Fiance wants to quit job and make 1/3 of current salary (marriages, college)
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What? Nobody has yet started the "name that first child" tangent? Surely it must be getting close now that we've gone from 'barefoot and pregnant and white picket fence' to 'Mrs Armitage's Homesteading Manual'? By the time I get back to this thread and a dozen pages more, I'll be immensely disappointed if no name decision has been made - at least for the first child.
Hmm, my mom worked 60 hours a week and became the head of her floor-taught seminars and traveled all while having kids. Didn't seem to hurt her advancement any (made/makes over 100k). People make it work, if they want kids and a career. I see it every day in my current office.
True. But there also comes a point for most working families where it is almost cheaper (And healthier) for one of the spouses in a marriage to simply stay at home.
Let's use the example of a two-income, two-child family in a city such as Chicago. The alarm clock goes off at 5:30, the parents scramble out of bed, hit the shower, pack lunches, make breakfast, get the kids up and dressed, and hit the road by 7:00 a.m. for the morning slog into work. Trust me. When you have small children and both of you work, the morning routine requires the split-second timing of a commando raid on U-boat pens.
Now let's take the situation further and see what happens when that second income earner with four deductions makes $50,000 a year, a respectable mid-grade salary, in Illinois. After taxes, the monthly take home for that person is $3,387.
Now the average annual daycare costs in Chicago is $12,100 according to a recent survey. Mind you, that's an average. Multiply that number by 2 children and that's $24,200 in daycare costs alone at the average place. For sake of simplicity, let's round that to $2,000 a month in daycare.
That means that the second working parent earning $50K a year is only clearing $1,387 a month after taxes and childcare. That's before the parent buys the first gallon of gas to make the commute, the first lunch at Burger King, or the first article of business attire.
Then let's assume $75 a week for gas just for a commute of moderate length and never eating the first lunch out. That's still $300 bucks. So now you're down to $1,087 net. That's $54.35 a day. That's $6.79 an hour.
Not much dollar return on the huge uptick in stress that juggling two careers and two children can cause. As the parent of three kids who were born within 4.5 years of one another, it's a big damned deal. You're really better off if one working parent really is able to put his or her back into the job while the second parent finds another way to supplement the family income, one that doesn't involve showing up to work every day. Otherwise, both parents scramble home every night, fling dinner on the table, bathe the kids, read to them, throw in a load of clothes, clean the kitchen, vacuum the house, walk the dog, blah blah blah blahbity blah. Then they collapse into bed around 9:30 that night, having said five words to one another, setting the alarm clock for 5:30 so they can do it all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat. This is why people snap. Because, ultimately, it can be a really unrewarding life. It's just one foot in front of the other.
Or the family in question can tighten their belts, live in a more modest fashion, and the second parent can stay at home with the kids until they go to school. The morning scramble is eliminated entirely, nobody is rushing to get to the daycare before it closes, and dinner is on the table piping hot when the breadwinner gets home. The house is in reasonable shape (As neat as you can be with two small children), the kids are bathed, the chores are done, and the spouses get to have a relaxed conversation in the evening. Hey, cutting corners is not easy. But, trust me, it's a lot better for the family than two parents trying to do it all.
Back to the original question, however. The first priority of a couple starting out is to get on their financial feet. Not make things more difficult.
Or the family in question can tighten their belts, live in a more modest fashion
But I'll die if I don't have a room I never use, or have to see black people in my town!
Seriously, the "more modest" we're talking about is hardly modest. We're talking about a longer commute, and/or not having extraneous rooms, and/or living in a less "nice" neighborhood etc. People are starving in Africa, killing each other in Chechnya, children are sex slaves in Southeast asia, and we're worried about trivial things.
And I live by what I say. I grew up from maybe age 12 to 25 in a house that LITERALLY has gold and platinum on the walls (leaf, on the moulding, gold in the dining room, and platinum in the party room). I moved into a 550 sf apartment in Hackensackm and I'm still impressed by it. Anybody who'd whine about such a transition is a whiny litle ***** and needs to be kicked in the face.
But I'll die if I don't have a room I never use, or have to see black people in my town!
Seriously, the "more modest" we're talking about is hardly modest. We're talking about a longer commute, and/or not having extraneous rooms, and/or living in a less "nice" neighborhood etc. People are starving in Africa, killing each other in Chechnya, children are sex slaves in Southeast asia, and we're worried about trivial things.
And I live by what I say. I grew up from maybe age 12 to 25 in a house that LITERALLY has gold and platinum on the walls (leaf, on the moulding, gold in the dining room, and platinum in the party room). I moved into a 550 sf apartment in Hackensackm and I'm still impressed by it. Anybody who'd whine about such a transition is a whiny litle ***** and needs to be kicked in the face.
I agree with you in principle. We chose a nice house in a gentrifying part of town that had good bones but just needed TLC. I think the problem is that everybody wants the cute little suburban house with the picket fence and drive nearly-new cars to chi-chi restaurants and never think about the enormous price they're paying to have them.
When our kids got old enough, we certainly didn't want to send them to the horrid inner-city schools (Sorry, but my kids are not going to be guinea pigs for someone else's grand ideas), so we decamped to the suburbs. Even then we bought a house at price roughly 1/3rd of our borrowing limit on the mortgage and drove our cars until the wheels practically fell off.
In short, it's quite possible to have a good quality of life on one income. In fact, it's quite possible to have a better quality income on one income than on two, as long as you make intelligent choices. Because there is really no reward when both parents are on the treadmill ten hours a day at the office.
There are plenty of men and women who want to have families and carriers. People are multidimensional. Not many people want to be solely defined by career or solely defined by family. Of course there are always extremes, but most people want to have success in both areas.
I think the problem is that everybody wants the cute little suburban house with the picket fence and drive nearly-new cars to chi-chi restaurants and never think about the enormous price they're paying to have them.
hmmm...., around here (NY/NJ) the chi-chi restaurants are in the cheaper (in terms of rent), city-center areas.
Manhattan is an obvious exception, but even if you're in Bronx or Queens or Brooklyn, with NYC's subway it doesn't matter (yeah it takes time, but at least I don't have to drive, and it actually is pretty fast)
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