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**Chuck E Ducky** · 06-14-2021, 06:47 PM

I had two kids that was the main reason for my wife not working for the first 5 years they were born. I didn’t want someone else I pay 2/3 a salary to rase my kids. It just wasn’t worth my wife working. She finished school and got a good paying job after my boys started pre K. It just wasn’t worth her working at the time. Purchased a house that had rental income that basically supported us threw those years living in the 3nd highest cost of living in the US we made do. We basically lived pay check to pay check for a few years with random loans taken for emergency measures leveraged off of my retirement savings. It was not easy that’s for sure but my investments payed off when the housing market came back. I had a big windfall off NYC getting burned to the ground, and Covid lock downs. People wanted out and they were paying big to do it. Payed off my wife’s student debt and she now has a nice job working for the county.

We plan on building a house when material cost come down. In 6 months cost to build jumped $150k for the house we had planned. So I’m just stacking cash now for when the bubble pops I’m ready to scoop up investments.

Its a ruff go especially today things are only going to get more expensive. But do things to decrease your overhead. Fix stuff yourself, used cars, pay off as much high interest debt as you can. Take the time you have with the kids off to learn a trade skill. Save as much as you can and enjoy family life. It can be super stressful but in the end there is nothing like it in the world. Enjoy it because they grow up fast!

**punkncat** · 06-14-2021, 07:13 PM

I think it particularly important at that stage of life for the child to be at home with a/both parents as much as possible. It's a bonding time and very formative to future behavior.
In my own opinion on this, I think it's important that both parents and partners look as this very subjectively. If one or both of you have a job that can be performed at any time of the day, talk to your individual employer about that manner of flexibility. Not only will it help the bottom line, but it also helps you both keep a level of control over the change in self responsibility that comes with having a child, and also with the identity of who you are outside of being "just a parent".
I feel that it is important, modern situation notwithstanding, that a child have time to interact with other children. I am not sure that a daycare enviro is the best...but children have to learn coping and interaction even early on. Even if your church has a nursery system...anyway, off topic.
If you can make your nut with one person working it is far superior to (as Chucky has already put it) paying some stranger to have your kid pick up bad habits and common maladies at the daycare.

**Shaftski** · 06-14-2021, 07:26 PM

Right now I'm not working full time, and the wife is. Reverse situation, she works hard and we are getting by fine right now. I'm prepping a house to move into, and preparing to flip the house we are in now. I can handle anything construction wise, as long as it doesn't need a permit. All that finish work, light fixtures, landscaping, etc labor costs can get out of control fast. We are saving tons by having me handle most of it, especially across 2 properties.

Used to work as QA manager in embedded software development. Income was good but stress was pretty high as well. I'm just a happier person now. I plan my own day, set my own deadlines, and actually feel a higher level of accomplishment now than I ever did working for someone else.

Income is nice but so are a lot of other things about life. If I need/want the money again, I can always go back.

If I did not already own property, my feelings would be different right now. If you don't own, both should keep working until you do own IMO. Affordability is just going to keep getting worse. And you can borrow against your equity later on in life and wipe out credit, etc debt and consolidate into a very low interest single payment.

**ATBen** · 06-14-2021, 07:28 PM

I'm a kept man, basically when our student loans were paid and we saw what it would cost for 2 kids to be in day care, we called it right there.

She's the bread winner with a raging lady boner for career advancement. She's continually made more and changed job roles at the same place of employment a few times, so it definitely got easier. I have a part time gig as a non-profit credit counsellor and I've done some weekend reffing at local fields, but that's really just for paintball money and to get out of the house.

Essentially once we saw the mortgage, utilities, and food were easy to afford, everything else in fell into place. The first years were obviously tight, not much in the way of new stuff, vacations, or extravagant weekends away. But we were still able to save for a rainy day.

Now it's a lot more comfortable, and were finally getting some money saved for our other goals; retirement, minivan, kids education, projects around the house etc.

It's not easy or comfortable at the beginning, but if the budget allows for I'd say go for it. The time spent with the kids is worth it alone. I spent the second year of my first kids life seeing her about an hour a day between waking up and bed time cuz of my stupid "career aspirations"

**vijil** · 06-14-2021, 07:57 PM

When I got married, I was long term unemployed and my wife was a lawyer. For a while that's how it stayed. We managed to save a bit.

Neither of us ever thought that was a great situation. I pulled finger and managed to meet the right people, and a series of fortunate events and 6 years later (you make your own luck to some degree, but some of the things that happened were quite providential) I'm able to earn enough that she doesn't have to work, and we own a house and have 3 kids with another inbound.

A few things that guided us:

The difference it makes to your mental health to have a well organised pad is incredible. Having someone at home helps with this. Think of the cost of a housekeeper.
If she is the type, home cooking also works out much cheaper. At least it does here in NZ. I don't know if that's true in the US/Canadadia. Add this to your math.
Is she the type who would enjoy selling things on Etsy or running some kind of from-home part time business? We know a few people who do this successfully. Not really an option at first, but over time.
There's a fair swag of research about daycare. The upshot: it sucks for kids on balance, especially if it's full time and especially when they're young. Less is better. Factor that in.
Add to this: breastfeeding. Not everyone can do it, but the health benefits to the kid are significant. You can't do that if she's working full time. Formula is a backstop, not an equal alternative. For one thing, formula can't pass on disease immunity to the kid, and it doesn't automatically adjust the mix over time like the real thing does. That said, if (and I've never seen it successfully done) you have a wonder child who can do both, then that makes babysitting easier. But 99% of the time that's a non-option. Express if you can too. Again, probably less good though I'm not familiar with the research there.
Actually stop and think about how much of your own freedom/money/happiness you're willing to sacrifice to benefit your child/ren. Seriously, I'm amazed how many couples think they can just carry on life as usual, or think of the child as an annoying handbrake on their fun. Just no. Obviously you need to consider your own mental health too, so keep balling. Just make sure the wife gets breaks too, because all too often the man gets to have all the breaks.
Do you live near grandparents or potential babysitters? Once the kid/s hit 2yo, babysitting is great. Use it lots.
When it comes to money, remember that you're a unit. Our money is "our" money. I make the money, sure, but I absolutely consider it to be the family's money, not mine to decide what to do with any more than it's hers. Our accounts are fully joint (with individual spending allowance accounts) and my wife does most of the finances. If you have the attitude that you are a unit and you have an allowance that's equal, that saves a bunch of arguing.

Not the most feminist/progressive view, but there it is.

Of course not everyone has the choice - wages are low, house prices are high, and not everyone can breastfeed. That's life. You do what you can with what you have. But if you can: yes.

(The ideal scenario, in my opinion, is to have mum and dad at home full time, with dad/both working from home mostly. Pre industrial revolution style. But that aint easy)

**Siress** · 06-14-2021, 11:16 PM

You said your wife does front end web development and implied that she'd be able to land another job easily after taking the 5-6yrs off to raise kids. Does she agree with that assessment? It would surprise me if the tech sector moved that slowly.

I'm going to brag about my wife in this post, fellas. You've been warned. We went single income ~3yrs ago when my wife was pregnant with our first, working full time, and going to law school at night. It was too much for her. We honestly didn't even talk about it. She just quit and informed me. I accepted the decision and didn't look back. She is an amazing woman and an inspiration to me. She completed law school in record time - even when they gave her hell for missing a few days because she gave birth; even when she juggled our first child and law school by finding an affordable childcare option that was actually reputable, and somehow getting a spot. She finished her last semester while pregnant with our second, schedule the bar exam for ~two weeks before her due date, fucking aced it, and then gave birth like a boss. Financially, though, it has been rough. The only way to make that work is to be frugal. I grew up frugal, but developed this expensive drinking habit. She's naturally frugal in most ways, but still has some expensive habits that have caused financial stress - like only using the hippy dippy organic groceries and such that run 2x normal costs; not entirely without merit, though.... The challenge is that there is a serious minimum amount of income that is absolutely necessary. The farther you can get from that while living frugally, the less financial stress you'll feel. The major budget hitters are different for everyone. Some people think that driving a car <3yrs old is a necessity, and some think that renting is a frugal option because buying a home has expensive up front costs. The truth is that everything is a long game. If you just play the short game, you'll never get ahead. Feeling too broke to buy real estate? Save up until you can buy a cheap condo, do it, and then invest savings into index funds until you've saved enough to buy your 'forever home'. Buy tools to fix frequently occurring issues, but don't get carried away. Building furniture is not frugal - you could furnish a mansion with free furniture every spring when students empty their dorms.

The real shitty part of this equation is that "free time" is really just a concept of something you once knew about. Instead, you'll learn a lot about stuff you never cared about before. Like how to repair anything around the house, landscaping, when to seed your lawn. how to deal with pests/rodents, changing brake pads and rotors... it never ends. But you have to push back and spend quality time with your kids. Schedule it if you have to... Never lose focus of what's really important.

**glaman5266** · 06-15-2021, 02:02 AM

I didn't read this whole thread, but what I did read was super good advice.

One thing I'll say- We both worked before we had kids. When we had our first we went to a one income household. Things were tight for the first few years, but that's to be expected. Nothing teaches you how to stretch a dollar like having kids. It will be painful, you will be tested, you will not have much free time or spending cash. But if you can afford it it's absolutely worth it to have one parent there full time. 110% worth it. Not just for the kids but for the whole household & it's overall operation. That's one of the biggest reasons I'm going to be stay-at-home dad by the end of this week.

**Grendel** · 06-15-2021, 07:27 AM

Didn't decide wife just decided she can't do the public teacher thing anymore and has found nothing else other then babysitting for granddaughter. So she gets to handle the bulk of the house chores and I make the money for her to spend.

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