FT SAHM and PT Bartender?

[Sunshine32]

Hi all,

Sorry if this gets a little long – I tend to ramble! Also - I wasn't quite sure if this was the write place to put this. My husband and I currently have no children, but want them. We've gone back and forth on waiting a while due to student loans/financial issues but the fact of the matter is though – we just don’t want to wait haha. At the moment w're kind of just stuck - we're not trying but we're not preventing it from happening either.

We want to have a large family (3-5 kids) and we’re at the point where the baby fever has finally hit an all time high. We live in an area that is low cost of living and our mortgage is only about 35% of my husbands income. I make good money as well, but have student loans that are about 1/3rd of my income. On paper like this it sounds pretty good – however, by the time you factor in cell phones, car insurance, health insurance, groceries, utilities, etc – we live paycheck to paycheck. At the end of the month there’s not a whole lot extra left. Some, but not enough to comfortably pay $400/month in daycare as well as baby expenses. Not to mention I work till 6:00pm an hour from home. In our small town you have about 2 daycare choices – and neither are open until 7:00pm.

So we’ve come up with a sort of “idea” and I’m wondering if any of you have done something similar or think it would be realistic? Our idea is that he would stay at his job (keep the insurance, etc on him) and then I would be a SAHM during the day with a PT job 3-4 evenings a week. I have experience bartending so that would be the logical choice (and I actually really enjoy it!) Plus the last time I was bartending PT as a second job (like 20hrs a week) I made 3/4 of what I did at my full time job.

So basically what our plan would be is that during the day I would stay home with the baby. Once he got home I would then 3 nights a week go to a PT job. Worst case scenario (with not great tips) I would take a 50% pay cut. Best case scenario (good tips) – I would barely take a pay cut at all. Not to mention I’ve always wanted to try out having an etsy store or painting and reselling furniture so that’s something I could do on the side as well. And then there would be no need for daycare!

My concern is whether it’s realistic. I feel like 3-4 nights a week would not be bad and if possible I would try to only do closing shifts (2am here) on weekend nights when the hubby is home to get up early with the baby. The rest of week I would ideally be home by 12:30am or so.

So! Any advice? Think it’s doable?

 

[Sunshine32]

I accidentally said write instead of right in the first sentence and can't figure out how to edit... long day and haven't had a day off in a week. My apologies!

 

[Symphony7]

Of course it's doable! Many people make it work on a lot less. I think it sounds like a good idea if you are okay on little sleep as I imagine going to work and not getting home til 1ish means you'll be working on a few hours a night at best assuming your husband will get up with the baby at night when you work. It wouldn't work for me as I need substantial amounts of sleep and am not a night person.

 

[staralfur]

Sounds perfectly doable. We had a very similar arrangement from the time my LO was 5 months to 2.5 years. I found that a lot of the time I actually really looked forward to going to work as being a SAHM can be quite draining (though also very rewarding). It was a nice balance, I think, between spending a lot of quality time with my LO and having a bit of 'normal' adult time as well. And of course not having to pay for daycare is wonderful.

 

[MindUtopia]

It's definitely doable. And if it's a plan you would be happy to try, there's no reason not to plan for that, or alternatively, to look for work that is closer to you, more flexible in terms of hours or that paid more so that you could make childcare expenses worth it. But I would also just be realistic about it and have a back-up plan in case it absolutely doesn't work. The two things I would be concerned about would just be the exhaustion of working late nights and the toll it might take on your relationship.

My husband and I both are self-employed, which means we often have to work some nights, and I've also lectured at a university, which meant I didn't get home until 9pm, on those nights. The good thing is it gave us some flexibility and saved us on childcare, but the downside is that it's really rough on your relationship when you are ships passing in the night. You don't get much time to really spend together if you work a few evenings a week, combined with having rough nights when it might take you 2 hours to get your LO to sleep, it just means that time alone is few and far between. We have to really plan time together and when things get busy (teething, illness, one of us traveling, etc.), it does take it's toll. I think if your relationship is strong, you can make it work, but it does sort of suck and if I could choose to not have either of us work in the evening I would, but in the short-term, it's the compromise we're making to do the work we each want to do. We just really have to work to turn off the laptops or schedule in a date night.

The other thing I would say is you might just find it really, really tiring. If you're working until 12am to 2am or later, then getting up twice in the night with a baby, and then waking for the day at 6am, it might just be too much surviving on an hour or two of sleep a night. Babies don't sleep in! I've not set an alarm for 2.5 years except when I've been away traveling. I never get to sleep past 7am on a good day. On a bad day, I've been up from 5am. Now, it might be okay if you have a partner who can go to bed early and do much of the overnight stuff or let you sleep til 8 or whatever. But I find that going to bed at 10pm, several wake-ups during the night, and getting up when my daughter does around 6-6:30am is about as little sleep as I can cope with on an ongoing basis. She's 2.5 now. I think I would literally self-destruct if I was doing that and going to bed at 12 or 1am. But then you might find that doing it only 3-4 nights a week is just enough and you can get through it and catch up on sleep the other nights (though again, then that cuts down on quality time with your partner). When it's just me at home and my husband is away working, I go to bed at 8pm, just because I can do it and not feel guilty about not seeing him at all!

So I'm not saying it's unrealistic, but those are the things I would think about as you make a decision and there's no reason you couldn't do it on a trial basis and see how it goes. If you find it's too much, then you can look for something else. I would definitely look into starting a small business though. I think that's a much more realistic option for a SAHM. My husband and I run a business (though I'm not a SAHM, my daughter is in childcare 4 full days a week while I work), but I also do freelance work and I find that working for yourself makes it a lot easier to prioritise time at home and flexibility for family things. We've definitely both spent a lot more time at home with our daughter than we would have if we both had jobs somewhere else and it means we can plan work around life rather than the other way around.

 

[ask86]

We did it for a year... I only worked 3 half days a week... I went back to full time work... I had many reasons including of course the financial (although now I pay $1000/month for daycare...) but it was actually best for my daughter! I am not a teacher and even though I do my best to help her learn and discover, and we went to all the community center groups, its not the same! After 6 months in full time daycare she is thriving! She has friends, she is eating much better (discharged from feeding clinic) and she is singing, speaking and playing pretend! I also now have the financial ability to enroll her in specialty classes she LOVES like swimming and gymnastics.
I also account for "luxuries vs. quality of life" - I have a cleaning lady 2x/ month - this means I can spend more time doing fun stuff with my daughter, plus 1x/week we do international takeout so we can learn about new cultures and try new things.
Just my opinion, but children need proper socialization and interaction with other children - if you can give your child that you are a far better mother then me, and by all means being a SAHM is a wonderful opportunity, but if you know you can't, put your child in daycare - at least part time!

 

[Sunshine32]

Thanks everyone for your input! I am concerned about the late nights, yes. Generally I am one who needs my sleep so that would be the only issue. Ideally I could get some earlier nights where I'd be done by 10:00-10:30.

The best solution would be that I can find a job closer to home with better hours! However, it just doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon. Local jobs in our small rural area are very VERY hard to come by unless you have connections.

We're probably going to wait at least a year until I can get caught up on some bills but I'm just trying to think outside of the box for ideas in case another job doesn't present itself.