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Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008
One mom crunches the numbers on the assumption that quitting work is cheaper than paying for life as a working parent.
Jul 13, 1999 | There you are, floating in the tender postpartum world of baby smells and tiny jiggly thighs. How could you possibly return to work after a mere 12 weeks? "Maybe we can manage," you think, pointing out that there won't be much left of your salary after child-care expenses. Think of all you'd save on eating out and dry cleaning!
Then you find the justification for handing in your notice: a Web site that calculates how much your family will save if you stay home. Plug in a few numbers and presto, you're going to come out ahead once you stop paying for that extra car, that expensive vacation, the take-out pizza after a long workday.
But the bottom line, when you really crunch the numbers, isn't that simple. If you want to quit your job, more power to you -- but don't do it thinking you're going to be all the richer. It hurts family finances when one spouse quits working, and I'll tell you why.
First of all, let's admit that quizzes have a political, not financial, agenda. I have a political agenda, too. I run a mailing list for working mothers and believe that every parent who works should live guilt-free. I take issue with this quiz's claim that "most kids under the age of 6 want to be with their moms, and most moms want to be with their kids." What about dad? Furthermore, dozens of moms on my mailing list make anywhere from slightly more to three times their husband's salaries, which in some cases are so pitifully small that one mom says, "I've never had to live alone on what my husband makes. My starting salary, nine years ago, was more."
But let's put politics aside and deconstruct the work vs. stay-home equation under a strictly financial microscope. I'm also a business writer and so I'll look at the numbers assuming that it's OK for either mom or dad, whoever earns less, to stay home.
Plug in the lower salary, deduct all those pesky work-related expenses, then see how pitifully little is left: It's a pretty simple analysis. The problem is that the actual benefits and expenses of this equation are neither simple nor can they always be boiled down to hard numbers.
First, obviously, deduct those outrageous child-care expenses since the tot will be at home all day. But wait -- this isn't a clean subtraction. If you think it's just going to be you and the kid in the house all day, you're cruising for a nervous breakdown. Add back the cost of Gymboree, music class, swim lessons, all those events for which every single stay-home parent I know signs up. Add the cost of visiting museums and play centers and snacks for the playground each week.
OK, maybe you won't save all that much on child care. But you're really going to rake it in when you stop commuting, right? Wrong. Factor in driving the kid to all of those events. Add a few of those trips to nowhere, the drives to get everyone out of the house. Include the cost of driving around for errand-running during the day (which a stay-home parent can be logically expected to shoulder more of), making a special fuel-wasting trip to pick up paint, dry-cleaning or groceries instead of letting the working spouse do it on the way home.
Both this quiz and the one at Parents Place mention that stay-home spouses save money on clothing, which is a bit of a mystery to me. When I quit my office job to work at home, I started buying different clothes -- casual ones, since I'm not seeing any clients -- but they aren't any cheaper. My husband's suits do cost more than his khakis, but the suits last longer, so they factor out to be about the same yearly expense. A parent has to get dressed every day no matter where he or she is going, and shoes, shirts and pants ultimately cost the same to buy and wash no matter where they're being worn. Wearing a suit and pressed shirt every day does cost my husband $30 each month in dry cleaning, so perhaps that's the big savings here.
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