Family income with kids

I found myself thinking about what life is like on one income based on a book Heather checked out of the library, a conversation at work with a friend, and chatting with another coworker and my cousin about their part time jobs. Finally, Dave Ramsey has been asking for what people do to earn extra money as stay at home parents and will have a show on it. All of this has occurred this week, and has had me thinking about what life is like on one income.

I think the first question is normally can people afford it. If you have researched the subject, you will hear many people talk about the hidden costs of working and sending your kids to daycare. Doing some searching, I found this "Second Income Calculator", which is supposed to help you figure out how much you are really making or saving paying for childcare.

Whether the second income from the father or mother results in additional income or not, it may mean you are living off less income either way. The DINK (dual income no kids) lifestyle is great but can lead to higher expectations of lifestyle after kids. No one wants to lose the luxuries we enjoy after having kids. But, whether you keep two incomes or one income, your lifestyle must change unless you either:
1) Increase the incomes significantly in one year
2) Live on less than one income before kids

In the end, cutting back will probably be necessary. Sacrificing is necessary. Otherwise, you may end in heaps of debt.

The good news, as I pointed out to my friend, is that later as your family income grows you can easily begin budgeting in the luxuries you used to enjoy again. You can get digital cable again, get an iPhone or something better later, and re-add those services you are losing out on now because you have learned to live on less.

Blessed with nearby friends and family

I blogged earlier about the grandparent factor and its importance when having more than one kid...well I thought I would follow up with how blessed we have been with nearby friends and family. Last Tuesday afternoon, Heather started having contractions around 2:45pm. At about 3:45 we called Suzanne, Heather's life-long friend, who came by and took Anna. We also called John, my good friend and roommate throughout college who took Cassie for the next 24 hours. Suzanne's husband Aaron came and helped Suzanne that night so that when Madelyn was born less than 4 hours later, Suzanne was able to come visit Madelyn while Aaron took care of Anna. That night, I came home with my mother in law and we stayed the night at home, leaving Heather alone in the hospital with Madelyn.


The next day, Suzanne took the morning off and Aaron the afternoon off. That was great. Suzanne brought Anna to the hospital to meet her sister. Anna thought she was funny and special from the beginning. Anna went home and took a nap with Aaron taking care of her in the afternoon and getting his first diaper changing experiences. Suzanne is pregnant, so he needs the practice anyway :-) That evening my good friend Derick brought me dinner while in the hospital and I went home that evening to be with Anna and Cassie.


On Thursday, when Heather was coming home, Heather's sister-in-law Stephanie came from Greensboro (~90 min drive) for the day and spent time with Anna while I went and got Heather home. They had a blast, and we were home for lunch. Stephanie left early in the evening and we were on our own.


Beyond that, we had other great help yesterday when one of our neighborhood friends, Ann, watched Anna while both Heather and I went to Madelyn's doctor appointment.

We also have been blessed with 3 meals a week all of May. Our friend Meg arranged it and a variety of people will be bringing them.

I don't feel at a loss right now from not having grandparents because of how surrounded we have been by friends. I am so thankful for our friends and how helpful they have been. I still wish we had grandparents more accessible, but I don't think that is holding us back!

Happy late Easter!

Its a day late, but Happy Easter! As my last post pointed out, Heather and I spent our Easter weekend in Ponte Vedra as has been her family tradition since before Heather was born.

As of yesterday, Heather is 35 weeks pregnant and looking/feeling great. Since she was so far along in her pregnancy, we decided to fly instead of drive since her doctor wanted us to stop every 90 minutes for her to stretch if we drove. We took Express Jet direct from Raleigh to Jacksonville, Florida. Based on this one experience, I highly recommend Express Jet. They give you a healthy meal and drink on every flight with $1 beers and $3 wine and XM radio to entertain you. They are also cheaper than their competition. We enjoyed it.

When we got into Jacksonville airport, we picked up the car we had rented through Hertz. Thinking, I don't want to carry down the car seat, we rented one for about $30 for the 4 days we had the car. One thing that I found difficult was that the car seat was just tossed in the back. It looked as if it had just been cleaned (it was covered in plastic) and it was a Graco which I had no experience with. So, in the parking garage (the rental cars in Jacksonville are across the street in a parking garage) I had to figure out the new car seat and the car. It took me about 15 minutes since it was a Toyota Corolla (which Hertz claims is a mid-size car like a Mazda 6?) which I am familiar with and the car seat was already set up for Latch and Tether. I used Latch and Tether as well as seat belt just to be safe.

Is it too much for the rental car company to put in the car seat? Is it for liability reasons? Frankly, I would be tempted to sue them anyway was something to happen to Anna and the car seat found to be the problem. Why? Two reasons. 1) It was an old car seat. 2) They put me in a situation where I could not have the same success I can at home. I don't know the car seat or car....also, here in Raleigh, the fire stations check the car seat installations for you and will ensure they are properly in. Without having any experts available to check, they are putting me at a disadvantage and charging me for it.

Ponte Vedra was great once again as was spending time with Heather's extended family. I hope you all also had a great Easter!

Ponte Vedra Beach Resort

Heather's family has been staying at the Ponte Vedra Beach Resorts just south of Jacksonville Florida for the past 30+ years every Easter. The resort lists the event as their family reunion...but in reality it is so much more than that. Heather's family spends time together through this interaction in a way that I can only hope we are able to maintain throughout the years. The different families spend time together intentionally and that has led to a lot of fun interactions. You can see my brother-in-law Kevin trash talking my 16 year old cousin, for example, on Facebook.

As a kid, we didn't have family reunions. Sure, we got together with family consistently at Christmas or Easter...but those were often just a short lived couple of hours. I fondly remember a family reunion of sort with my mom's side of the family as we all got cabins somewhere and spent time together. I remember playing basketball with my Uncle Paul...but that was now so long ago. Unfortunately, through moving away from Pittsburgh I have lost touch with so much of my own family. The only one I still keep in touch with is my Uncle Paul, who since Anna was born has visited us about four times. In the past couple days, my Aunt Carol and I have again been in touch exchanging emails. Beyond that, there is no and never has been to my knowledge significant regular time spent together.

Heather's family is fortunate to be able to spend that time together. Most of Heather's father's siblings and their families spend Thursday to Monday every Easter at Ponte Vedra. Since I have joined the family, they have done nothing but welcomed me into their family and treated me like I belonged there. We always look forward to this trip every year and I am happy that the time has come again this year. What is really neat is that Heather's cousins are some of the closest family we have. Two of her cousins have been having kids at the same time as us. You can see pictures of Heather's cousin Lauren and daughter Katrinca visiting when Anna was young and was the catalyst for her beginning to crawl. We also visited them this past November and had a great time. Another cousin has lent us maternity clothes and gear like a playmat and excer-saucer.

Ponte Vedra is not the only time we spend with Heather's extended family. We used to see them at Thanksgivings and Christmases, although since her grandfather passed on that does not happen anymore. Since then, there is a big gathering every New Year's. Also, the female aunts and cousins all go to NYC every summer together and see a show and shop. We also have traveled to Europe together and some of the other family has traveled to New Zealand and other places together. But, none of those are as significant as Ponte Vedra. I am not sure those trips would happen without Ponte Vedra as I really believe that these relationships would not be nearly as strong if this "family reunion" at Ponte Vedra did not happen every year. This is why we really look forward to it and why we are thrilled to be there once again this Easter.

FMLA after pregnancy

I thought this was an interesting article on babycenter.com about maternity leave. Check out these restrictions on page 2 as to whether your employer can deny FMLA:
1) You have worked for the last 12 months and at least 25 hrs for 50 weeks in those 12 months.
2) You are in the top 10% of paid in your company
3) You and your spouse work at the same company and both request FMLA

A lot more info on the article online.

**Have no fear if you work with me, I am not considering FMLA. I was just looking this up in case a friend asks :-)

Two kids under the age of two?

Heather is entering her third trimester and even though Anna is growing up quickly, we will have two children 18 months apart. Every time I think this is going to be tough, Heather amazes me with how resilient, energetic and loving she is...even at 27 weeks pregnant. ;-) It it then I know that it is not that this will be difficult, but a fun adventure with the woman I love. Here is a picture of took of Heather putting Anna to bed last night.

Don't worry, I am not stuck in a euphoric state...I still think having two kids under the age of two is going to be a handful. But, Heather helps reaffirm that we can handle it. Also, everywhere we go and meet someone who has already been in that situation, they encourage us telling us that while its tough for a couple of years, its great afterwards. They tell us that the kids are best friends and they all live in some blissful. I am not counting on that...but I do hope our girls will be best friends. Beyond that, I am just holding on tight for the great adventure.

Timeshares

Heather, Anna, and I just got back from visiting with my father and step-mom at Myrtle Beach, staying at the South Beach Resort at Myrtle Beach. My father used RCI to trade in some of his timeshare to go to another. Here Heather, Anna, and I are at the South Beach Resort:

This past trip, combined with memories from my last Myrtle Beach trip, had me thinking about timeshares. Two years ago Heather and I went to Myrtle Beach with our close friends Aaron and Suzanne in December. We had decided to go to the Dixie Stampede for their Christmas show. (Very good show incidentally. Everywhere in Myrtle Beach seems geared to sell you a timeshare, from Malls to restaurants, and unfortunately Dixie Stampede was not different. We were offered a free drink and appetizer during the preshow for filling out an information card. It wasn't surprising to us that Heather and I, being young DINKs (dual income no kids), hit their target market for anything they wanted to sell us. Well, they offered us a couple hundred dollars and breakfast if we spent a couple of hours the next day at the Sheraton Broadway Plantation timeshares. We didn't have any plans, so we said sure its worth a couple hundred dollars to us to check it out. So, we took the tour and enjoyed the place. Since I was familiar with Hilton Grand Vacation Club, I knew much of what this was all about. We enjoyed it and seriously liked the place. A 2 bedroom unit at the time would cost $18,000 and also need $750 maintenance per year. To Heather and I, that is not something we can make a quick decision on, and things then started to get bad.

The sales guy who was previously very nice to us, turned very rude when we said we were not interested in making a decision that day. Apparently, he thought we really were wasting his time. He badgered us a bit and we told him we definitely were not going to buy. Another person came over who we complained to (complaints on deaf ears) and we walked away with our couple hundred dollars, but very angry.

Since then, we have had other offers for free weekends or other things if we sit through timeshare pitches. I think that the experience was so bad, unless we were really interested we would never do it.

Incidentally, I loved the Starwood Vacation Ownership, even though I don't think I could ever buy into it because of that sales guy. I think Heather and I will just scrimp and save and hope we someday can buy a lakehouse. We may be turned off from timeshares forever...but we can still enjoy our parents like we did this weekend :-)



We liked the South Beach Resort, things seemed in good repair although the amenities were the bare minimum. They had cheap linens and an unimpressive workout facility and lazy "river" as well as some poor customer service. Maybe I will blog another day about the problems with many of these places as I have been to enough. Starwood solves many of these problems, too bad that bad taste will never get out of my mouth!