I FOUND THIS ARTICLE TODAY AND I AM REALLY WISHING I COULD BE A STAY AT HOME MOM BECAUSE IT IS WHAT I HAVE ALWAYS FELT WAS MY CALLING IN LIFE IS TO RAISE MY CHILDREN! I KNOW THAT IS A HARD THING TO DO THESE DAYS WITH THE ECONOMY AND ALL! I JUST REALLY AM WORKING FOR NOTHING IT SEEMS WHEN I CALCULATE MY INCOME WITH JUST THE EXTRA EXPENSES BEDSIDES BILLS WHICH COME OUT OF
DESMOND'S CHECK! SO TO ME US WORKING TOWARD THIS GOAL WILL BE
BENEFICIAL FOR EVERYONE! I AM ACTUALLY THINKING AFTER READING THIS ARTICLE THAT I AM PAYING TO WORK JUST ABOUT! HOW SAD IS THAT!!!!!! ANYWAY READ FOR YOURSELF AND YOU DECIDE!!!! ONCE AGAIN THESE ARE NOT MY NUMBERS THESE ARE THE LADY WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE/ WEBSITE!!! HERE IS THE WEBSITE IT IS A GREAT RESOURSE! THERE IS WAY MORE ON HERE BESIDES JUST THIS....
I POSTED THE ARTICLE BELOW FOR EVERYONE TO READ!!!!
http://www.stay-a-stay-at-home-mom.com/cost-of-working.htmlCost of working.I understand how tempting it can be to get a job and abandon the
SAHM philosophy for the sake of additional income.But in reality, how much are you really making?You may find yourself in a worse financial situation than if you were not working at all, due to the cost of working.
Did you know that it costs money to work? There are the obvious expenses, like taxes, daycare and transportation, but what about other things, like clothing and take-out meals? We often overlook these costs.Here is a wonderful
Cost of Working Calculator that will help you examine just how much you would really be making.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE CALCULATOR:
http://www.anycalculator.com/costofworking.htmFor an example, let’s take the last real job I had, and calculate my cost of working.I was a bank teller, working 40 hours a week, at $11 an hour with a quarterly bonus, on average, of about $1000. So my monthly gross income was about $2,100. (including the bonus)Because I was contributing an extra $25,000 a year to our income, we were no longer in the 15% tax bracket, but had moved up into the 25% tax bracket. This brought my net monthly income down to $1,575. Daycare:I had two children, both daycare-aged, at the time. Full time daycare in our area was running $325 per month, per child. A total of $650 a month for daycare.
Transportation: This would include a vehicle, maintenance, gasoline, car insurance, etc. To make it easier to calculate for this example, I am going to just use the $0.345 a mile that the government allowed as a mileage reimbursement at the time I was working. I drove 5 miles everyday to drop the kids off at daycare, 6.5 miles from daycare to work, and back again, every day. This would be 23 miles a day, 20 days a month. Total 460 miles per month, or about $160.
Lunch expenses: This was a big one for me. I ate out every day. With so much on my plate: work, taking care of two children, taking care of the house, etc, packing a lunch was the last thing on my mind. So I typically spent $5 a day on take out food. That’s $125 a month.
Clothing/Dry Cleaning Expense: I am not too big on buying clothing that requires dry cleaning, so I did not have this expense. I did, however, find myself at a job which required dress clothes. My monthly clothing budget was $75 a month, including multiple sets of pantyhose.
Dining Out Expenses: Again, this was a real pocket drainer for me. I’d get home after a 10 hour work/commute day, with two over stimulated children, a messy house, and an irritated husband. I simply did not have the energy to cook every night. A conservative cost for weekly take out at this time in my life would have been $50 a week, or $200 a month. I realize that is high for many families, but that is how it was in our family, after I chose to examine our spending.
Miscellaneous expenses: Miscellaneous expenses might include things like: loss of income when I had to take off work to take the kids to the doctor, because they had gotten a cold at daycare. Add to that the co-pay at the doctor’s office, plus the cost of prescription antibiotics. Or how about the costs of disposable diapers? I had been putting my children in cloth diapers at home, but the daycare centers would not use them. So I had to purchase diapers each week for my babies to use at daycare. Not to mention the fact that I was supplementing my youngest with formula, because I could not pump enough breast milk to provide for her throughout the day. Then there are things like buying gifts for bosses or co-workers at Christmas. Or the inevitable $10 here and there that you are expected to contribute for birthday cakes or flowers and the like when another employee is the beneficiary. Or how about the $20 you are guilt-tripped into spending on someone’s kid’s school fundraiser? And the $10 in office supplies you buy out of pocket because your company forgot to order more pens? All these little expenses add up. For the sake of this example, let’s say that these expenses equal just $50 a month.
This brings my monthly expenses to: $1,260.So, my income, after taxes, was $1,575 and my expenses for working were $1,260. That left me a profit of $315 a month, or just $1.96 an hour!
I worked hard, from morning to night, day after day, having some stranger watch my daughter take her first step, so that I could earn a measly $2 an hour???To me, it just
wasn’t worth it. Try the calculator yourself.
I’m sure there is a position that you have considered, probably recently. How much did it pay? How long would your children be in daycare? Plug in the numbers and see what the Cost of Working would be. You may be surprised. You noticed in my example that by me working, it put us in a higher income tax bracket. Keep in mind, when figuring your cost of working, that some people qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Often, when mommy goes back to work, the family no longer qualifies for this substantial credit. So, if you are one of these people, make sure you factor in the loss of this benefit as well.
Let me be very clear here: On the great debate on whether it is best to stay home with your children or to work for a living, I do not think there is a right and wrong answer. This is a decision that each family needs to make for itself. Our family feels that it is best for me to stay home with our children, partly because of the cost of working, but mostly for other reasons. That may not be the same for your family, and that’s fine! I don’t have a problem with families who for one reason or another have two working parents, or a single parent who needs to work.What I do have a problem with are families who believe they CANNOT survive off of one income, without doing the research first.
