Nicole and I have been talking more and more about babies. As much as she teases about not being ready or wanting to wait ten years, she is being playful and also feeling the responsibility of keeping us in check since I'm so emotional about it. But she has been very open lately about being mentally and emotionally ready, and has said that if money weren't an issue, she would be thrilled to start trying like yesterday. But the finances are killing us.
We are enjoying being in our new house together, but we don't feel that it's a phase we need to drag out. We wanted the house because we were ready for kids and didn't want to deal with outgrowing our two-bedroom apartment (yes, we had a 2BR so that we wouldn't feel pressured to move out) and having to house-hunt while raising a toddler. It was also a great time with record-low interest rates. Now we're here and settled and ready to fill those bedrooms! Yes, there are things we will enjoy doing and working on, but nothing that pregnancy and parenthood will preclude us from.
We know that we will never feel 100% financially comfortable when making the decision to conceive, unless we wait until we're 45. But we need to be able to afford childcare, and other expenses are currently using up the income that would be going toward that - and there isn't much wiggle room outside of that childcare budget as it is. Right now most of it is going to pay Nicole's parents back, because they loaned us money toward closing costs. If we pay at our current rate, it will take us a total of two years to finish paying them. We can try to pare that down by paying a little more and by giving them tax return money, but it will only affect it by a matter of a few months, when we had originally planned to start trying for a baby this spring. It's a harsh and sad reality.
Then there are the larger costs that we somehow have to save toward - primarily repaving the horribly broken up driveway and converting to gas when our old oil tank dies in about five years. Nicole's car is paid off and it's a 2009 - since we are a single-car family, there will unfortunately come a day when we have to get a new car. We either need to be saving toward that now, or be prepared to take on a car payment which isn't an expense we currently have to budget for.
I know it'll never be perfect - but it seems damn un-doable right now, and it sucks that money is our only real obstacle.
One thing I have been thinking a lot about recently is whether it'd be worth doing part-time work in the evening to save on childcare. Nicole works 8:00-4:00 and is home by 4:15 or 4:20. If I worked from, say, 5:00-8:00, this would be perfectly doable. (And there are a TON of part-time evening and/or weekend jobs in social work.) Nicole and I wouldn't see each other much on weeknights for a while, but you do what you have to do to raise your family. Certainly other families make harder sacrifices than that to make it work. Once the kids are in school, I could go back to full-time work, and Nicole's schedule would allow for our kids not having to be in after-school until all hours.
Right now I'm getting home around 6:30, if I leave work right at 5:00. The thought of only seeing my baby for MAYBE two hours before she goes to sleep is heartbreaking. I know the working parent has to do this, and most families cannot afford for either parent to be home during the day. But if we can find a way to swing it, it would mean so much to me. It's not just about ME getting to see the baby, either - it's about her spending more time with strangers than with her parents. If I was leaving her at home with Nicole all day, it wouldn't be affecting me like this. Of course I would miss her and would hate missing out on so much time with her, but at least I'd know she was with one of her parents. Arranging this would make the sacrifice worth it until we get out of the baby years.
However, I'm not sure if part-time income would be enough to help with the other expenses. Getting rid of childcare would be immensely helpful, but there are still other places my income goes. Nicole's income can't take on the whole mortgage and my student loans, so I have to make enough to be able to continue contributing significantly toward those expenses. If childcare costs between $1000 and $1200 a month, then we can at least live on that much less than my current income. However, I'm a supervisor now, and part-time work would not be administrative. It would likely be counseling or other direct practice work, which pays less. So not only would I be paid on part-time hours, but in a position that already pays less on a per-hour basis. I can't expect that working half the hours will lead to half the income - I'm pretty sure it will be less than that.
I need to figure out what we could live on, and then somehow figure out what positions like that pay so that I know whether this plan is even feasible. It's my #1 choice, but I'm not sure whether it's really even an option.
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