobs. Their daughter gives them cash regularly as she has the most stable job and family income, even with the early retirement.

 

My husband's grandma is still alive at close to a hundred years old which isn't a bad thing except the grandchildren are paying the bulk of the medical expenses like nursing aide as most of her children are SAHMs or retired. While most of my husband's cousins have "decent paying" jobs, it is being the sandwich generation that is tough on cashflow. Many are dual income just to cope financially.

 

My side of the family is mainly self employed so they work until they can't work anymore health wise.

 

 

We are discussing retirement age as well.  DH says he would like to go to part time around age 65, but not quit altogether.

 

He would like to retire at 65, but may work up to age 70.

 

Some careers lend themselves to working longer.  My Grandfather was a professor until late 70's.  My father is a physician and even though he is "retired" he still does some consulting.  He is 82.  

 

And Betty White is 95 and still working!  So, there ya go!

Edited by DawnM
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Dh always says he isn't retiring until 70+, I'd rather retire early but I guess it depends on how life goes whether or not we can afford it. As I said retirement savings are doing well but life can change.

 

I've had it in my head for awhile that I'd go back at some point to accelerate retirement and fun some extras that are out of reach now. I hadn't thought about needing to go back to work. I guess it is a bit of an eye opener. I've understood that some cannot afford to be single income but not on a personal level. Even though we're not there yet I can see how it could happen. We're extraordinarily blessed and I can still see how it could happen. We have no debt, a newer paid for house(with lower maintenance and repairs and good efficiency) and paid for vehicles that while older are lower miles and in good shape. Dh's pay although modest(on a national scale) is considerably higher than the average around here, so we have no payments and make more than 85%+ in our area and I can see how things could happen. I could see if we had a string of bad luck we'd be in trouble. We have high deductible insurance like many and if we had some medical emergency those bills add up quickly. 

 

I'm also having a bit of an internal conflict I guess, we are so blessed compared to 99% of the world. We have all our needs and more. BUT I'd like to travel, I want my kids to travel. I want us to keep a decent vehicle (not new or fancy just one that I don't have to worry about breaking down). We don't do a ton of activities and thankfully have relatively cheap tastes. We were doing more activities but the kids asked to cut down, we focus more on family time. 

 

I don't know I guess we'll see it all unfolds. Hopefully, we can get short-term savings/emergency accounts back up to a level that makes me more comfortable. I'm going to continue to explore the option of working. Now that my kids are older it changes expenses and also gives me more time and I am still thinking about what I want to do in the future.

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I can live with driving a clunker car, being squeezed into a tiny apartment, eating rice & beans, wearing thrift shop clothes, watching DVD's from the library rather than cable or Netflix, etc. I will not live without decent health insurance coverage and the money to pay our cost shares. Health insurance was the major reason I put my oldest into daycare when she was an older baby & toddler. And now that we have a child with multiple disabilities, the need for decent health insurance is even greater.

 

Not to get too political, but I think personal responsibility requires sincere diligence to secure and maintain health insurance through the family's own efforts rather than mooching off of others' hard work. I do believe in a safety net for those who need it through no fault of their own. But I believe the onus is on the individual first and foremost.

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For us, I needed to go back to work part-time three years ago. We were also in the place of two 15-year-old cars that ended up needing to be replaced at the same time. We had virtually no savings and debt was creeping up. We live in a high COL area with government jobs.....good benefits and stability, but not the best income for where we live. I was able to find part-time work and bring home about $1000/mo which helps bridge the gap between dh's income and expenses. I am accruing some retirement (pension) even with the limited hours I work. It's still tight, debt being paid slower than I'd like, and expenses continue to go up (groceries for two teens, braces, property taxes, etc), but I couldn't work more and continue to homeschool, my sanity is hanging by a thread with the current schedule. Working and homeschooling has been hard. Dc have no desire to go to our local school, which is pretty bad. I plan to return to work full-time in 4-6 years when dd either goes to college or dual enrolls in high school.

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Maybe this has already been said, but a lot of people work and homeschool, and manage both well.   I worked during all our homeschooling years.  Earlier on it was part-time off-farm.  In the last several years, it's been full-time off-farm. 

 

That said, I have always worked and consider it necessary to my personhood to earn an income on my own that contributes to my family (even when my family was just me and a cat).  Also, I do not believe there is such a thing as a job that is "beneath me" (a legitimate job, that is).  YMMV.

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Maybe this has already been said, but a lot of people work and homeschool, and manage both well. I worked during all our homeschooling years. Earlier on it was part-time off-farm. In the last several years, it's been full-time off-farm.

 

That said, I have always worked and consider it necessary to my personhood to earn an income on my own that contributes to my family (even when my family was just me and a cat). Also, I do not believe there is such a thing as a job that is "beneath me" (a legitimate job, that is). YMMV.

Same here, I always worked at least part-time while homeschooling. But I think the more children one has, the more the trade-offs need to be considered. With only one child and two fairly flexible jobs, there were really no added expenses when I went back to work. Even though I'm very frugal, I'm honestly in awe of people with 5+ children who can pay for all currrent expenses, including healthcare and extracurriculars, and adequately save for college and retirement and unexpected expenses all on one middle class or even upper middle class income.
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I went back to work very part time last year.  I am hoping to keep increasing my hours every year.

 

It wasn't just the money aspect for me, but security.  Life is very very unpredictable and I want to make sure that I have skills to fall back on.

 

I will NOT work to pay for kids' college, I already worked to put myself through college, both Bachelor's and Master's.  Other than that - whatever I make goes into one pot as my husband's income and all gets divided  between savings/spending.

 

If I ever do get to the point where I am VERY comfortable with our retirement savings, I won't mind paying  for kids' stuff.  But I am nowhere near that point.

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I think about this too. My kids are little right now and we want a couple more. I imagine it will take more money the older they get. I think when they need me less I'll work a bit. At this stage I wouldnt missit for the world. As long as we can afford to change the baby's diaper everytime she pees we are good. If we got to the point of leaving her in a wet diaper I''d work. I see this a lot in my family and it is sad I think. Anyway we have plenty to eat and waste a ton on a lot of fun, so we could cut back LOTS before it came to me working. Dh would yave to cut out his 2 packs of cigarettes a day habit before I'd work too. That is like a $10 a day habit.

I have a house cleaner who works for 2 hours once a week cleaning my house. It covers the cost of ONE packet of cigarettes for her.they are well over $30 per packet here.  ( she has other cleaning jobs as well)

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I'm right there with you, but for me, it goes further than just needing money for specific things. It's also about my personal growth and my need to feel like an earner. DH is worn down. There are ways for him to bring in more money, but I am not going to badger him to work harder, KWIM? So I think, "If I were working FT, this additional amount of money would address all of those things while not putting pressure on him." BUT, I cannot work FT and still homeschool. Even if youngest were in school, working FT would mean I would be unable to do many things that do matter to me. And then, also, I would not be able to care for my MIL if I worked FT.

 

So then, I think of things I could do PT. PT still takes time, though. ETA: I do already work PT helping my husband with his business, but that income I don't even think of as "my" income, because it's part of the income that we've used all along. So, I mean another PT job.

 

Things would have to be pretty dire, I guess. If I were having to pay for regular necessities with credit, and with no reasonable assurance that that will change, I would have to bring in some income.

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My kids are 19, 17, 14, and 9. Having been single income (with bouts of unemployment) all that time I am feeling things start to ease up. So the prospect of working now seems less likely even though they are older. Dh is making more but not much more. What has changed for us is how our expenses have decreased as the kids got older. Ds #1 is going into his second year of college and has been able to manage his tuition, housing, books, etc on his own through scholarships, grants, basic Stafford loan, and working very hard over the summer. He has no car and lives frugally but still has a social life. Having him in college has actually been a relief. We went from paying for homeschool expenses, sports, food, etc to basically just taking care of his insurance and medical needs.

 

DS #2 is stil in high school but no longer participates in expensive activities and he is employed. He pays for his own gas in our old beater car and most of his personal (clothes, toiletries, social) expenses as well as feeds himself when he is out of the house at meal time.

 

All that to say that the alternative to me working has been the teens getting working and independent. While they do not directly pay us rent or anything like that, the added income coming into the family unit has eased the burden tremendously while I am still home with my younger two. Couple that with expectations appropriate for our situation (no dreamy colleges or nice cars for kids) and we are doing better with big kids even though college and teen car insurance ($$$$) are in play.

 

I realize my situation isn't applicable to everyone else but I did want to throw that out there for those that feel desperate to add income but are still not in the position to comfortably go to work. I know not everyone has access to teen jobs and scholarships. Also, retirement is not so scary for us because dh was at a job for 10 years that automatically contributed to 401k even if he didn't. So I recognize we have some advantages going for us.

 

Just another perspective in case anyone is feeling the pinch and has just a couple years until older teens. In some circumstances that extra the teens bring into the household can bridge a gap.

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I didn't work much when the kids were babies/toddlers.  It just wasn't worth it at that time.  I did work for a little while at a daycare where I could bring ds, but he ended up getting sick a lot.  I worked part time retail when dh was home with the kids, off and on through the years.  I also did some freelance secretarial work.

 

I'm pretty lucky now because I'm still doing occasional freelance work for the company I quit last year.  It's very very part time, but brings in enough extra to pay for homeschool supplies, if nothing else.  It also keeps me in contact so if I ever need to go back full time, I can do it pretty quickly.  

I also taught afterschool enrichment classes last year, and I'm looking into teaching science classes to homeschoolers starting in September.

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