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So, this is how I'm seeing it break down (if you move to a new place):Aagar's tally posted:Income: Under this plan, plus or minus, you have no room for error, and no savings for anything long term. This is the trade off - a better living situation for a long-term future of being one late paycheck away from financial hardship. What you choose to do is up to you - this isn't "who wants to be a millionaire?" where you poll the audience on every decision and pick the answer with the most votes. You need to formulate a plan based around the financial decisions you want to make short and long term. In my above calculation, if I were you, I'd be scared shitless, because there is no room for error, and no hope of getting out of debt or making significant savings towards anything you say you want (house, etc.). I'm 100% with April - if you are committed to moving, after a lot of thought and making a solid plan, you have to prove you can do it now over the next three months. Then we can all be in a better spot to comment on your financial health and the feasibility of the plan. If it were me, however, the animals would be gone and I'd make it work where you are now. There are many things working against you that you don't appreciate: 1. Moving with an 8-month pregnant wife is a nightmare waiting to happen (as has been pointed out), 2. A baby is a full-time job for the first 4-5 months, and trying to care for 5 pets on top of it will drive your wife off the edge, 3. The expense of the pets is on the order of 3-5% of your overall income - even at $150/mo (wasn't it $300 one month?), that's $1,800/year you could use towards a lot of your long-term goals. Anyway, these are my opinions. We all have opinions, and while they differ in execution we are all trying to lead you to a better financial future. How (and if) you get there is up to you. Remember, this is the internet - the penultimate of instant gratification and abundance of information. You don't have to revise your budget 4 times a night as a knee-jerk response to comments. I think what really pisses April (and others) off is that this is discipline. This is sacrifice. This is the motherfucking long haul. Revisionist budgeting and thousands of ideas are polar opposed to what we all know you need to be doing to get straight. In this journey of 1,000 steps, the first step is to take a break, take a couple of days, really think about your budget, REALLY think about whether you want to move in January, and come up with a plan based on what you want. We all thought at the outset it was to get an emergency fund, have enough for the baby when it arrives, and get out of debt. If those are the top priorities, I'd seriously consider keeping the lower rent, sacrificing (like your pets), and slog it out until you are certain you can move up safely without falling back down the cliff face.
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Sep 24, 2014 17:45
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Aagar posted:So, this is how I'm seeing it break down (if you move to a new place): This. Live on that budget for at least 3 months, without going over, and then you can say that yes, you can afford the better place.
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Sep 24, 2014 17:58
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Is moving a viable option at any point? He'll either be packing up an extremely pregnant wife or a very newborn baby.
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Sep 24, 2014 18:03
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Aagar posted:So, this is how I'm seeing it break down (if you move to a new place): All good points. Pets was $300 one month as we needed to get the new one spayed (which a vet savings/pet savings should have covered). The pets thing isn't about sacrificing my well-being, it's about sacrificing their well-being that I care about. I know they're just dumb animals or whatever, but they're our responsibility. It would really help her out while she's taking care of the baby (working or not) if we could just put them out back, and then they could just run around the yard or whatever. Plus I could clean up their poop without having to haul it through the living room. Even in a bag it's terrible. One of the reasons we made such a drastic move towards breaking the lease last night is because my wife was thinking about just how difficult the pets will be once the baby is here. It's not just my input here everyone, like I said my wife has a big part in this. I genuinely hope she'll post today confirming some of that, and more importantly giving her outlook as well. I don't want to drop into this decision and pack our bags right now. I did the same math last night as you posted. Your outlook also doesn't include the fact that my wife's job covers our insurance. I don't think we can get away with her not working at this point. That's loving ludicrous to me. I know I can get a business (or charity) off the ground. It doesn't have to be -right this minute- though. "Remember, this is the internet - the penultimate of instant gratification and abundance of information. You don't have to revise your budget 4 times a night as a knee-jerk response to comments. I think what really pisses April (and others) off is that this is discipline. This is sacrifice. This is the motherfucking long haul. Revisionist budgeting and thousands of ideas are polar opposed to what we all know you need to be doing to get straight." This. This is what I have grown to the point of exhaustion on. I still think we can go ahead with this budget we posted though. The first month will be rough, but every month after that we'll have some extra discretionary saved up if things get a little hairy, or if we want to buy something or whatever we'll have the means without busting the budget. What's everyone think about that outlook?
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Sep 24, 2014 18:08
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April posted:This. Live on that budget for at least 3 months, without going over, and then you can say that yes, you can afford the better place. The budget Aagar posted? That needs to take into account what health insurance for all of us would cost, also. With Obamacare I'm guessing at least $400/mo. I don't think we can afford for my wife to stay home yet. Not until we get some debt paid off. However I'm willing to budget like my wife isn't working, and budget like we're living in a more expensive place anyway. It's just another way of saving. Veskit posted:Is moving a viable option at any point? He'll either be packing up an extremely pregnant wife or a very newborn baby. Meh we haven't unpacked pretty much anything outside the kitchen/living room/clothes. I could just hire a couple illegal workers again and take care of moving everything myself. Who knows maybe I'm underestimating again though. I'll definitely give this some thought. Aagar I'm going to take your advice. My wife will still give some input, but I need to step away from at least revising the budget for 3 days. I'll keep looking at the budget I made, and reevaluate it over the next few days. Right this minute I'm going to wager that it doesn't change. There's still a lot of money for wiggle room in there, like I said especially if we roll over discretionary.
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Sep 24, 2014 18:15
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Knyteguy posted:One of the reasons we made such a drastic move towards breaking the lease last night is because my wife was thinking about just how difficult the pets will be once the baby is here. Cicero fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 18:16
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Knyteguy posted:I still think we can go ahead with this budget we posted though. The first month will be rough, but every month after that we'll have some extra discretionary saved up if things get a little hairy, or if we want to buy something or whatever we'll have the means without busting the budget. What's everyone think about that outlook? Could you please show us where you have ever saved any of your discretionary money? Did I miss something in the last 30 pages? From my understanding you tend to blow your discretionary money within the first two weeks of every month, and are forced to either scrape by or "adjust" your budget to reflect the sudden, entirely unexpected expenses you run into (like, eating). Or am I misunderstanding what you mean here?
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Sep 24, 2014 18:16
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It's not about caring about your pets well-being vs not, it's about trading off between their well-being, and the well-being of you, your wife, and your child. It'd be an easy choice for me but I've never been a pet person. It's not about your wife not working, it's about budgeting as if your rent is the higher rent, and your wife's paychecks don't exist(and you pretend you have to contribute to the HSA assuming you want to keep that). You ought to prove you can actually live like that, since that is what you will have to do in a few months if you move, and I'm not even accounting for the cost of the move, or the actual costs associated with the new baby at all. (there will be tons of these). It seems to me like you are in denial of the extent that your life is going to have to change once you have this baby, and you are struggling to budget now when it will be 10x harder when you gain a bunch of expenses and lose a bunch of income at the same time. Signing up for another 300-500 in expenses before know you can live with it is a symptom of that. Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 18:16
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No one can tell you what your goals are but you. You and your wife need to sit down and decide what's most important to you for the future. Then write down #1 on a big sheet of paper and tape it to the wall. Think about it carefully; once you post it up, it's set in concrete. No more flopping around. Look at that sheet every time you want to buy something out of budget. I'm guessing based on your recent posts that your main goal is to buy a house and get that matching money from your grandma. So I'm going to make an unusual suggestion: Get rid of the emergency fund, get rid of the house deposit fund. From now on, your savings all go into the house down payment fund. If you have an emergency, you'll have to take it from the house fund. I think this will make a change in what you consider an emergency. If you keep stealing all the money from the down payment, then you need to reconsider what your real goals are. You'll either have to fix your budget to live within your means, or accept that you would rather have immediate wants fulfilled than long-term ones. Not everyone wants to or should own their own home. You don't have to if you're happy renting.
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Sep 24, 2014 18:16
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Aagar posted:Really solid advice There are so many unknowns with a new baby that could potentially throw your whole budget off. What if the birth costs are higher than what you end up saving in your HSA? What if the baby needs a special kind of formula? What if the baby or your wife have additional medical issues? What if you want to take some unpaid time off to help with the new baby? Stretching your budget so tight at a time where you guys will have a lot of new things to adjust to sounds like a very bad idea.
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Sep 24, 2014 18:17
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Knyteguy posted:I still think we can go ahead with this budget we posted though. The first month will be rough, but every month after that we'll have some extra discretionary saved up if things get a little hairy, or if we want to buy something or whatever we'll have the means without busting the budget. What's everyone think about that outlook? Well since you aren't coming up with these things, i'd be interested to see what happens with your spending if you and hte MRS both got 250 discretionary and figured it out from there. Also 500 in groceries and pump the rest into "general savings". I think that's a good baseline test to see what things happen to your budget, and from there you can make small tweaks and be less stressed out.
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Sep 24, 2014 18:20
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Knyteguy posted:All good points. Pets was $300 one month as we needed to get the new one spayed (which a vet savings/pet savings should have covered). The pets thing isn't about sacrificing my well-being, it's about sacrificing their well-being that I care about. I know they're just dumb animals or whatever, but they're our responsibility. It would really help her out while she's taking care of the baby (working or not) if we could just put them out back, and then they could just run around the yard or whatever. Plus I could clean up their poop without having to haul it through the living room. Even in a bag it's terrible. I think that you are now using the pets as an excuse to move sooner, and that you'll keep coming up with reasons. Instead of saying "it would make our lives and budget much easier if we had fewer pets", you are saying "we need to add stress and money to keep the pets." Again - you do these things to yourself, then get upset, and want to spend money you don't have to fix the problem. Also, when have you ever had extra discretionary?
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Sep 24, 2014 18:24
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Cicero: pets are generally only $150 a month. That includes 3 bags of food (which they actually only need about ~2.33/mo), cat food, litter, toys, treats, the works. I grew up in just such a heavy pet family that it's nuts to me to even consider getting rid of one.Veskit posted:Well since you aren't coming up with these things, i'd be interested to see what happens with your spending if you and hte MRS both got 250 discretionary and figured it out from there. Also 500 in groceries and pump the rest into "general savings". I think that's a good baseline test to see what things happen to your budget, and from there you can make small tweaks and be less stressed out. OK let me consider this over the next few days. I'm going to stick with what I said and not revise the budget until then. I just need a little cool off period. April posted:I think that you are now using the pets as an excuse to move sooner, and that you'll keep coming up with reasons. Instead of saying "it would make our lives and budget much easier if we had fewer pets", you are saying "we need to add stress and money to keep the pets." Well I did say we'd consider getting rid of the cats. My wife and I were discussing it last night. When it comes to taking care of another life in your responsibility though, it can never be a snap decision even if it might be the obvious right one. To answer the question about discretionary: well I haven't. I thought if we had any extra discretionary at the end of a month then we lost it. I didn't understand it was a category that could be rolled over... until heck maybe a couple days ago. I guarantee some people probably mentioned it before, but it's hard to remember everything with so much information coming at me. e: guaranteed: you're right that probably is our biggest goal at the moment. But if we bought a house without an emergency fund we would probably end up in a way worse position. Doing that would just seem... drastic. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 18:42
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Jeffrey posted:It's not about your wife not working, it's about budgeting as if your rent is the higher rent, and your wife's paychecks don't exist(and you pretend you have to contribute to the HSA assuming you want to keep that). You ought to prove you can actually live like that, since that is what you will have to do in a few months if you move, and I'm not even accounting for the cost of the move, or the actual costs associated with the new baby at all. (there will be tons of these). It seems to me like you are in denial of the extent that your life is going to have to change once you have this baby, and you are struggling to budget now when it will be 10x harder when you gain a bunch of expenses and lose a bunch of income at the same time. Signing up for another 300-500 in expenses before know you can live with it is a symptom of that. OK so this has been thrown out there a couple times (budgeting like my wife isn't working). My wife will probably have 9 weeks off for the baby, and unless she changes her mind then she said she probably wants to live somewhere else rather than stay at home. I imagine she needs to give it more thought though. Considering that, can you explain to me what the motivation is to budgeting without my wife's income? I understand the higher rent, but just not that part. If it's to ensure that if she changes her mind about going back to work, then so be it. If it's to ensure we can live on just my income if poo poo hits the fan, then so be it.
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Sep 24, 2014 18:48
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Knyteguy posted:Cicero: pets are generally only $150 a month. That includes 3 bags of food (which they actually only need about ~2.33/mo), cat food, litter, toys, treats, the works. I grew up in just such a heavy pet family that it's nuts to me to even consider getting rid of one.[\quote] I think you're rewriting history here. I can't remember a single instance when you said "hey, it's the end of the month, we need to spend this extra money so we don't lose it". Instead, without exception, it's been "oopsie, we overspent again!" well before the end of the month.
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Sep 24, 2014 18:52
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Knyteguy posted:OK so this has been thrown out there a couple times (budgeting like my wife isn't working). My wife will probably have 9 weeks off for the baby, and unless she changes her mind then she said she probably wants to live somewhere else rather than stay at home. I imagine she needs to give it more thought though. So the emergency fund will cover her lack of income those months, while you are paying higher rent? I mean, that may be okay, just want to be clear that that's the plan. I suspect she will want to take more time off, but obviously I can't speak for her and you know her and I don't. Who is taking care of the baby once that happens? You could budget for daycare or a nanny or whatever you plan is in that case instead. If you struggle to do that when it your rent is low, you won't be able to do it when your rent is much higher. (I hope your plan isn't work from home while taking care of the infant yourself because there's no way that will work.) e: I remember something vague about a sister now, have you talked to her about watching the baby? Did I make this up? Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 18:54
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For reference I'm moving to a 3 bedroom 2.5 bath 1572 sqft town house ($1495/mo 25.8% of take home income). 9 mile 14 minute commute. My family consists of myself, wife, and 12 pound dog. I cannot imagine living in a place as tiny as where you're living. Do I need the space I have? Absolutely not, but it's great having a bedroom, a game room, and my wife gets a craft room. Plus we can have people over and it's in a really nice part of the town we live in. If it was me? I would move ASAP to a "middle ground". Not as much as you were paying before, but more than what you have now. Chock it up as a learning experience to think through decisions more. Everything about where you're living now sounds horrible though to be honest and moving after the baby definitely isn't going to be "easier". You really need to be deciding on whether or not your wife is going to work and what the cost impact is either way? Do you live close enough to a family member that would be willing to baby sit for free or cheap? That might be the best option.
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Sep 24, 2014 18:55
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Knyteguy posted:OK so this has been thrown out there a couple times (budgeting like my wife isn't working). My wife will probably have 9 weeks off for the baby, and unless she changes her mind then she said she probably wants to live somewhere else rather than stay at home. I imagine she needs to give it more thought though. Probably because you yourself said about 4 pages ago that the plan is for her to stay home and take care of the baby? If she's planning on going back to work, have you looked into childcare expenses in your area?
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Sep 24, 2014 18:59
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Knyteguy posted:Cicero: pets are generally only $150 a month. That includes 3 bags of food (which they actually only need about ~2.33/mo), cat food, litter, toys, treats, the works. I grew up in just such a heavy pet family that it's nuts to me to even consider getting rid of one. quote:One of the reasons we made such a drastic move towards breaking the lease last night is because my wife was thinking about just how difficult the pets will be once the baby is here.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:01
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April posted:I think you're rewriting history here. I can't remember a single instance when you said "hey, it's the end of the month, we need to spend this extra money so we don't lose it". Instead, without exception, it's been "oopsie, we overspent again!" well before the end of the month. Maybe. I did genuinely think that money unspent was money "lost" to savings, which is still a bad way of looking at it in a couple of ways. Looking to the future here though! Jeffrey posted:So the emergency fund will cover her lack of income those months, while you are paying higher rent? I mean, that may be okay, just want to be clear that that's the plan. I suspect she will want to take more time off, but obviously I can't speak for her and you know her and I don't. Who is taking care of the baby once that happens? You could budget for daycare or a nanny or whatever you plan is in that case instead. If you struggle to do that when it your rent is low, you won't be able to do it when your rent is much higher. (I hope your plan isn't work from home while taking care of the infant yourself because there's no way that will work.) Answering the 2nd part with next post... Bugamol posted:For reference I'm moving to a 3 bedroom 2.5 bath 1572 sqft town house ($1495/mo 25.8% of take home income). 9 mile 14 minute commute. My family consists of myself, wife, and 12 pound dog. I cannot imagine living in a place as tiny as where you're living. Do I need the space I have? Absolutely not, but it's great having a bedroom, a game room, and my wife gets a craft room. Plus we can have people over and it's in a really nice part of the town we live in. Ask enough times and you'll find the opinion you want to hear. Someone said that in another thread yesterday. This is the opinion I want to hear though. We found a 3 bedroom house (not sure on baths prob 2) in the neighborhood we want next to my work (easy neighborhood bike ride away). The kicker is it's on the same block that my mom and sister live in. We could probably get my sister to watch the baby (along with her baby) super cheap, and we could pay her (less than a daycare) to make the deal sweet for everyone. It would easily offer the cheap babysitting, and solve our living issues. The house is $1,092 a month. $300 and some change more than we're paying now, $500 less than what we were paying before. I'm not trying to be an undisciplined jerk right now, but gently caress if that isn't tempting. E: April: We talked about this last night. She's uncertain what she wants to do still. Her staying home would probably mean us staying in our current apartment though. Cicero posted:If you look at the quote I was referencing, I was talking about the rent increase that seems to be driven largely by having such a larger number of pets. Living in a small apartment with 2 adults and a baby with no pets isn't that hard (I'm doing it right now, for example), and you yourself acknowledge the pets pushing this decision along:
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Sep 24, 2014 19:04
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April posted:Probably because you yourself said about 4 pages ago that the plan is for her to stay home and take care of the baby? He looked at child care expenses and it was like $800-$1500. A bit cheaper if they did some weird swing shift thing where they only dropped the baby off on certain days between certain times. That's when he decided his wife would stay home because it's basically what she makes. I've only recently heard him go back to she is going to stay working.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:05
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Make sure you talk to your sister and make the arrangement formal before you do anything. Also make sure you won't be completely hosed financially if she burns out and can't do it any more. You would basically be asking your sister to watch your child full time while you two work, I wouldn't be surprised if she were more reticent than you have guessed. e: Paying your sister to watch your pets and having your wife watch your child seems more reasonable to me. It depends on her career goals and stuff but that's for you two to decide.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:07
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Knyteguy posted:Maybe. I did genuinely think that money unspent was money "lost" to savings, which is still a bad way of looking at it in a couple of ways. Literally spending money for the sake of spending money. edit: Point being, this is some serious "forest for the trees" poo poo here. Dickensian Aspect fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 19:10
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Bugamol posted:He looked at child care expenses and it was like $800-$1500. A bit cheaper if they did some weird swing shift thing where they only dropped the baby off on certain days between certain times. That's when he decided his wife would stay home because it's basically what she makes. I've only recently heard him go back to she is going to stay working. April posted:Probably because you yourself said about 4 pages ago that the plan is for her to stay home and take care of the baby? KG you flop around on this point so much no one can nail you down on it, and that was from when I first joined the thread. You have two options, both of which are going to cost you huge: 1. Your wife does not work and stays home full time. Her income gonzo. Done deal. We've all been advising based on this. 2. She goes to work. You sourced daycare yourself - IIRC it was in the $700-$1500/mo. range. So, that would be most/all of your wife's income gone. Either way you are budgeting as if her income doesn't exist. Cat-feesh?
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Sep 24, 2014 19:10
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I said something like this once and came to regret it a little...but I think the posts you've been making today show signs of developing the right mindset. Realizing that drastically changing the budget in the span of a few hours is stressful and not worth it (it's not even my budget and it was stressing me out looking at all those changes), telling Veskit you're going to consider his advice carefully and think about it for a few days rather than just doing it - that's way better than what was going on yesterday. Good for you. Re: the pets, are they happy in this tiny space either? Some of the posts you've been making make me wonder if the dogs are getting walked enough, especially with the lack of a backyard. I totally get that you want to care for them but it's not fair to give them a subpar life for your happiness. When baby comes, they are going to be even lower on your priority list (and rightfully so). I think if you were willing, you'd be able to find decent homes for them. Tough to make that effort when you want to keep them, but as you've said today you've got to keep your goals and priorities in sight - house, happy wife, happy baby, whatever else there is. Don't let them get clouded.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:10
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Knyteguy posted:Yea we were just thinking we'd be OK without pets in our current place.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:11
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Knyteguy posted:Erm well I care about the kid of course, that came off wrong. I just can't really think about how that will all work yet. It's too much for my mind to grasp, and I've just never had a lot of baby exposure at all. Found it.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:13
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Hawkgirl posted:Re: the pets, are they happy in this tiny space either? Some of the posts you've been making make me wonder if the dogs are getting walked enough, especially with the lack of a backyard. I totally get that you want to care for them but it's not fair to give them a subpar life for your happiness. When baby comes, they are going to be even lower on your priority list (and rightfully so). I think if you were willing, you'd be able to find decent homes for them. Tough to make that effort when you want to keep them, but as you've said today you've got to keep your goals and priorities in sight - house, happy wife, happy baby, whatever else there is. Don't let them get clouded. There was a Simpsons episode when, after Bart was born, the pets started to do drastic things to get attention (dancing, learning to say "We love you"). This scenario is pretty close to the truth. My wife had friends who spent 10s of thousands on their dog (physiotherapy, etc) and after their first kid when you talked to them it boiled down to "what dog?"
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Sep 24, 2014 19:14
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Bugamol posted:He looked at child care expenses and it was like $800-$1500. A bit cheaper if they did some weird swing shift thing where they only dropped the baby off on certain days between certain times. That's when he decided his wife would stay home because it's basically what she makes. I've only recently heard him go back to she is going to stay working. Yes. If we went with my sister though we'd probably be looking at about $500.00. Would have to talk with her first though. Edit: This has the extra benefit of my mom taking her dogs for a long rear end run every single morning, also improving the QoL for our dogs (I couldn't tell her she couldn't take our dogs with her if I was paid to do it). Jeffrey posted:Make sure you talk to your sister and make the arrangement formal before you do anything. Also make sure you won't be completely hosed financially if she burns out and can't do it any more. You would basically be asking your sister to watch your child full time while you two work, I wouldn't be surprised if she were more reticent than you have guessed. Course on the top part. That would be seriously scary to jump into without making sure the arrangements are really set. Well my sister wants to run a daycare. She has been a nanny by trade for about 9 years. I can't really think of anyone better to watch our son (edit except for my wife ofc). Plus my mother and grandmother could take over 1-2 days a week, so really she'd only been on the hook less than half a week. April posted:Found it. Yep don't get me wrong I take full responsibility for any confusion here. I'm going to have a serious discussion with my wife after work tonight, because she needs to figure out what she wants. If she wants to stay home with the baby then we probably need to stay in our apartment. If not then there's still variables left in the air. Sorry about this everyone. It's hard for you to help me out with uncertain parameters. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 19:22
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Cicero posted:Right, which means the true cost of the pets is direct expenses ($150/month) + rent increase ($300-500/month). Aagar posted:There was a Simpsons episode when, after Bart was born, the pets started to do drastic things to get attention (dancing, learning to say "We love you"). I'm willing to think twice about the cats, but no way on the dogs. Our one dog is half the stress relief in my life, and our other dog just needs to grow up a little bit.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:24
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That's fine, my point wasn't "KnyteGuy you must get rid of all your pets", just that you need to have a realistic view of how much they really cost.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:35
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Cicero posted:That's fine, my point wasn't "KnyteGuy you must get rid of all your pets", just that you need to have a realistic view of how much they really cost. Yes, good point. There's also the vet bills that we're going to start saving for which adds another $50 to it all. Plus the degradation of supplies like cat boxes. They last awhile, but not forever. Edit: I just spoke with my wife about what we've been talking about regarding staying home with the baby. I ultimately will leave that decision to her, irrespective of what makes me happy.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:52
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Knyteguy posted:Yes. If we went with my sister though we'd probably be looking at about $500.00. Would have to talk with her first though. There's no way she's going to be able to decide now how she's going to feel once the baby comes. It's grossly unfair to expect her to. What we are saying (and have been saying since day 1) is make your plans based on the worst case scenario, income-wise.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:54
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Knyteguy posted:Yep don't get me wrong I take full responsibility for any confusion here. Genuinely curious: Was this a miscommunication to the thread, or did you forget that she was planning to stay home, or has she been waffling on the idea for a few months?
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Sep 24, 2014 19:54
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April posted:There's no way she's going to be able to decide now how she's going to feel once the baby comes. It's grossly unfair to expect her to. What we are saying (and have been saying since day 1) is make your plans based on the worst case scenario, income-wise. I think income-wise the worst-case scenario means up staying in our apartment no matter what then. Even with the ultra-thin budget I posted last night I don't think we can make the numbers work otherwise. $500 for the baby, $400 for insurance, there's no room leftover. I'm OK with this if my wife wants to stay home and rear the baby. Inverse Icarus posted:Genuinely curious: Was this a miscommunication to the thread, or did you forget that she was planning to stay home, or has she been waffling on the idea for a few months? Waffling. Understandably.
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Sep 24, 2014 20:00
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Knyteguy posted:Yes, good point. There's also the vet bills that we're going to start saving for which adds another $50 to it all. Plus the degradation of supplies like cat boxes. They last awhile, but not forever. This completely contradicts this: quote:I'm OK with this if my wife wants to stay home and rear the baby. It sounds like you don't know what you want either, but are willing to put it on her if you're miserable.
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Sep 24, 2014 20:10
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April posted:This completely contradicts this: If she's happy I can make myself be happy. It was as much my choice to have a kid, and the kid needs to be taken care of. As I told my wife though I think that if she wants to stay home she needs to be thinking about picking up a new skill to help make some money though. Not immediately, but eventually. If she's working towards something then cool. I'm not my boss who makes $300,000 a year and can afford to have his wife stay at home in a big house. Here's what I figure the options are: 1) (My third choice) She becomes a stay at home mom. With her help we've gotten me to a point where my job makes this is at least possible. 2) (My preferred choice) She becomes a stay at home mom. She picks up a skill that puts us in a better financial position than before the baby and goes back to work in a couple years. If she wanted to work towards something that would actually put us in a good spot, then great. She's been non-committal on this before when I tried to teach her web design, or coding, or encouraged her to try to start selling her paintings. I'd put up with sub-par living conditions for a couple years if it meant she was working towards something. She did it for me. 2) (My last choice) She goes back to work at the same place after her maternal leave is up, without looking for a new job. 3) (My preferred choice) She finds a job in the industrial/office area around my work. You'll note I said a job for her that isn't retail would also help my happiness. I don't know how she feels about it. She'd be happier with her job doing this, I'm pretty certain of that. Carrying the financial burden of the household on my income with a child is difficult. If I made 6 figures or something gently caress yes #1 it is. It's not that cut and dry though. Again I'm willing to #1 it if that's what she really wants. It's her decision. I'll give her my input of course. I won't be miserable, or I'll try my best not to be. It'd be nice to have a meal everyday when I get home too. That'd help ease the pain a bit  .Edit: my first and second choices are pretty much tied, actually. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 20:26
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Wasn't she trying out transcribing at one point or something? What happened to that? That was another one of those sure fire 100% going to be awesome things that hasn't really panned out.
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Sep 24, 2014 21:15
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April posted:This completely contradicts this: Oh. I see why you were saying I'm willing to put it on her if I'm miserable. "Happy" that was a poor choice of word that I posted, and you quoted. I think... "irrespective of what I prefer", would have been a better choice of words. Like I said even in a lovely place I'm overall happy. We're not talking about living in a tin shack here.
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Sep 24, 2014 21:15
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Bugamol posted:Wasn't she trying out transcribing at one point or something? What happened to that? That was another one of those sure fire 100% going to be awesome things that hasn't really panned out. Posters made some really good points that this would be really difficult with a newborn, but it's not off the table. We were discussing it last night even.
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Sep 24, 2014 21:17
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