35F with 36M husband and almost 15 month old son. We rent a 2BR apartment in an NJ suburb close to where I work as a teacher. Husband is a senior software engineer who is currently laid off for the 3rd time in 3 years (yay startups). We are hoping he can land another remote position, as working remotely has been really helpful for childcare. We were able to keep our son home until he turned 13 months and now we pay $1750/mo for daycare (after a teacher discount). I like the daycare a lot.
I love being H’s mom but I also am (late diagnosed, high masking) autistic and have some chronic health issues that complicate things. H might be on the spectrum too but it’s too soon to tell. If my husband has to go back to work in person, I have to be OAD because I don’t think I can handle solo parenting regularly.
We were hoping to have one more child, but I wanted another year or two to give myself a chance to improve my health and fitness and to save money toward a house. I was told I had low AMH but was also able to get pregnant on the first try so I don’t know what to expect in terms of fertility. I’d be 36 or 37, which I think I’m okay with.
Within 45 mins commute of my school, a smallish home that doesn’t require major repairs, in a town with okay schools (4/10 on great schools, I’m not looking for miracles) is $500K+. Townhomes are $550K+. The monthly payment for that with current interest rates is around $5400. We could rent a home for $3000-$3500 but wouldn’t be able to save toward a home as quickly.
If we are OAD and my husband can get a job making his most recent salary, we should be able to adequately fund retirement, pay for daycare, and just barely afford that payment - no vacations or major repairs until daycare is done. (With two kids we’d be 43 at that time) We might not quite hit a total of 15% toward retirement but we could get close. We are behind in this area so we’d need to catch up at that point anyway.
In order to afford two kids we would have to downgrade daycares, and probably also hold off on funding retirement. This makes me nervous. I don’t think I can handle changing careers and also being a present parent and also prioritizing my physical health, plus I’m ok with my current job for at least the next ten years (and have job security that my husband lacks).
Do I silence the baby fever or try to make it work? (Either way we’d be waiting until this summer to TTC, maybe the following summer)
I love being H’s mom but I also am (late diagnosed, high masking) autistic and have some chronic health issues that complicate things. H might be on the spectrum too but it’s too soon to tell. If my husband has to go back to work in person, I have to be OAD because I don’t think I can handle solo parenting regularly.
We were hoping to have one more child, but I wanted another year or two to give myself a chance to improve my health and fitness and to save money toward a house. I was told I had low AMH but was also able to get pregnant on the first try so I don’t know what to expect in terms of fertility. I’d be 36 or 37, which I think I’m okay with.
Within 45 mins commute of my school, a smallish home that doesn’t require major repairs, in a town with okay schools (4/10 on great schools, I’m not looking for miracles) is $500K+. Townhomes are $550K+. The monthly payment for that with current interest rates is around $5400. We could rent a home for $3000-$3500 but wouldn’t be able to save toward a home as quickly.
If we are OAD and my husband can get a job making his most recent salary, we should be able to adequately fund retirement, pay for daycare, and just barely afford that payment - no vacations or major repairs until daycare is done. (With two kids we’d be 43 at that time) We might not quite hit a total of 15% toward retirement but we could get close. We are behind in this area so we’d need to catch up at that point anyway.
In order to afford two kids we would have to downgrade daycares, and probably also hold off on funding retirement. This makes me nervous. I don’t think I can handle changing careers and also being a present parent and also prioritizing my physical health, plus I’m ok with my current job for at least the next ten years (and have job security that my husband lacks).
Do I silence the baby fever or try to make it work? (Either way we’d be waiting until this summer to TTC, maybe the following summer)