I was curious what others thought about this. Do you think it is better to stay at home with your children and be in debt (if dh's income isn't high enough to put a lot extra toward it) or go to work and be aggressive about debt? I plan on going back to work in a few years and thought I'd get aggressive then, but I wonder if that is the wrong attitude. I don't want to miss these years when my kid(s) are small. What do you think?

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I think it depends on the amount of debt you have. If you have a credit card and car loans, then for me personally I would just stay home- maybe find ways to pay that debt off quicker by doing daycare or whatever. If I had massive school loans, cars galore, loads of credit cards,then I'd probably go back to work.

my dear friend went to school to be a social worker. She has over 60,000 in student loans. Social workers are required to have a master's degree and a licence. Anyway. starting pay here for social workers is 25k a year. paying for the commute and 2 kids in daycare is pretty much eating up her entire salary. Does she quit? stay home with her kids?

tough choices, tough decision. Most people I know usually solve the problem by doing shift work. Dad goes to work all day and makes the good majority of the salary. Mom goes to work in the evening at Kohls or fast food or picks up a nursing shift here or there. no daycare and one parent is with the kids. Alot of moms then decide to work in thier kids school when the kids go to school. our whole school cafeteria is staffed with "david's mom" and " Lauren's gramma"

I just wanted to add a few more specifics. Say you return to work full time- your income has to be significantly high enough that you will be making enough to take a huge chunk out of that debt. You should find out how much daycare will cost, how many miles to and from work and calculate that by gas at 3.00 a gallon. Also investigate who will watch your child if they are sick. check out the IRS website, see if your extra salary puts you in a higher tax bracket. -that could be bad.

How about the job you are considering taking. does it require uniforms? heels, professional dress? all of which are up front expenses that won't be going towards your debt. How about your wage? are you going to be required to contribute to a retirement fund or health insurance plan you don't need? some companies ( one that I know of, our school district) has no option to opt out of the state retirement fund. You are being forced to have a portion of your check deducted each month for retirement- whether you want to or not. That equals less income and less money going toward debt. There are some sneaky hidden deduction to paychecks at some companies. investigate that .

how old are your children? will they be starting school soon? some schools are still on half day kindergarten. How much will you be paying in daycare for someone to watch them the other half of the day? some schools offer all day K for a fee- how much is that? how much is before and after school care? unless you work at the school, you will need someone to watch your kids when school is out but when you are still at work.

you should crunch all of those numbers and lets say, hypotetically you find that you will be able to contribute 400.00 month to debt because that is what's left of your check after daycare, gas. ect, ect.

now see if there is ANY way to get 400.00 a month any other way. maybe babysit a bit. coupon shop more, get rid of one car, or downsize to a cheaper car, cancel cable, cut back on this or that. Pick up a shift or 2 at Target in the evenings or at night. See if there is an attendence secretarty job or similar at your children's school. ect.

good luck, give us more details so we can help you with more specific number crunching.

It is really a matter of personal preferences. I seriously doubt that we will ever be debt free and that is ok. It is not a priority for us. We strive to keep our debt at what we consider to be a manageable level. I also do not have a problem sending my children to a quality daycare, if I find a job that calls for that. I have done it before with no problems and can do it again.

I know so many people on here that would not be comfortable with either of those decisions and that is fine for them. It is all a personal decision.

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This has been a topic with my dh and I recently as well. I am currently a SAHM and we are leaning towards keeping it that way. By the time that we calculate the cost of daycare, work clothing, and gas, we really wouldn't be ahead that much. There are days where I would love to go back to work so keep some of my sanity, but knowing what morals and behaviors my kids are being taught daily are much more important. Plus, we've found ways to cut back so that is helping too. Examples.....getting rid of our home phone and using cell phones only; dh traded in his SUV and got a car so that gas would be more efficient; refinanced the house to get a lower interest rate, etc... Good luck with your decision. I know that it's difficult.

Well, I do think it's important for me to stay home with my kids, but I just got a part time job to help out with our expenses. I only work on the weekends so my husband can watch the kids- no daycare to pay for. I am home all week with the kids while he works too. I would of course rather be home on the weekends with all of them, but I like for my stress level to be lower too, and putting some money away for savings helps keep my stress level down. We don't really have any debt to speak of besides our mortgage, but we need to build our savings back up for emergencies.

I don't think I would be debt free even if I kept working full time.
The more money we bring in the more we feel like we need to spend. OK..I know, It is an illness!!

So, I am home with my kids and trying to live a bit more frugal. Hopefully by the time I do go back to work we will be better with our money and not need to spend-spend-spend.

We've gone through a rough few years financially. We had multiple medical bills plus adoption expenses to get DD. I've always been committed to being a stay-at-home mom for her. I do work from home (I'm a teleservices operator) on a part-time basis. I'm counting down the days until school starts so I can work more.

Going into the custody and adoption fight we knew we'd be accumulating debt but it has been worth it. We'll pay it off eventually. Yes, we MIGHT pay it off faster if I was working fulltime but at what price? It isn't a price I'm willing to pay. For me, being frugal is all about controlling our finances so I'm not forced to put her into daycare. The question isn't an either-or for me, it is both. I'm trying to get debt-free so I can continue to be a SAHM.

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I don't really see it as an either-or proposition either. I do think that in order to stay home, you need to sacrifice material things sometimes. For instance, go to one vehicle, give up cable TV, or even downsize to smaller home. If you still do these things and find yourself taking on more debt, I would wait to stay home.

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I agree that it's an individual situation where you have to weigh your own situation against your choices. If I was just a little in debt and doing fairly well, I'd just stay home those few years and plan to go to work once my kids were school age. If I was a little in debt, but each month we were sinking further and further, I'd do something to decrease expenses (cut cable, cut internet, cut cell phones, eat out less, etc) and also something to increase income (part time job when hubby is home, daycare, etc). But if we just really were struggling financially I'd go to work full time. While I've always had the luxury of staying home with my kids, if we were financially living month to month with no end in sight, I'd have to go back to work because that would drive me nuts.

So really you just have to look at your own situation and decide what you all can live with. HTH

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