Considering becoming SAHM indefinitely

[PJJ]

Hello, I am a WOHM mid forties mom who has only been a SAHM for about 1 1/2 year when my only child was little.  My DH always makes more than I do.  We have a year to plan for this  ( I am hoping to do this March 2012).  So for now my plan is to put all my paycheck in savings each month.  This would be a trial year to see how we could make it work.  We currently have 4 months in emergency savings and owe $65K on a house that is now worth only $200K.  We would have to scale back. 

Any suggestions with this plan?  Anybody done this and regretted or even NEVER looked back.  

TIA.

[VisionaryMom]

Originally Posted by PJJ 
We currently have 4 months in emergency savings and owe $65K on a house that is now worth only $200K.  We would have to scale back. 

I don't see how one follows from the other. You have 4 months of cash saved. If you save your entire paycheck for a year, then you should have enough in liquid assets to survive how many months? I'd imagine that would be fine.

Is your retirement on track? Is what you will have in a year enough for your needs?

Why do you need to scale back because of the house value? Maybe you're not saying they're connected, but I'm not sure. If you can, consider re-financing the $65K to get a better payment if you need to do that. If you're close to paying off the house, though, I'd consider that a last resort personally.

How much scaling back do you think will be necessary? 

[redvlagrl]

I think she means she'd put her pay in savings to see how they would do on a new lifestyle.

We have scaled back to do it, but I think the most importatn thing you need to consider is if *you* need to do a little work outside the home in order to feel good and have a break from the kids. Perhaps you'd consider working part time?

[texmati]

So, If i'm understanding correctly, you are considering retireing early-- stopping work, with no plans of going back to work? I'd make sure that I'd have all the ducks in a row for retirement/college contributions. I think you are right to consider your net worth at this point (ie including the house). Basically; if you want to be out for the rest of your life, try and take a view to whole life planning (which we should all do, actually). Personally, I would work for a few years extra (while scaling back) , to avoid having to work in my 60's -70's. Perhaps your thinking is opposite-- either way, you should have the whole picture quitting your job. 

[dbsam]

Originally Posted by PJJ 

Anybody done this and regretted or even NEVER looked back.  

We've sort of done this and I do not regret it at all - for us, the benefits outweigh any negatives.  I had my children at age 40.  I normally made more than my husband (his income fluctuates but has increased since I stopped working) and we intended for me to go back to work.  I stopped working the week prior to conception (our last IVF try) and never ended up going back.  Seven years later I would be happy to continue my 'retirement'.  It has affected us financially, but we've been able to make it work.  Just recently we have been discussing my going back to work for two main reasons...We are considering putting the children back into Montessori school and my husband's health may prevent him from working as long as we had hoped.  One thing that helped us is we had/have no debt except a small mortgage and we both made decent (livable) salaries - it sounds like you are in a similar situation.

Although I can see the non-financial benefits of working, I do not feel the need to work outside the home because I had a stressful, life consuming career for years prior to having my children.  My friends who had their children younger, went back to work when their children went to college.  By then, I'll be close to 60.

Edited by dbsam - 4/6/11 at 4:32am

[SundayCrepes]

I was very lucky to get laid off while I was pregnant. The replacement job I found started when my son was 4.5 months and had me working every other weekend. So from the start our son never went into childcare. I continued to work parttime until our daughter was born. I worked when my husband was at home, so again no childcare. Once our daughter was born, my husband lost any interest in me working. He did not want to be home by himself with two kids. I always said I could do more evening work, but he preferred our family routine with me being home all the time. So did/do I.

We are homeschooling our kids. I am so grateful my husband is as into homeschooling as I am. There are times every few weeks when I need to get away for an hour or two, but generally I am happy being with my kids all the time. The happiest time of my life was when our son was a baby. Being home with two kids is more work, but it is still the second happiest time of my life. 

The financial realities of living on a single income are a bit uncomfortable at times. I find I still want to shop the way I did when I was working full-time. I have tracked our finances on Quicken for years and it is more important now than ever that I stay on top of our budget. I am really struggling to stick with our grocery budget. Food has gotten more expensive and I have a 2 year old that thinks nothing of taking a bite out of an apple then abandoning it somewhere in the house. Multiple times a day. I sometimes think how the plan was for our son to go into daycare and for me to work and how much more money we would have if we'd done that. Then I am so grateful that I got laid off and things worked out as they did.

I look at staying home with my kids the same way as I do babywearing. You will never look back and think, "I wish I'd held my kids less."

Today we had five kids here. Lots of heavy duty playing. How delightful for our kids that they spent the day at home with their mom doing nothing but open-ended play. My son discovered a puppet show/lemonade stand attachment I'd gotten for the learning tower years ago. He and his friends set it up and played with it for eons. After the kids left, he set up the lemonade stand again and just sat in it. He looked like he was waiting for customers that he didn't expect. I asked him if he sold grapes and he said no. So I went outside. A few minutes later he asked me where our grapes were. Over the next hour or so he sold me so much fruit that I practically got sick from eating all of it. When my husband got home he started all over again. I just can't imagine missing out on his fruit stand. How sad if the closest he could get to that experience would be to do it at a daycare center or school. I would have missed out on the whole thing.

[PJJ]

Thanks for all the posts.

We have sold the house (no debt now) and have moved to another state.

I appreciate all your ideas/help.

I am still working remotely at the old job for a few months, so I may not have the luxury of one year of stashing back.

Cheers mamas!