Sorry this is so long! I am a little nervous, a bit scared, and would love some ideas and feedback.
We've FINALLY, after 7+ years of marriage, gotten to a point of financial stability.
We've cut back our spending, spent the last three years paying off the $17K of consumer and moving debt we'd managed to rack up over first part of our marriage. With the exception of my very low-interest student loan we are debt free now. We have 3 months of expenses saved. I have a strong budget in place that we have been following with good success. We've discovered a lot of the "leaks" in our spending (too much family travel and dining out) and have done a good job in plugging them up.
I am a SAHP, and my husband is the money earner. He is our sole income right now. He has a good job with the State, a steady one, and has very little chance of being laid off. We are lucky enough to have great benefits, vacation time, nice co-workers. We feel very fortunate to have this job.
Despite that, my husband has had a VERY hard time with his job for the past 8 years. It is a cubical office job (think Office Space) and does not suit his personality at all. He finds it excruciating to be inside in his box from 8am to 5pm. it is worse for the four months of mid-winter: due to our location it is dark when he leaves work and dark when he comes home. He literally spends all day under florescent lights and sees daylight (mostly rain, actually) for an hour sometimes on his 3X a week lunch run. It wrecks havoc with his mental health. By the time he gets home at 5:30pm he is so worn out that it is all he can do to stay awake until 9pm. Then back up at 6am to get ready to run/cycle in to work and start over at 8am.
He has been doing this job for us, his family, at the expense of his own mental health and well being. I am not qualified to do anything that would make enough money to live on, and he wants to support my dream of being a SAHP. He keeps with this job that is so hard for him for us: to provide us with a good income and great health benefits. If our daughter and I were not in the picture he would have most certainly picked another job eight years ago. Every day is a struggle for him, every winter is horrible. He feels like he is watching his life dribble away, looking on while it passes him by. The things he values most in life: spending time with us, enjoying the outdoors, living life and laughing... he feels like he just gets to get a taste of that on the weekend before trudging back to work.
Over the years we've tried to brainstorm a way out. Me going back to school. Him going back to school. Living with family on the cheap. Staffing at retreat centers for a few years. At the end of the day we decided that school was too expensive for him to go (we'd have to take out loans for living expenses), I'd need to go back for 3-6 years to end up with a decent paying job (and we need to make a change right now), and the retreat center idea just won't work long term. We've resigned ourselves to Aaron staying in this job indefinitely, and he's been looking at the future as one big bleak jail sentence.
But... a glimmer of hope. Last summer approached his boss with the request that he reduce his hours and salary by 20%. From 40 hours a week to 32. Working four 8-hour days and with Wednesdays off. they took some time to think about it, and just yesterday told him that YES, he can reduce hours starting in January!
This is BIG for my husband. This will probably make all the difference for him: the difference between feeling like he is selling his life and getting to live some of it. It means he gets to walk his daughter to school and pick her up once a week, get to see her face as she excitedly tells him what she did that day. It means we get time alone as a couple once a week, time to relax, nap, play together like we used to. He thinks that with this change he can do this job forever and be happy about it.
BUT... a 20% loss in income! Oh yikes, this is so scary to me! We have finally gotten our financial lives together, are finally out of debt and are taking those wobbly baby steps to living a financially sustainable life. According to our budget we can make this work, even save maybe up to $5,000 a year (barring medical emergency or the car blowing up), but it is going to be so very tight. I am putting on a big happy face for my awesome husband because he needs this and deserves this hour reduction, but inside I am biting my nails and am scared as heck that we won't be able to make it work long term.
It works right now when we are living in a one bedroom place, but what happens in a couple years when our daughter needs her own room? Our rent cost will jump up $300-$500 a month!
And what about the house we've dreamed of owning? A mortgage here will run us $900 a month beyond what we are paying in rent now, plus those pesky home-owning expenses. We could afford a home on our current salary, but we have no chance of doing so on the reduced salary.
We've also dreamed of buying land and building a home. With my husband's current salary (and our shiny new budgeting skills) we could save enough for land in 3-4 years, save more and then take out a building loan a few years later. With his new reduced salary it would take us 10 years to save the same amount for land, and longer yet to get the 20% down we'd need for the building loan.
Starting next year when our daughter is in full time school it will be possible for me to work part time, but I won't be bringing home more that $650 a month or so. It is important to us that I be there to take our daughter to school and be there when she gets home. That will make up some of the lost income, but not a whole lot, especially when we need to find a bigger rental.
Sigh. I am being super supportive of this hour reduction, and I am truly ecstatic for my husband but I can't squelch these fears and worries. I feel like we are weighing our future financial and housing stability against our current happiness and mental health.
Are we being crazy by doing this? is it the right thing to do, taking the 20% cut in hours and pay? My heart tells me we should go for it, but my brain is scared to death!
We've FINALLY, after 7+ years of marriage, gotten to a point of financial stability.
We've cut back our spending, spent the last three years paying off the $17K of consumer and moving debt we'd managed to rack up over first part of our marriage. With the exception of my very low-interest student loan we are debt free now. We have 3 months of expenses saved. I have a strong budget in place that we have been following with good success. We've discovered a lot of the "leaks" in our spending (too much family travel and dining out) and have done a good job in plugging them up.
I am a SAHP, and my husband is the money earner. He is our sole income right now. He has a good job with the State, a steady one, and has very little chance of being laid off. We are lucky enough to have great benefits, vacation time, nice co-workers. We feel very fortunate to have this job.
Despite that, my husband has had a VERY hard time with his job for the past 8 years. It is a cubical office job (think Office Space) and does not suit his personality at all. He finds it excruciating to be inside in his box from 8am to 5pm. it is worse for the four months of mid-winter: due to our location it is dark when he leaves work and dark when he comes home. He literally spends all day under florescent lights and sees daylight (mostly rain, actually) for an hour sometimes on his 3X a week lunch run. It wrecks havoc with his mental health. By the time he gets home at 5:30pm he is so worn out that it is all he can do to stay awake until 9pm. Then back up at 6am to get ready to run/cycle in to work and start over at 8am.
He has been doing this job for us, his family, at the expense of his own mental health and well being. I am not qualified to do anything that would make enough money to live on, and he wants to support my dream of being a SAHP. He keeps with this job that is so hard for him for us: to provide us with a good income and great health benefits. If our daughter and I were not in the picture he would have most certainly picked another job eight years ago. Every day is a struggle for him, every winter is horrible. He feels like he is watching his life dribble away, looking on while it passes him by. The things he values most in life: spending time with us, enjoying the outdoors, living life and laughing... he feels like he just gets to get a taste of that on the weekend before trudging back to work.
Over the years we've tried to brainstorm a way out. Me going back to school. Him going back to school. Living with family on the cheap. Staffing at retreat centers for a few years. At the end of the day we decided that school was too expensive for him to go (we'd have to take out loans for living expenses), I'd need to go back for 3-6 years to end up with a decent paying job (and we need to make a change right now), and the retreat center idea just won't work long term. We've resigned ourselves to Aaron staying in this job indefinitely, and he's been looking at the future as one big bleak jail sentence.
But... a glimmer of hope. Last summer approached his boss with the request that he reduce his hours and salary by 20%. From 40 hours a week to 32. Working four 8-hour days and with Wednesdays off. they took some time to think about it, and just yesterday told him that YES, he can reduce hours starting in January!
This is BIG for my husband. This will probably make all the difference for him: the difference between feeling like he is selling his life and getting to live some of it. It means he gets to walk his daughter to school and pick her up once a week, get to see her face as she excitedly tells him what she did that day. It means we get time alone as a couple once a week, time to relax, nap, play together like we used to. He thinks that with this change he can do this job forever and be happy about it.
BUT... a 20% loss in income! Oh yikes, this is so scary to me! We have finally gotten our financial lives together, are finally out of debt and are taking those wobbly baby steps to living a financially sustainable life. According to our budget we can make this work, even save maybe up to $5,000 a year (barring medical emergency or the car blowing up), but it is going to be so very tight. I am putting on a big happy face for my awesome husband because he needs this and deserves this hour reduction, but inside I am biting my nails and am scared as heck that we won't be able to make it work long term.
It works right now when we are living in a one bedroom place, but what happens in a couple years when our daughter needs her own room? Our rent cost will jump up $300-$500 a month!
And what about the house we've dreamed of owning? A mortgage here will run us $900 a month beyond what we are paying in rent now, plus those pesky home-owning expenses. We could afford a home on our current salary, but we have no chance of doing so on the reduced salary.
We've also dreamed of buying land and building a home. With my husband's current salary (and our shiny new budgeting skills) we could save enough for land in 3-4 years, save more and then take out a building loan a few years later. With his new reduced salary it would take us 10 years to save the same amount for land, and longer yet to get the 20% down we'd need for the building loan.
Starting next year when our daughter is in full time school it will be possible for me to work part time, but I won't be bringing home more that $650 a month or so. It is important to us that I be there to take our daughter to school and be there when she gets home. That will make up some of the lost income, but not a whole lot, especially when we need to find a bigger rental.
Sigh. I am being super supportive of this hour reduction, and I am truly ecstatic for my husband but I can't squelch these fears and worries. I feel like we are weighing our future financial and housing stability against our current happiness and mental health.
Are we being crazy by doing this? is it the right thing to do, taking the 20% cut in hours and pay? My heart tells me we should go for it, but my brain is scared to death!
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