How much does it COST you to work?

[TriMom]

I crunched the numbers 5 years ago when I was pregnant with my oldest. I had over an hour commute, and had to wear very professional clothes. After all was said and done, I would have been making $6000 per YEAR. I have been a SAHM ever since!

 

[Laura]

I'm about to have a baby in a few weeks, and it would cost us more if I didn't work and stayed home. The cost of daycare is significant, but it isn't nearly what I make after taxes, and I got a 10% raise last year with a promotion. The daycare we'll use is in my building, what's more, so I won't be far away.

Gas/car wear and tear--I would actually drive my car more if I stayed at home. DH and I carpool to work. I wouldn't want to stay in my house all day every day. I would visit friends/family, go to the zoo, and do the grocery shopping, etc. while DH is at work, instead of the both of us running errands together on the way home.

Clothes--wouldn't make much difference in cost. I would wear more jeans instead of slacks. I would probably wear less makeup, but I wear so little it wouldn't make much difference.

Our health care is through my job, it would cost more through DH's. We're both contributing to retirement accounts. It's VERY important to me that we have enough money for retirement and can afford health care in our old age. DH is a type 1 diabetic, I don't know how long he'll be healthy. I cannot count on him being able to work forever, what's more. If we divorced and he died while he was still working, I couldn't get any survivor benefits for myself, only for our minor child.

Also, I plan on going back to school to get a master's degree. My employer will help pay for part of it.


In many cases, I do think that one spouse quitting to stay at home with the kid(s) can be beneficial to the budget, not detrimental. But this depends on many factors. Most particularly--daycare costs for multiple children. The more you have, the more $$ you spend. If we had 3 kids, it would be better if one of us stayed home. But with one kid (who will be the only child DH and I plan on spawning), the daycare costs won't make much of a difference.

Besides the above, eventually, our kid will go to school, most likely public. Childcare costs will plummet. At that point, I would feel ridiculous if I stayed at home all day. I would also have missed out on years of increases of my current salary, possible promotions, tuition benefits if I still chose to get a master's degree, retirement benefits would be lessened, I might be less marketable in the professional world, and so on.

 

[Lizzybear]

I bring my own lunches to work, I don't spend much on work clothes (I work in daycares and as a teaching assistant so just black pants, black shoes and some kind of long-sleeved top), I live in the city I work in and drive an economical car so not a huge cost there (plus if I had to I could use the buses) and we have have no kids yet so that's not an issue.. When we do i'll probably do home daycare, I can't see myself ever not working in some capacity as long as i'm able to.

 

[DMickey28]

We crunched the numbers and figured out that I would be making $500/month to be working full time. That did not take into account an increased number of take out dinners that would probably had occured. Yup, I stayed home and I LOVE it. I admit that I spend more money being home but have the freedom to cut it back when I need to!

 

[Keli]

It doesn't cost me nearly as much to work as I would lose without the paycheck and benefits. Even with my commute.
But my dd is grown and it's a time in my life when I want to work. I enjoy my job (although I would mind a promotion or two, LOL) but more importantly I enjoy the benefits, both social and finacial, that my job brings.

 

[C.Ann]

In the case of divorce, the woman can request a QDRO to have her "share" of the husband's retirement accounts transferred into retirement accounts in her name.

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That's interesting.. I'd never heard of that before..

I know women who have divorced - and part of the divorce agreement was that they would receive half of their ex spouses retirement/pension benefits - but I didn't know there was an actual "name" for it..

And of course if the couple were married a certain number of years - and the wife doesn't remarry - she can collect off of her former DH's SS - providing it's still available when the time comes..

 

[NotUrsula]

It's not even close. I make about 40% of our gross income, but I have GREAT benefits that DH doesn't have.

We pay $1060/month for daycare; that's the big one. Also another $5K for summer camp for the older child (though that will end this year as he is getting too old.) My commuting gasoline adds up to two tanks per month over what I would probably otherwise use; my commute is not that long. Clothes make no difference at all, really. I only own one or two suits that I bought for interviews, I normally wear sweaters or tees and khakis to work; same thing I would wear if I stayed home. I bring lunch most days, but for generosity I'll say $60/month on food. All totaled it comes out to less than $20K.

I make considerably more than that. I also have VERY good insurance that only costs us $210/month for medical, dental, Rx and vision for the family. My employer also pays for continuing education and my professional memberships, and a nice disability/life insurance policy. I also take advantage of the FSA plan to shelter a fair amount of our daycare and OOP medical costs from taxes; DH's employer doesn't offer FSA's. Then there is the 401K matching and my employer's FICA contribution to consider. When you add up the dollar value of the benefits, my compensation is actually more than 2X my gross pay. Also, I earn 6 weeks vacation time every year; using it to stay home with sick children when necessary isn't a problem.

BTW, in re: that issue of not qualifying for SS retirement. It isn't qualifying that is the problem; it is the benefit amount. SS calculates your benefit on the average of your best 35 years of earnings. Every time you add a zero-earnings-year into the calculation, you take a big hit. I worked for a non-contributing state government for several years, so I've still got seven zeroes on my list as it is, plus all those college years when I only made $1-2K/year. I'm 47 now, and I still need many good earnings years to get my average up to something that I consider comfortable -- without generating any more goose eggs! (And all that assumes that I'll live to collect from SS, which is by no means certain.)