Well, 40 comments later on my first post about working part-time as a mom and – if nothing else – I think we have answered the question of whether or not this topic is interesting or helpful for anyone :) As always, you are my people: here for a thoughtful discussion, generously sharing your own experiences, and offering up insightful questions.
Today we are going to chat about why we chose me over John to shorten a work week, why we chose shortening a work week over other solutions to our pain points, and a bit about how we handled the financial impact.
Part One: Background on my work history and some reasons (or not) for shortening my work week
A mostly-unrelated photo of my beautiful Catherine loafers on a recent work day at the office!
Why did we choose me over John to shorten a work week?
Per usual, there are some very simple and straightforward reasons, and then there are some squiggly ones :)
First and most pressingly, John’s job adds significantly more to our family’s budget than mine does, so cutting back on his hours would have taken a much larger chunk out of our family budget. He has not always made more than me: for our first year in North Carolina, he was unemployed, and then he made less than me, then we made about the same, then he made more than me, and now he makes way more than me, ha. This discrepancy is almost entirely a reflection of choosing jobs in very different industries at very different companies – though both, thankfully, jobs we love. It does not bother me, and it doesn’t change how we spend our money: for us, all money coming into our family is funneled into the “income” side of a single budget for which we make joint decisions based on our shared goals and dreams.
Second, there is no one in his role at his company that works part-time (that we know of). And he works for a very large company. Is it possible? Anything’s possible, but it would have required far more hurdles to jump and novel permissions to receive to even get to the starting gate – whereas at my job, the organization is far smaller and all kinds of special arrangements and flexibility already exist (including in my own role).
Third, my role lends itself to our reason for shortening a work week. John spends his days meeting with clients, so his schedule is an interesting combination of fairly flexible in advance (he can block off, change, or add available appointment times as needed) and fairly inflexible on short-notice (i.e. we try to avoid having him cancel on clients without ample notice). My work, on the other hand, can generally flex into the evening as needed without inconveniencing anyone. Now, if I need to switch my day off to accommodate a sick child at the last minute, that’s generally not a problem.
Fourth, not only my role but I, myself, am better suited to our reasons for shortening a work week – I am both more skilled and more interested in the type of work we want done: I am a noticer. A recorder of stories and history. A browser of gifts. A decorator of surfaces. A maker of lists.
I am also the social connector in our family. As a duo, John and I live with a tension-filled reality: we are both introverts, and yet we value community. Part of the way I spend my time on my days off is maintaining and deepening connections with friends. It is a joy, but it also takes time and energy: delivering meals to families with new babies. Texting people to check in. Hour-long phone calls. Meeting up for a walk. Choosing a date to have friends over for dinner and then preparing for that meal. Buying and shipping birthday gifts. All of this is both work and fun for me in a way it wouldn’t necessarily be for John. The actual socializing? Sure, in most cases (ha). The planning and much of the relational building? No, not as much.
Finally, though it’s fair to say these things were all reasons to have me cut back, it’s also not complete to end this section without saying I wanted to do this. It sounded like a delight to me. I enjoy my job and believe it brings value to the world, but offer me the chance to have a day where I get to decide how to spend it? Doing things that bring me joy, make me feel productive, and serve my family? All while listening to podcasts along the way? :) What a dream! John, for his part, does not have the same interest.
As the very smallest of tangents, I think it’s valid to recognize that as a girl and then a woman, I was likely encouraged to find value and grow skills in these areas. Some might view that as unfair or wrong, but I do believe it’s helpful to have specialization in a marriage partnership. The specialization doesn’t always have to line up along “traditional” gender lines; to me, it’s also okay when it does.
Why did you choose to drop a work day over other solutions to your pain points?
First, I will say I feel like we already maxed out many possible solutions over the last several years. I dropped a few hours at work. We hired a monthly cleaning crew. I haven’t written here as much. We’ve resisted buying a bigger home. I’ve optimized our grocery shopping. A robot vacuum cleaner zooms around our downstairs every night. We’ve simplified and systemized all kinds of things in our life, from gift buying to budgeting to kid sports to socializing.
The next obvious tier to access is more tech-forward, and predictably, that’s where I balked – for two reasons. First, because technological or outsourcing solutions require their own time and maintenance, and two, because they don’t always lead to the kind of life I value living.
Let’s take the example of grocery shopping. Could we opt to do grocery pick-up? Yes. However, there would still be a need to meal plan, to place the order, to text with the shopper, to receive the groceries when they arrive home. And besides, as strange as it might sound, I enjoy and value the warmth, texture, and even the occasional grit of pushing my cart up and down the aisles. I like smiling at people, and responding to a fellow shopper’s quip about what’s in my cart, and chatting with the check out clerk. I like seeing what other people in my community are buying and what they’re wearing and how they’re acting.
At the risk of extrapolating too far, I believe these tiny interactions have an outsized effect on the knitting together of a community. Yes, they take more time. Yes, they can occasionally be annoying. But joking with my post office clerk and exchanging pleasantries with the crossing guard at June’s school and smiling at the Costco receipt slasher makes me feel connected to my community. It makes me care more about my community. It makes me act differently toward my community.
In today’s world, these are all things that could be hired out or outsourced. And to be sure, we choose the less personal or the tech-forward solution in some cases! All of us here will make different decisions about what is valuable, what is possible, where we want to go analog, and where we choose the fastest, easiest solution. Please don’t feel any judgment if you’ve chosen differently than us in some way (basically all of my friends think I’m nuts for not doing grocery pick-up, ha!). It just took me awhile to put all of the pieces together about why I felt the way I did about certain mundane tasks that brought me into the community (it was really COVID and the loss I felt during shut-downs that brought it home!), and I wanted to share.
What has been the financial impact of one parent working part-time?
Because we were able to make my progression to part-time over several years, the financial shock was greatly lessened. The lessening of my income also coincided with increases in John’s income. And with a few of my reductions in hours, my boss kindly kept my same salary and considered it a raise, for which I am very grateful.
Another factor is childcare. Reducing my hours from 9-3 coincided with June entering public elementary school, and so before Annie began daycare we enjoyed a few months with reduced childcare expenses. She will also be moving in the new year from daycare to Shep’s preschool, which has shorter hours and is less expensive. All of these things have helped to balance the budget through these transitions.
Finally, and humbly, we strive to be in tune with what is “enough” for our family – in both saving and spending. We have had seasons of sprinting (like paying off debt, when splitting a Chipotle burrito was a treat) and we are also grateful to recognize when it would be better for our family to collectively walk at a more leisurely pace. Basically, it is really easy to always want or feel you need more, more, more or need to save more, more, more. Consciously recognizing and resisting that urge in different ways over the years has helped us be able to take this time in this season, and for that I am grateful.
Whew!! LOTS to discuss in this installment, so please, join me in the comments! Thanks to your excellent questions, next time we’ll talk about a few work-focused things: how I negotiated this arrangement, the challenges of working part-time and how I manage them as an employee, how my job has changed over the years to make this possible. As always, please leave your comments below, too!
Part One: Background on my work history and some reasons (or not) for shortening my work week Part Three: My role, negotiation, and how I structure my time at work Part Four: What my days off have actually looked like (so far)
There is one detail about our family life that tells you pretty much everything you need to know about John as a father and, really, as a person, and here it is: when our kids cry out in the middle of the night, they call for Daddy.
I know this is unusual, because every time it comes up in conversation the other person is staggered. Moms are simply the default middle-of-the-night parent, it seems. And this makes sense, to a certain extent: if you’re breastfeeding, you are the one that’s needed in the middle of the night. And then, as with many other patterns, it simply… continues.
That’s not what happened in our family. It turns out I am a very deep sleeper, and so when June was born, I would sometimes sleep through her baby cries (even though she was in the same room as us). John, though, would hear her. He would go to her in her bassinet, change her diaper by the dim light of the cracked bathroom door, re-swaddle her, and then deliver her to me to nurse. Every night, often multiple times a night, without fail.
Maybe it’s that imprint of him coming to each tiny baby’s aid from their earliest days, or maybe it’s the relentless gentleness, attention, and care he’s paid them every day since. For whatever reason, when it’s dark and our children are scared, or cry themselves awake from coughing, or vomit into their favorite stuffies and blankets, or bolt upright in bed, suddenly desperate for a sip of water, Daddy is the one they call for. They know he will always come, and they know he will always take care of them. He’ll turn on the nightlight, he’ll bring them water, he’ll change the sheets and pajamas and find new stuffies and tuck them back in. All, many times, without Mama even knowing anything is happening.
One day, our children will realize how extraordinary their father is, and how lucky they are to have him: a Daddy who loves deeply, and sacrifices deeply – a Daddy who loves them so deeply he’d never call it a sacrifice. But I know this now, and this weekend I’ll honor him and all of the other extraordinary dads loving and sacrificing quietly, gently, day in and day out. Happy Father’s Day. xo
The gallery of photos from our family session with Ally & Bobby arrived in my inbox a few days after John tore his Achilles’ tendon – the day before his surgery. What a slice of sunshine in a week when we really needed it! Of course, no matter when they arrived I knew they’d be a treasure, but the timing did feel like a gentle nod from God. These were my first maternity photos in three pregnancies, and I’m so happy I got to capture them surrounded by my family (at 28 weeks). Here are a few, if you’d like to see!
Our session lasted about 45 minutes, and for the last ten, the kids were pretty loopy. It helped that they could wander in the tall grass of the NC Museum of Art to their hearts’ content in between shots!
I ended up wearing the pink striped Hill House Nap Dress borrowed from Kristin, and am so happy with the choice. Thank you, K!! I can heartily endorse it as a maternity option – the smocking makes it very comfy! June’s sweet dress is from Amazon, John is wearing his favorite All Day shorts, and both kids are wearing Saltwater sandals (here and here).
We already knew Ally socially, but had never shot with her personally before this session. As we were driving home, John was like, “Are all photographers that encouraging? She was so excited about everything,” ha! While I do think all photographers work hard to put their subjects at ease and make them feel good, Ally does have the sweetest spirit and just the most delightful, bubbly personality. We LOVED being photographed by her!
My only hesitation before booking Ally was whether she’d capture the energy and motion of a young family, because I was much more familiar with her (serene, gorgeous!) wedding photography. As you can see, I needn’t have worried :)
My heart. We are so very lucky to have him as the Daddy in our family.
It really hit me when I looked at these photos – how crazy and wonderful it is that there will be a third little face squeezed into the frame the next time around! We feel so very lucky to have had this season captured for our family, and excited for what’s next!
Wishing a very happy Father’s Day to all this weekend, in whatever way you’re celebrating, and a happy Juneteenth!
In honor of our anniversary, I have a relationship-themed Marvelous Money post for you today! (Boy, between this and my post earlier this week, I’m sure leaning hard to the unromantic side of married life for anniversary 8, ha!) Today, I thought I’d tell you a bit about our bi-monthly net worth meetings: what they are, why we have them, why we love them, and why they’re incredibly helpful for our financial progress.
What is a net worth meeting?
A net worth meeting is our chance to review our family’s finances in the big picture. We celebrate progress, check in on our financial goals, discuss challenges and opportunities, and do a bit of nitty-gritty budget upkeep. And, as you might have guessed from the name, we calculate our family’s net worth.
We hold our official net worth meetings every other month, usually in the second weekend of the month unless we’re traveling or otherwise occupied. In this season of our lives, they’re held in the afternoon while the kids are resting, or in the evening.
Tell me more about what you do in this meeting.
Well, first John calls the meeting to order, then we take attendance… j/k j/k. “Net worth” sounds very official, but our meeting is not! Generally, we like to get the small stuff out of the way first by entering any outstanding transactions into our budget doc. (We each have responsibility for entering certain cards and accounts into the doc, which we do about every two weeks, but this is an opportunity to catch up as needed and ask each other any categorizing questions.)
Once the budget is fully up to date, we’ll flip to the “Net Worth” tab of our doc. (For more about the custom Google Doc we use to track our budget, read this post! It’s a bit out of date, but the premise is still the same.) Here’s what it looks like:
Note: these numbers are completely made up, so please do not read anything into them :)
On the left, we’ve listed every single place we have money or an asset. This includes our checking and savings accounts, our IRAs and 401ks, our investment accounts, our kids’ 529 accounts, and our home equity. Yours might include other categories. For us, right now, this is a total of 20 places (I’ve simplified above).
One by one, we log into each of those accounts and enter the current amount as of that date (to be exact, one of us logs in and reads out the totals, the other is the typist). For the home equity line, we simply subtract the remaining principle of our mortgage from the amount we paid for our house to keep things simple. In cell B4, a formula totals everything together – our assets.
In the middle, you can see a column for our liabilities. Currently, this is just our mortgage, but previously we had entries for car loans and student loans. We do the same thing here – log into the account and enter the current number.
All the way to the right, a formula in F4 calculates our net worth – our total assets (B4) minus our total liabilities (E4). We also like to track our more liquid net worth, which for us is our net worth minus our retirement accounts, our HSA, and our home equity. That’s in cell F5.
Next – and this is the highlight of the meeting! – we click over to the tab next door. This tab is called Net Worth Over Time, and for us, it dates back to July 2012 – two months before our wedding, when we began having these meetings! This is what it looks like:
Obviously I have deleted the numbers, though that is our actual chart over the last 8 or so years. This screenshot only shows a fraction of the months we’ve tracked – rows 2-5 scroll and scroll to the right to go all the way back to 2012!
To update this tab, we enter the new numbers for assets, liabilities, net worth, and liquid net worth and then adjust the graph. Generally, it goes up – which is exciting! It’s nice that you’ll see the line go up whether you’re focused on paying down debt or building up savings.
That’s usually the meat of the meeting, but if there’s a challenge or opportunity we want to talk through, this is often a great time to do so. We are comfortable talking about money and it comes up regularly in conversation, so we usually don’t wait for one of these meetings to, say, talk about an upcoming trip or change in our investment strategy, but if you’re newer in the process, using this set aside time for that might be helpful.
Finally, because I know the budget is as up-to-date as it will ever be, I’ll go through it category-by-category to make sure we’re on track for each one, and adjust as necessary (of course, always making sure our total in the ISE is in the black!). Again, for more on how we budget, go here.
Why should I have one of these meetings?
First and foremost, we consider these meetings an opportunity for celebration. They’re a way to recognize the good decisions we’ve made and the willpower we’ve exercised, to cheer ourselves on to do more of those things. Saving money is often not “exciting,” especially over a long timeframe, and so we find it helpful to build in excitement where we can, to keep us motivated for the long haul.
A comment my friend Kelly made years ago on an MM post brought home why this is important. She commented that she often feels like the money she puts into her 401k “isn’t real,” since it’s taken right out of her paycheck and she basically never sees it again. While in some ways this is good (you don’t need or want to be checking in on longterm investments constantly!), you’re also missing out on a chance for motivation if the money you’re saving never becomes real to you. If you see the amount adding up over time, and watch compounding work its magic, you even might be motivated to save MORE!
Second, working toward a goal together is great for a relationship. It gets you on the same team! Whether it’s a money goal or a fitness goal or a trip you’re working toward, feeling unified in the things you want bonds you together. These meetings help with that.
The final and really important reason to have a meeting like this is so that both partners have visibility into the family’s finances. In a very practical sense, they help make sure both partners know what accounts exist, where they are held, how to log into them, and approximately how much money exists and where. No matter how duties are split, everyone should know the basics.
One final point to address: I hope this has been clear throughout this post, but these meetings are not about us counting up our money for the sake of having money. Having money is not evil, but it’s also not the point. For us, the point is freedom – freedom to live and give how we wish, to the best of our ability and for the glory of God. We also believe our money has been entrusted to us, and we want to be wise managers of it. A wise manager checks in and makes adjustments to get the most out of what they have, and these meetings are one way to do that.
Friends, I would love to hear: do you currently have a financial check-in? (And YES, you can totally have one of these if you’re single!) Any questions about our meetings, or requests for a future MM post?
