First some important background info:
We don't really plan on retiring early, at least not before our 50s (now we are 32 and 36) . The reason for that is that we enjoy working and I'd rather be retired now when the kids are small...but since I come from a poor country and husband took a long time to figure life out we only started building the stash in the last 5 years. We probably could retire early in 5-10 years but by then I am not convinced we'd even prefer that to developing our careers. We live in countries with good work life balance (between Sweden and Luxembourg), there is simply nothing to escape. We just want a large stash of money to feel we are protected against anything that can come our way (we're both anxious and frugal by nature).
Anyway, we were doing quite good and then the evil comes in. We had to (and we really had to, literally none of the pros of renting or cons of buying apply here...as a tenant you're as vulnerable as it gets and you end up paying for a lot of repairs and shit to other people's properties and if you want to buy a place the state will shower you with money and benefits, all that after the bank gives you a mortgage with an interest rate of 1.5) buy a freakin place for 500 000€. There are no property taxes to speak of here (we were told we'd need to pay 17€ a year for this).
This is simply a society where renting is either to be highly temporary or state sponsored for the really poor, everything else ends up costly and emotionally draining. For a family with high income and small kids it just isn't worth it and voila, we're stuck with this monster.
Our income is, after tax, 6100€ for me and cca 3900€ for husband if spread out over the year, he gets a 13th salary in December and bonuses in March and September, usually what comes to his account on a normal month is around 3400.
I also get an extra payment in June of 2700€.
We will be paying 2700€ for the mortgage as we took it for 15 years. We are borrowing 435 000, the rest is ours.
We will have about 120 000€ left in savings after we remove the 70 000 that are going towards the apartment.
This is not our only home (we already have a place in Stockholm but I don't mention i in income and expenses as it is a fairly self-contained budget with some little profit) so I don't see it entirely as a liability, because if something goes majorly wrong, we can easily sell this and move back home.
Our overall expenses are all over the place ever since we moved here but that is because there were simply too many extraordinary situations.
Now that the things are stabilizing I think our core costs with the mortgage should not exceed 4000€ without childcare.
So now the dilemma.
My fully paid maternity leave ends on 23rd of January when the little one will be 4.5 months old.
I am utterly uncomfortable putting him in daycare at that age after the first one had a stay at home parent until the age of 2 and then a nanny, while we are neither stretched with money nor lacking other options.
Both me and my husband are entitled to parental leave, I can get 12 months and husband 6 (and they are not mutually exclusive as the entitlement isn't shared, we work in different systems).
If I take it my income goes down to 2200€ a month. If he takes it, we can't really calculate as they are about to change it, but I think somewhere between 2500-2700.
So for me it is a far greater income loss. But for him it is a career loss. In my job nobody will really care if I use this (I'm a civil servant in the French tradition of the word + I'm a woman, so far less of a taboo for me to stay at home to care for kids), in his it might be seen as weird and influence his promotion prospects.
We can't really decide who should, if anyone, take this leave and for how long.
So scenario 1, I take leave.
Income 2200 + 3900 = 6100
Expenses if frugal I imagine can be around 4000, if they go over, we're doing it wrong. That includes the mortgage which is mainly principal payments as the interest rate is 1.5.
Obviously we don't go cash flow negative but our savings rate becomes scarily low if there are any unforeseen expenses (and there probably will be, we will be moving into a new apartment).
Scenario 2, husband takes leave
Income 6100 + 2500.
Far more comfortable financially but husband probably unhappy.
Scenario 3, no one takes leave, we get a full time nanny
Income 10 000+, cost of nanny hard to estimate but I'd go with 2000-2500. So financially similar situation to husband taking leave but husband not unhappy and his career on track. Still, might be hard to find a suitable nanny.
Scenario 4, I take all of my accumulated vacation after my maternity (I think my boss would agree to that), stay home until late March with full pay, husband takes some vacation and we put both boys in daycare in April. The younger one will be 7 months then so maybe slightly easier to let him go.
I am somehow mostly pro scenario 4 but I don't know. I feel guilty for not going with scenario 1, it hardly sounds like a disaster.
Help?
