In the modern world most of us feel that it takes two incomes to make ends meet. This has put a tremendous burden on new parents as they struggle with the decision of staying home with the children or going back to work and paying for daily child care. It isn’t an easy decision, but there are ways that you can afford to stay at home if you are careful with your money and if you think about the problem logically. There are many different factors at plan and costs to consider, so it’s worth examining closely before making the decision.
Going to Work Costs You Money
Believe it or not, it does cost quite a bit of money just to actually go to work for most people. Think about the irony of that for a moment. When you are trying to be productive and make money, you are actually often costing yourself money as well. The first step in determining if doing the stay at home thing is right for you is to determine how much you actually spend just trying to earn your money. The best way to do this is to lay out all of the things that you spend money or time on related to work.
Take a piece of paper and write down all of the things that you spend money on just for work. Once you have completed that, then you are going to want to write how much you spend on those things. You must remember to include the recurring costs that are associated with most of those things. These are not things that you just purchase one time and you are done. Instead they are things that you may have to pay for each day or each week.
Some examples of costly recurring expenses are gasoline, dining out for lunch, work clothes, and possibly dry cleaning. Every person’s expenses in this area will be different, but if you have a long commute and go out for lunch every day it isn’t uncommon to spend over $5,000 a year just getting to and from work and grabbing lunch! When you add up other items such as dry cleaning, morning coffee, and replacing worn out clothing items it’s easy to see how much it can actually cost you just to go to work.
Next, tack on what child care would cost if you were to continue working. Depending on where you live and what type of care you need, you could be looking at anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 a year for just one child. After all said and done, between your regular work expenses and child care you could be spending upwards of $20,000 a year just to go to work. Depending on your income level this could be almost all of your take home pay.
The Verdict
What you will often find is that you are losing a good portion of the money that you are earning from work to these expenses. Almost no one is seeing a net loss on their work, but most are making far below what they would consider a fair wage. Some will argue that as a stay at home parent you are not going to be making any money, so doesn't that defeat the purpose? Well, there are also intangible benefits that aren’t as easy to recognize.
How much time is spent going to and from work? How much time does that leave you to spend with your kids? Just a one hour commute means two hours a day, or ten hours a week that are completely lost to sitting in a car or on a bus or train. If you’re already working 8-10 hours a day and then spending a few more hours getting to and from work you’re probably not getting much time during the week with them. There’s no dollar amount you can put on that and only you can be the judge of how much that time is worth, but it’s something to seriously consider.
So, if you’re struggling with the decision to stay at home or not, think about it carefully. It’s a major decision with plenty of pros and cons, and sometimes it’s more than just doing some basic math to see which nets more money in the bank account.