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Show Me Where the Money Goes

Comparing the budgets of “Stay-At-Home Moms” and the “Working Moms”

It wasn’t so long ago that a “working woman” was not taken seriously in the business world. Back then she had to take some boring mediocre jobs such as switchboard operations, dressmaking and cosmetics consultations.

Times have changed. You see women pursuing their careers in every direction, from interior designing to computer programming, to biotechnology and aeronautics.

What hasn’t changed is the fact that women are still torn emotionally and financially when it comes to making decisions whether or not she should stay home as a mother for her child/ren or whether she should pursue her career, juggle her schedule as a working mother, trying to make ends meet.  There are many aspects to look at when making these types of decisions. Perhaps this article could be just the eye-opener for some of you who are confused with these opportune times. Financial reasoning may be just what you are looking for when making that decision.

The Feeling Sinks In

Ahh, the sweet moments of having your own baby. The joy starts when you and your husband decide on having a baby. Never mind if your home is in shambles and there are mile-high bills to be paid. Once you and your husband decide on having a baby, you practically flip that champagne cork open and celebrate with just anyone you spread the news with.  And when the time comes for the doctor to confirm that you are indeed pregnant, more celebrations follow.  At work, everyone wants to know how “you and the baby” are doing.  Everyone rubs that round belly of yours, which is getting bigger in every half hour. Everyone at work is kind and accommodating with your needs, at least in most cases.  At the home front, even your mother-in-law turns a new leaf of generosity and sensitivity, filling you up with advice, suggestions and “baby names”.  Your own mother becomes a shop-a-holic filling up your home-office with nursery items such as baby clothes, baby mobile, bassinette, wet wipes warmer and those flip-flop trashcans that is supposed to be handy when you’re changing diapers.  Things are beginning to sink in.  Your husband gets nervous of the “big responsibility”. He is also starting to gain the same weight you are gaining – Go figure. Your office mates who may think you are not looking or listening, are all whispering to each other, passing out notes to each other about the so-called “surprise” baby shower.   You are noticing that those cute butterfly flutters in your belly are now beginning to be stabbing kicks right on your kidney.  And there’s that feeling again, things are beginning to sink in.  The voices of “what’s next” is starting to occupy your mind more often, convincing you to order a New York cheesecake for dessert.  Its hard to distinguish if that voice is a voice of “worry” typical symptom of motherhood, or if its really “worry” – because you can’t decide if you should be taking a “short-term” maternity leave, or the “long term”one – which in your mind, is REALLY “long-term”.
 

When That Little Creature Comes Along

The time finally here; your loving baby has arrived. It truly is a spectacular moment in your life. Millions of plans have been made:  the baby’s name, his/her career, and his/her retirement plans. You have been trying to make a concrete plan on this yourself.  You still haven’t decided on whether you should pursue a career as a working mother, or whether you should stay home and be there for that lovely child.  Many women’s answer to this dilemma starts when the baby is born.  They find it difficult to go back to work because their emotional “cons” for going back to work are greater than the “pros”. For them, it is a swift decision to stay home and be a  full time mother.  For others however, it is the nagging and excruciating dilemma that is sometimes left unanswered for years.  Many women decide to finally stay at home when their child is much older, maybe during elementary years, as the struggle between the child’s schedule and the work schedule becomes  more agonizing as years go by.  Most women decide based on emotional reasoning.  Financial reasoning is harder to work on because women really need to sit down and work this out.  Also, women need to figure out what exactly about having their career is hard to give up and whether or not can one live with this sacrifice.  Naturally, giving up the income, the dollars, the moola, the MONEY is a big perk one has to think about giving up.  But is money really the root of pursuing your career? Is meeting this month’s household budget the culprit in keeping you in your frustrating predicament?  Below is a typical budget for a working mother.  Don’t be surprised to see the truth.

Here’s Where It All Goes  * The figures below vary from city to city, and show the minimum expenditures of an average household with two income earners.

Rent or Mortgage Dues                     Start at $7016 per year or $585 per month

Daycare/Babysitting Tuition               Start at $4000 per year or $333 per month

Away from home Lunches                 Start at $2742 per year or $228 per month      

Away from home Dinners                  Start at $2742 per year or $228 per month

At home meals                                Start at $3566 per year or $297 per month                  

Apparel and Dry-cleaning                 Start at $2254 per year or $188 per month

Transportation  (gas and motor oil)    Start at $1358 per year or $113 per month

Miscellaneous                           Start at $1050 per year or $87   per month

 

Rent/Mortgage

Rent or Mortgage is going to be there for a while, unless you come up with the rest of the money right away to pay off your house.  Typically, when you own the house, you have about thirty years before you can write off this expense.  If you are renting, your rental rates may go up depending on where you live and if you are in a rent-control area.  If you have a mortgage, your mortgage interest rates may go up or down unless you have a fixed rate mortgage.  Either way, this expense will linger on you for quite a while.

Daycare/Babysitting

The daycare or babysitting expense will take up a big chunk of your paycheck.  Daycare rates range from **$333 to $833 monthly.  Babysitting expenses may vary from city to city. Having a family nanny could easily double these figures. Just looking at these costs may make you run to your boss’ office to turn in your resignation letter.

Lunches

Even if you pack your own lunch, it’s hard to pass up a good lunch with a co-worker once in a while.  Most women go out to lunch especially if someone at work is celebrating his/her birthday, someone else’s baby shower, bridal shower, and “welcome back from maternity leave” lunch or there are times that bologna sandwich gets boring and you smell someone’s Philly sandwich in the next cubicle….I think you can understand this point of view from here….

Dinners

Most women decide that they can cook a nice, delicious dinner after work.  Then they realize it was but a “dream”.  Let’s face it, you don’t want to cook dinner after a hard day’s work and fighting with the afternoon crowd on the freeways.  No, no.  The only solution is food “take out” or going somewhere for dinner.  After all, you want to spend time with your family and talk about each other’s days, not to mention taking care of the pile of laundry laying on the floor that you need to wash, which leads me to my next topic.

Dry cleaning

If you want to keep those “dry cleaning” suits and silk blouses to their tip-top shapes, along with your husband’s starched shirts, chances are you need to make a trip to the drycleaners once a week.  A typical cost for dry cleaning is $2.00 per item, depending on the type of apparel and dry cleaning costs vary from city to city. If you do the math, that minimum amount, 5 garments per week alone will pay for your monthly expenditures in diapers.  Sometimes women send out all of their clothes to laundry services because there just isn’t any time left to do the laundry.

Transportation

Most people commute to work an average of 14 miles per day. If you live in a city where offices are located within or close to the downtown districts, you can effortlessly double your time of commute to and from work.  *Spending on gasoline and motor oil accounts increased about 15 percent in 1999. This increase reflects the rise in the gasoline prices of 9.3%.

Miscellaneous

Don’t forget those beauty salon trips to up-do your hair, and make your fingernails and toe nails presentable.  You might also need to update your work and weekend attire as well.  Besides your child’s medical visits, you too should include your medical and dental visits in your budget.  And there’s always that “entertainment “ budget you need for renting videos or dvd’s, buying cds' for you to listen to while you’re in the car jammed in traffic and once in a while, you hate to live in a pig sty, you might want to just get a maid in your home and tidy things up a bit, so that you and your family can mess it up again in less than one day.

Money Solutions

By now, staying home as a mother is beginning to look more appealing – not just from an emotional point of view but from an economics point of view as well. A typical budget for a family with a stay at home mom may just give your pocket book that “healing” power.

Rent/Mortgage                         Stays the same unless  you are planning on moving

Daycare                                   None

Away from Home Lunches       Start at $1635 per year or $136 per month                              

Away from Home Dinners        Start at $1635 per year or $136 per month

At Home Meals                        Start at $3271 per year or $272 per month

Dry Cleaning                            None (occasional)

Transportation                          Start at $1044 per year or $87 per month

Miscellaneous                           Start at $757 per year or $63.00 per month

Daycare

Consider this bill “terminated”. You may need to get a babysitter once in a while when you decide to go out on a date with your husband, etc. But for the most part, this bill is “history”.  Stay-at-home moms are very creative in using their network of other stay-at-home mothers.  Other moms in your child’s playgroup can cut a deal with you to take turns when watching each others’ kids.  Not only do you nurture new and long-term friendships, your child can benefit from socializing with other kids as well.

Lunches

Once you’re a stay-at-home mother, it is easy to be imaginative when it comes to your personal lunch menus.  Chances are that you will be making your own lunches at home and the price tags of these homemade lunches are better breathing apparatus for your pocketbook.  It’s also nice to eat lunch with your own child everyday.  Once in a while, your network of other moms will have potluck lunches and these are more fun that those corporate power lunches, don’t you think?

Dinners

You may not have the energy to make a gourmet meal every night, but being a stay-at-home mother will give you ample time to re-kindle your culinary skills.  Making your own dinners can really take a big chunk off your own expenses. Having a homemade dinner with your family is also nice and revitalizing.

Dry cleaning

You may want to hang that Donna Karen suit for a while. Get used to wearing cotton tees and jeans, perfect for agility and flexibility – you’ll need these when chasing your kids in the park, bending to change diapers or to pick up toys, talking on the phone while you’re filling up the dishwasher and vacuuming twice a day.  Unless you’re a mom from a daytime soap, you wouldn’t be making a trip to the drycleaners for a while.  You may be able to avoid the trip completely once you learn that you can actually “hang-dry” your husband’s “wash and wear” shirts and slacks, and once in a while – give ‘em a little ironing.

Transportation

No commuting to and from work – from now on, you will be commuting to and from the parks, other mom’s houses, supermarkets, your child’s pediatrician and to grandma’s.  The commute to work is easily eliminated when you decide to be a stay-at-home mom. Maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t need to go beyond that speed limit anymore. After all, as a stay-at-home mom, you can say these words: “I’ll get there when I get there”.  Can you say that to your previous boss?

Miscellaneous

Most women give up on the regular manicures altogether.  Who has time and effort to worry about these? Most women also decide on a hairstyle that is more manageable – the kind that you just comb off wet, and let it dry on its own… After all, a trip to the park doesn’t require a celebrity hairstyle.  Most stay-at-home moms become carefree with the way they look.  Hanging around with other moms can do that. 

It’s a Revelation

Now that both budgets of a stay-at-home mom and a working mom has been revealed, it is not too hard to make a choice between the two lifestyles – financially speaking. A stay-at-home mom can easily save an average of $15,358 per year or $1279 per month.  Still for some women,  having a career is fulfilling enough to overlook at the significant budget differences.  Many women still have that longing to “do something” out of their lives – to pursue a career that makes them feel “rich” inside.  There will always be that persistent voice whispering, “What can I do?”.  In this high-technology society, many women can have the world of career and the world of motherhood, without stepping out of the home front.  The answer is telecommuting and working out of one’s home. It’s not a new concept, but it is getting popular and rightly so.  Information Net Source Corporation  is helping many women pursue the goodness of both worlds.  A stay-at home mom can easily earn that “paycheck” again, while enjoying quality time with her child. To find out more about telecommuting and working out of your home, call 1-800-488-5654 or visit http://www.workathome-employment.com It will be a life-changing decision that can benefit you and your family, and with a savings rate of $1279 per month to stay home, plus the potential of earning extra income while you’re at home, who could pass this up?

 

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