Hi ladies,
I am on PGAL, and my husband and I are hoping that I can stay at home. In addition to our bio baby, we will be adopting within the next year to year and a half, so it would be great to have me at home. However, he just recently got quotes for their new insurance plans at work, and I have no idea how we are going to go down to one income and pay for insurance. (side note: We are not well-off. Hubby only makes about 51k net per year, and I am a teacher making around 43k)
Would love any budgeting or saving wisdom that you all have!!! What things do you do to make it work?
Jackie (26) & Josiah (28) married December 27, 2009
TTC #1 since August 2011
BFP #1 3/27/12, EDD 12/9/12, Natural miscarriage at 5w2d on 4/7/12
Diagnosed with PCOS 7/1/13
Pursuing adoption from Ethiopia 7/2013-currently on the wait list!
BFP #2 9/16/13, EDD 5/28/14 Beta #1: 363, Beta #2:876, @ 7w1d Heartbeat:147
Team Pink!
Re: Questions
How do you "practice" while factoring in insurance costs?
Is your insurance cost not just deducted from his check? If you are thinking insurance will cost you more, then I'd set aside the additional amount you think it will cost as well, so that you can practice living on what it will actually be.
You could potentially make it work but personally id probably keep working for at least another year. I would bank all your pay checks now and practice living on Dhs income alone. Limit dinners out and scale back on extras--your cable, grocery bill, and cell phones are an easy way to cut monthly expenses. With the extra money pay off the student loans. Generally a low interest loan like that is not the worst debt to have but having that extra money every month will help. I would also focus on putting a lot in emergency savings as well.
I have made $40k/yr with two kids in daycare before. It took up most of my income. Add in the dog walker, and you are kind of sunk.
$800/wk - ($500 childcare+ $60 dogwalker + $150 taxes) = $90
Your husband will probably get kind of a tax break with three dependents though.
whoa, I don't know how you do it then cause we only clear slighty more per month than you but our mortgage is 562/month.
Do you put money into savings? tithe to a church? buy presents?
We have a guy that comes around to sell them. Only $13 for Sunday subscription
Nm this was not okay
I'd be interested in seeing your budget and how that is possible. We lived off a little under 50k for quite a while and have roughly the same mortgage payment than you do. I can't see how we could make that work on 29k even taking away all our savings and extras like phones and cable. If youre making 29000 a year, thats a take home pay of roughly 1800 a month after taxes. things like heat, electric, water, costs of commuting, clothing, etc arent luxuries and i dont know how you feed/clothe a family with that little leftover and somehow manage to budget saving for the future. Also I'm assuming you have the Internet if you're here so you can't say the only luxury is a newspaper...
Ok, you and I disagree on the fundraising thing in general, but do you really think its OK to quit your job willingly and then fundraise for your adoption?