Working Outside The Home

Motherhood introduces many choices, one of which is to work outside the home or to be a stay-at-home mom. There's a measurable financial side to that choice and less measurable personal values and quality of life aspects. Parenting is a 24 hour a day job. Moms that work outside the home have some expenses that at-home Moms don't. Of course every individual has different circumstances, but it's worth looking at the measurable cost-benefit of at-home versus outside-the-home.

The Financial Debate Of At-Home Versus At-Work

First we'll start with the salary. We'll take $25,000 for example as the second household salary. Assume it will be taxed at 25% (combined salaries are between $33,950 and $82,250). That gives us $18,750 after FEDERAL income taxes. Social Security taxes (6.2%) and Medicare taxes (1.45%) - together called FICA. This brings our net salary down to $16,838. You may also need to pay State income taxes as well.

One of the most expensive things a stay-at-home Mom does, that would other wise need to be "outsourced" is child care. The cost of child care can easily rival mortgage/rent costs. Nationally, child care costs range from $4,000 - $25,000/year. At $12,000 after-tax dollars a year ($1,000/month) for ONE child, that $16,800 net salary doesn't look quite as good. With two kids, you'd need a third job to make up the $7,200 difference. Other expenses associated with working out of the home include commuting costs, higher food costs due to more eating out and higher clothing and clothing care costs.

That Which Can't Be Measured

And then of course, there are the less measurable costs.

Day care isn't your care. Of course there's a wide variety in the quality of care from one day care option to another, but even the best day care isn't you. Caring for a child's well-being and education is the true burning motivation for most stay-at-home moms.

A Blend Of Both

The two biggest reasons someone works is for money and for satisfaction.

It used to be you either stayed at home OR you worked outside the home. It's no longer an either / or. For many moms today, it's a blend of both. Ann Crittenden, author of The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued and former economics reporter for The New York Times, found 45% of women-owned businesses are home based. At-home Mom can also mean WORK-at-home.

With the Internet the options for developing a flexible, part (or full) time business are enormous. Entire new virtual jobs have been created or morphed from more traditional jobs.

For instance instead of being an administrative assistant, you can be a virtual assistant for one or more different companies. You can work for a company near by or hours away... and spend under a minute in "commute time".

You can also create an online store and sell products. Products you neither create nor warehouse. There's a whole world of drop shippers. They have, and ship the products you sell. You don't have to stock inventory. You get paid for what you sell.

Of course you can also sell products you create. You can sell information products... either products you author, or products someone else authors. There are numerous ways to combine what interests you with a virtual source of business. A business that you run without a boss telling you when and where.

Just like you don't need to know how to install and maintain elevators and air conditioning systems to work in an office, you also don't need to know how to build a website from scratch to have a work-from-home virtual business. There are services that take care of that for you.

You no longer have to decide between stay-at-home (with a complete loss of income), or, work outside the home and miss time with your children as well as sacrifice a large portion of your salary to pay for child care and other expenses.