Turning a Page

This morning my wife embarked on the first day at her new job, turning yet another page in Hickersonian history, even if not quite starting a new chapter yet. She goes from a full time daycare/preschool position at a seemingly underfunded company to a part-time gig with a church-operated preschool. 40 hours weekly down to 16; 7.75$ per hour up to 11$.

Technically speaking there is a pay decrease but certain other factors apply to make this a potentially favorable change. The biggest such factors include the elimination of child care (and the 74$ weekly expense involved with it) and the fact that she'll have more time for home schooling our son, which I dare say is the actual start of our next so-called “chapter.”

Overall, this change was budgeted as a $2,430.80 decrease in our yearly income, not an inconsequential amount, but we feel it is worth the cost to secure the proper environment for home schooling our son. Of course, this sort of deficit required an extensive package of trimmings to our expenses, forcing us to move to a smaller, lower-rent apartment (hoping for lower utility costs as well), drop certain cell phone services, and change where we store our excess items. I have estimated the total cuts to the budget around 200$ monthly.

This job change, while nearly guaranteed to work for the duration of the school-year, has a major drawback in that it leaves us without a second income during the summer when school is out. This is, you might imagine, a major stressor to me (even if it isn't so much so for my wife). This is where most of the income drop comes into play, an amount I think we'll be hard-pressed to save up over the next seven or eight months while managing our other needs. My wife may be left with no option but to get a temporary part-time gig for the summer – something we can't guarantee when you consider the state of the economy. After I finish the 2011 budget, I'm sure additional cuts will be on the table.

Even with these probable financial hardships, with the turning of this page my wife sees not only more time for our son's home schooling, but the opportunity to work more closely with her church and to do work to which I believe she feels called by a higher power. I can't stand in the way of that, nor can I argue the impossibility of our financial situation because I am still fairly confident in our ability to adjust our lifestyle to nearly any need... but I'm not going to claim any of it will be particularly easy.