I Want to Stay at Home or at Least Part Time

I have been working part-time ever since my 5year old was born. I love being able to be a professional on some days, and then 100% mommy the other days. It does mean some odd hours of working (ie 9pm-12midnight), and some weekends, but I make it work. I have a real flexible boss, so that makes all the difference. Plus, 80% of my job can be done at home. It just took some convincing with my company that I could still produce numbers while at home. I actually do more work that the FT workers in the office. I would think event planning can be done from home too??

Check out all of the new developments around the outskirts of downtown. Like on Roosevelt and State area. It's a block from the L and the State street bus. It is a community of families and Target is across the street. Find a daycare near by for your boys and be mom. Ask your employer can you hire an assistant. College students who are obtaining Management degrees will welcome the work and will work for free if you give them credit work hours. How old are your children? If they are old enough to work a computer use the webcam to talk to them throughout the day. Ask the child care provider to do this for you. There are more small communities around the outskirts without high crime rate to move to. Have a real estate person who specializes in relocation and let them do all the work to find you a place with everything you need.

It sounds as though you're going to have to make some hard choices. If you want to go to part-time - which, from what you say, is the more realistic option - you will have to adjust your lifestyle to accommodate the reduction in income. When my son was born, I made more than my husband and the options for him where we were living were limited. When I realized just how unhappy I was working 40+ hours a week, we ended up relocating to Chicago, where he makes enough for me to go to part-time. It was a big adjustment, and we miss our family and friends - but I wouldn't trade the time I've spent with my son for anything. Everything is a tradeoff and you just have to decide what is most important for you and what is best for your family.

I think you'll probably need to start by crunching the numbers to see how much you'll need each month for mortgage, utilities, food, gas, cars and insurance. You should also have at least 7-8 months savings in reserve in case of an emergency. My husband and I knew before we had kids that I was going to stay home so we bought a house in the suburbs in a great school district that we knew we could easily swing on one income. We live pretty simply, keep our cars as long as possible and we don't buy a lot for ourselves. It's getting harder and harder to live on one income though. You need to continuously watch your expenses and make sure that you have savings in the event you have no income for a while and it can get a little stressful. On the other hand, we don't pay for full time daycare and transportation to and from work for me. Another benefit we have is that because I don't work we are in a lower tax bracket so we get to keep more of what we earn.

Kids grow up so fast and although I do miss working sometimes I know that I can always go back to work eventually but kids will only be small once. Good luck. I wish you the best!