Catching Up
“What do you mean you want to be a stay at home mom?”
I graduated with a bachelor’s in finance/management in 2014, only a few months before my 30th birthday. All of the closed doors I had found prior to having a degree were suddenly open, and job opportunities were bountiful. Sadly, no one was paying much for a freshly minted graduate, and I started a job as a financial analyst the day after I graduated. The job was in Boston’s financial district, which was fun, but it only paid $44,000. A year later, I left to become a planning and financial analyst for a suburban school district, making $62,000. That same year, my beautiful blonde and I bought our first home and had our son. Life was starting to look pretty darn good once more.
Our son was born in 2015, just as things were starting to look up for us financially. Our combined income had allowed us to qualify for a 95% mortgage on our $335,000 home, and we were even contributing to savings regularly. Then, things got a little complicated again… while we are blessed and our son is perfectly healthy today, he was born with a few sensitivities that made us very uncomfortable with the idea of sending him to a childcare facility. Towards the end of her maternity leave, my wife informed me that there was no way that she could return to work and leave our boy in someone else’s care.
You see, my wife is the smartest and kindest person I’ve ever met. When we first started dating, she was finishing up her graduate degree at Boston College, and was already working hard in her career of choice. Somehow, when I hit my lowest while we were still dating and I was facing deportation and couldn’t work for three years, she stuck by me and showed me the kind of support one may not even get from a spouse, nevermind a girlfriend. When I gained permission to stay in the country and start working again, I decided to go to school full time instead of pursuing gainful employment. Again, she cheered me on and was a great source of support and motivation for me. Despite all this, her decision to not go back to work hit me like a brick. “What do you mean you want to be a stay at home mom?”, I said. “Our mortgage and our student debt won’t pay for themselves!” I was shocked and anxious. We had bought our house based on $100K+ household income, and now we were cutting that income in half. I fought hard against this decision…
Today my baby boy is 4 years old, and his mom has been a stay at home mom for all of his life. I am very proud of that fact, and feel blessed to witness the impact this has had on all of our lives. As successful as my wife was in her career, it all pales in comparison to how great of a mom and caregiver she is to our little boy. Sure, things were a little dicey for us financially for a while, as my income alone was not sufficient to cover all of our expenses. Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I was making $62,000 when my income became our only income in 2015. I received a raise to $75,000 in 2016, and another raise to $95,000 in 2017. In 2018, I was able to leverage my MBA to attain a senior executive role at another local school district with a salary of $120,000.
It took us nearly three years to break even to what our joint salaries were when we were both working. When this happened, we were finally able to sit down and draft a plan for our financial future. It is this plan that I seek to capture and share with all of you on this blog!
In my next post, I will share our budgeting and savings strategy, and outline our current financial goals!
I graduated with a bachelor’s in finance/management in 2014, only a few months before my 30th birthday. All of the closed doors I had found prior to having a degree were suddenly open, and job opportunities were bountiful. Sadly, no one was paying much for a freshly minted graduate, and I started a job as a financial analyst the day after I graduated. The job was in Boston’s financial district, which was fun, but it only paid $44,000. A year later, I left to become a planning and financial analyst for a suburban school district, making $62,000. That same year, my beautiful blonde and I bought our first home and had our son. Life was starting to look pretty darn good once more.
Our son was born in 2015, just as things were starting to look up for us financially. Our combined income had allowed us to qualify for a 95% mortgage on our $335,000 home, and we were even contributing to savings regularly. Then, things got a little complicated again… while we are blessed and our son is perfectly healthy today, he was born with a few sensitivities that made us very uncomfortable with the idea of sending him to a childcare facility. Towards the end of her maternity leave, my wife informed me that there was no way that she could return to work and leave our boy in someone else’s care.
You see, my wife is the smartest and kindest person I’ve ever met. When we first started dating, she was finishing up her graduate degree at Boston College, and was already working hard in her career of choice. Somehow, when I hit my lowest while we were still dating and I was facing deportation and couldn’t work for three years, she stuck by me and showed me the kind of support one may not even get from a spouse, nevermind a girlfriend. When I gained permission to stay in the country and start working again, I decided to go to school full time instead of pursuing gainful employment. Again, she cheered me on and was a great source of support and motivation for me. Despite all this, her decision to not go back to work hit me like a brick. “What do you mean you want to be a stay at home mom?”, I said. “Our mortgage and our student debt won’t pay for themselves!” I was shocked and anxious. We had bought our house based on $100K+ household income, and now we were cutting that income in half. I fought hard against this decision…
Today my baby boy is 4 years old, and his mom has been a stay at home mom for all of his life. I am very proud of that fact, and feel blessed to witness the impact this has had on all of our lives. As successful as my wife was in her career, it all pales in comparison to how great of a mom and caregiver she is to our little boy. Sure, things were a little dicey for us financially for a while, as my income alone was not sufficient to cover all of our expenses. Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I was making $62,000 when my income became our only income in 2015. I received a raise to $75,000 in 2016, and another raise to $95,000 in 2017. In 2018, I was able to leverage my MBA to attain a senior executive role at another local school district with a salary of $120,000.
It took us nearly three years to break even to what our joint salaries were when we were both working. When this happened, we were finally able to sit down and draft a plan for our financial future. It is this plan that I seek to capture and share with all of you on this blog!
In my next post, I will share our budgeting and savings strategy, and outline our current financial goals!
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