working after giving birth

I was thinking since daycare seems to be on avg 295/wk (what I priced out) doesnt it make sense to stay home and watch a child in your own home after giving birth? I just cant imagine giving 1200/month of my salary and working those hrs.

Re: working after giving birth

I've thought about this a lot too and I think a lot of people it depends on who has the health insurance etc.

For us, I cant afford to give up my salary, but I also cant keep working in the city and being away from 6am to 9pm at night. So I'm not sure what to do either.

Re: working after giving birth

If you wind up working just to pay for daycare, then yes it's a waste. But if you are still bringing home a profit that you invest or save, or need that money to pay bills, it stinks but a must.

We did an income/expense worksheet to see exactly what we earn and what gets paid out to see the numbers in black and white. It helps with the budgeting, and to see exactly what we spend our hard earned money on.

Re: working after giving birth

for me, currently it's not worth it. i need to bump up my salary to justify the daycare expense. we can survive on one salary for the short term, but long term i have to figure out how to make what i have made previously.

Re: working after giving birth

We can't afford for me not to return to work, so we'll have to just pay the $1000/mo daycare

Re: working after giving birth

Posted by Anniegrl

We can't afford for me not to return to work, so we'll have to just pay the $1000/mo daycare

Re: working after giving birth

Posted by Anniegrl

We can't afford for me not to return to work, so we'll have to just pay the $1000/mo daycare

Re: working after giving birth

This was our dilemma....DH's salary was the lower one and after day-care expenses, there is very little to take home, so we decided that DH will be a SAHD for now and we will see how it goes.

Re: working after giving birth

Well, the 1000 wouldn't put a big enough dent in my salary to not work anymore, but if it did, I absolutely would stay home. Luckily, JT is home two or three days during the work week and my dad and his mom are going to take her the other two days.

Re: working after giving birth

Re: working after giving birth

DH and I both have nice salaries now, but we are moving out of state. There is no way that I could do my current commute and have a baby. So I am going to stay at home. I always toss around the idea of taking in another child during the day. When I was younger I use to be a nanny and really enjoyed it.

Re: working after giving birth

Re: working after giving birth

I work from home and go on client appointments 4 days a week. Once Gracie is born, I will be home for 2 months and then see clients 1-2 days a week when DH works from home. If DH cannot swing working from home, we will put her into daycare 1-2 days a week.

Re: working after giving birth

Re: working after giving birth

Day care costs are approximately 40% of my monthly salary. SO I really have no reason not to go back to work (since I don't think we could make ends meet on just one salary - my DH makes a bigger salary.)

I may reduce my hours or work from home 2 days a week if I can work that out with my employer!!

Re: working after giving birth

For me too, paying for daycare would still be much less money to pay than losing my salary completely. Luckily, I was able to take a job working nights, on the weekends so I'll be home M-TH all day and DH will be home when I am working. We will only need daycare 1 day a week so that I can get some sleep on Friday after working Thursday night.

Re: working after giving birth

I will not be going back to my job I just left for maternity leave. I was offered a stay at home position and hopefully that will work out. I would be so thrilled if it did!!

Re: working after giving birth

Posted by pmpkn087

Posted by luvsun27

This was our dilemma....DH's salary was the lower one and after day-care expenses, there is very little to take home, so we decided that DH will be a SAHD for now and we will see how it goes.

This is what we were going to do, but my friend offered to watch baby for much cheaper where we would still have a nice chunk of his salary if he worked, so he will continue to work. I think he was looking forward to staying home, too. sorry buddy, if I have to go back, so do you j/k

Re: working after giving birth

Re: working after giving birth

I work part time and will be returning to work as soon as possible after the baby. Since I only work afternoons, I will drop the baby off with either my mother or MIL at 3pm and then DH will pick the baby up after work- usually around 5:30-6pm. So they only need to watch the baby for a few hours at a time, not all day.
But DH and I have another bog payment to worry about- health insurance. A family plan at DH's job is going to cost us around $1000 a month- roughly what day care would be. But the fact of the matter is, I make a very good living working part time doing something I enjoy. So it makes absolutey no sense for me to go back to working full time.

Re: working after giving birth

I was out of work for 6 months. 6 weeks at full pay and 6 weeks at 1/2 pay then nothing after that. At first I returned to work 1 day a week and about a month later I picked up another day a week. I work 2-10pm on the days that I work and my mom watches her until 5pm when DH gets home. So far its working out well. I only make a little less than 1/2 of what I used to bring home.

Re: working after giving birth

I don't know what we are going to do.
I'm trying not to stress about it yet- these things have a way of working themselves out- all my friends figured it out- and they are all on #2- i hope I can figure it out too :)

Re: working after giving birth

We can't offered for me to stay home. Not only do I have a higher salary but I have the medical insurance (which is cheaper through my job). My mom was going to watch the baby and we were going to pay her but after my mom passed away my best friend has volunteered. We will be paying her $150 a week and she does not even want that but I told her that if she is going to do it than she needs to take the money.

Re: working after giving birth

Posted by luvsun27

Posted by pmpkn087

Posted by luvsun27

This was our dilemma....DH's salary was the lower one and after day-care expenses, there is very little to take home, so we decided that DH will be a SAHD for now and we will see how it goes.

This is what we were going to do, but my friend offered to watch baby for much cheaper where we would still have a nice chunk of his salary if he worked, so he will continue to work. I think he was looking forward to staying home, too. sorry buddy, if I have to go back, so do you j/k

Believe me...I would rather him go out and work! However....it just doesn't make sense for him to work a job he hates for 40/hours a week to take home maybe $500/month (after expenses with daycare and such). It won't change our lives to make $500 less a month. We live in NJ and don't have any family and friends around to help us out, so we are on our own. I'm trying to convince him we need to move back to LI because my whole family is there and then we could have some help.

Re: working after giving birth

We're in a similar boat right now and seriously considering the financial sense of it. We will no doubt suffer w/o my income, but I think although it will be tough we could manage. I want to be sure it will definitely work out for me to go back. For the duration of the pregnancy I started my own law practice and it has worked out great. DH loves that the hours are flexible. I'm really only in court in the mornings so it's essentially part-time. And I schedule my own appearances so I could probably keep it to two days a week. We thought that would be great for after the baby, however, the pay is much lower than my salary was working for someone else so I think the daycare costs would tip the scale to where I wouldn't be bringing much more in that it is costing for me to work.