Hi all - first timer here. Here is the nuts and bolts:
My husband and I are newlyweds and he just graduated from grad school last year (no student loan debt - thankfully). I made $40,000 per year and my husband makes $70,000. I am a freelance social media and web content developer. The plan was for me to go back to school because I want a new career in nutrition. School will be a total of about 7 years, but we figured it would take longer because I was working and planned on going back part time, and we refuse to take out student loans. So it was going to be a slow and steady course.
I just lost about 90% of my income from one of my big clients who is folding. We can live off of just my husband's income, but it will be very tight and leave us with, at most, $100 a month to stash away in savings. We have virtually nothing in savings as it is.
From that, we have found ourselves at a crossroads. Here is what we've come up with:
Scenario #1: I go back to working for someone else full time, making more money than I did as a freelancer, and bank 100% of my income so that in a few years I can quit and blast through school full time.
Scenario #2: I get a part time job to actually put something away in savings, and go to school part time.
Scenario #3: I can take advantage of a local program to help small businesses build themselves. It is a 12-week course and starts in two weeks. I take that, rebuild my business, and resume our original plan.
Expenses/Debts:
We have $4,000 in credit card debt at which we are chipping away and pay at least $100/month (and have not used the card in a year).
We have 2 car payments totaling $547/month. My husband paid his car down really fast prior to all of this, and if we sell his car we'd have enough left over to pay down half of what is left on the other car and be a one-car couple.
We have three rescue dogs and two rescue cats and it costs about $150/month to feed and care for them. (Giving them up is not an option)
We pay $2,000/month in rent (which is low for the San Francisco Bay Area) and it is our grandmother's house. We will be inheriting this house from her and it is fully paid off.
Our expenses for gas/electric, cell phone/internet, insurance, etc. comes to about $536/month (which seems astronomical to me. The cell phone/internet are vital for my business - we did get rid of cable, though)
I am admittedly terrible at financial planning and found this website on my quest to become more knowledgable about this. I just want to make smart decisions and make sure that my current under-employment negatively impacts us as little as possible. I'd like to see this actually be an opportunity for us. What would you much more financially-savvy people suggest?