Please help me understand a 60K salary?

amother

Wed, Oct 09 2013, 5:12 am

We are also in pretty much the same financial standing as when I was a SAHM and I'm earning 60K now. Between taxes, 4 kids, a mortgage, medical insurance co-pays and deductibles, car payments, auto insurance, food, and tuitions it almost (!) doesn't pay to work.

I crunched the numbers the way you did, OP (not like the amother with the long useless post) and we decided that staying on govt aid was debilitating for us and we would get nowhere that way. Now that my kids are in school and it's steady tuition-definitely less than a babysitter cost-at least here I have a chance for a raise and someday getting out of this rut. Staying on govt aid sort of stagnated us and trapped us with no hope of getting anywhere independently someday.

ora_43

Wed, Oct 09 2013, 5:34 am

I don't know if this is an option for you OP, but in general, for families with young kids it can be very worthwhile for parents to find jobs with different schedules.

In years 2-4 of my marriage (around), dh and I had almost opposite schedules. We saved a ton on daycare.

That's not usually possible (or desirable), but maybe you could find a job from 7-3, and your dh could find from 9-6. or vice versa? Then you need 6-7 hours of daycare a day, instead of 8-9. For us, that's the difference between paying a few hundred extra dollars a month for afternoon care or not.

Another thing that's helped me has been trading childcare with friends, eg, Friend A picks up my kid three days a week, Friend B picks up my kid the other 3 days, and I have kids A and B over two afternoons a week... or one friend and I rotate pickup so that we can each work more hours 2-3 days a week... things like that.

One other thought - don't overestimate how much more you'll spend on ready-made food, cleaning help, etc. Sure, it's nice to have those things, but you can also save money by having simple food and a messy house.

And you won't necessarily be hugely more exhausted or stressed even with a full-time job. Personally, I found that there was a difference of under one hour per day in the amount of time I had for household stuff when working an 8-hour shift, vs. spending the same 8 hours taking care of multiple young children. (Of course you can get a lot done in just 40 minutes a day, but it's not (usually) the difference between having a well-run home and being an exhausted wreck even with household help).

marina

Wed, Oct 09 2013, 10:42 am

Ruchel wrote:

It's all how you plan it.

My cleaning lady, who lives in a shelter and well, is a cleaning lady, spends one month/year abroad. Apart from that? she has absolutely NO life.

I once read an article about an elderly couple in America who lived in a hovel. Literally a hovel. No electricity, outhouse, etc. But, once a year they paid for their entire families ( children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren) to go to Disney World for a month.