castead, I think it would be best if you determined what you really want for your life and for the family. Once you know what that is, you can make your road map to success.
I know several families who have the same household income as yours and are successfully raising children with a stay-at-home parent. Some of them are also able to sock away a nice bit of money. These families have determined to make it work.
I also know people who successfully went to school during their child's early years. My sister and her husband did that, but she will be the first to tell you that it was stressful and probably would have been a huge struggle if not for the help of her mother-in-law. Her MIL watched the baby for them when they really couldn't have afforded to pay for daycare. A supportive family can be a huge asset. Do you think yours might be willing to help you out with childcare if you were to return to school? Your partner could probably watch the baby if you attend night classes, but you might want to see if taking only night classes is even possible for the degree that you are pursuing.
I also know people that did a combo--stayed at home with the baby until school age and then once the child was in kindergarten, they enrolled in college.
If you want to stay home with your son, it's possible. If you want to return to school, it's possible. I would just kindly suggest that you not jump into going back to school unless you are certain of the career path that you are taking. Also, if you do return to school, I would recommend that you not do so until the upcoming fall semester. Since you are moving in December, starting school in January would probably be too much change too soon.
I am a SAHM and I love it, but I know that there are many ways to have a happy family. If you do want to continue to stay at home, I'd suggest reading The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn (actually I'd suggest reading it either way). There is a wealth of information in there. She and her husband raised a family on $30,000 a year. This was in the 1990s, so today that would be more like $50,000, but they had
six kids.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Tightwad-Gazette-Dacyczyn/dp/0375752250 Here's part of her intro:
I am a compulsive tightwad. People who know me believe that I worry too much about money, that I don’t spend enough on myself, and that I don’t know how to have any fun. Even Depression-era relatives think that I am too thrifty. One Christmas an aunt gave me two boxes of aluminum foil after learning that I reused the stuff. (I made one box last for two years.) And when I was first labeled "The Frugal Zealot" even I had to smile.
But it was not always this way. Before the saving fever gripped me, I had a very normal and healthy love for spending.
The change occurred seven years ago. I got married and began to pursue my dream. I had always wanted a large family and a rural pre-1900 New England farmhouse (with attached barn). I had a crazy notion that I could have both without the two income/daycare frenzy that has become the norm for the modern American family.
Saving money, rather than earning money, became the means to my goal. I became a reuser first of aluminum foil, then of ziplock bags, and now, I publicly confess, I have become a reuser of vacuum cleaner bags. (No Christmas presents please.)
My challenge in life became how low I could get our food budget and still have a varied, healthful diet, or how wonderful I could make a child’s birthday with a $25 budget, or how many years I could go without buying wrapping paper.
I made it my personal mission to create ways to reuse plastic milk jugs, bread tabs, brown paper bags, egg cartons and those frozen juice lids.
To fine tune our spending, I became a student of thrift. I routinely calculated such things as the cost of drying a load of laundry, or the cost savings in cloth diapers, or the cost difference of making food from scratch versus buying convenience foods.
When Oprah had a show featuring cheapskates, I didn’t laugh. I took notes.
Although I was the chief architect of our family economic plan, my husband became a willing convert. In addition he taught me the ways of scrounging and organized packratting. (A level beyond cheap is to get things for free.)
Over the years our average income has been less than $30,000 (including my husband’s Navy salary and all allowances, plus my spotty freelance income). In less than seven years we saved $49,000, made significant investment purchases (vehicles, appliances, furniture) of $38,000, and were completely debt free! That is an annual savings/investment rate of over $12,500 per year, or 43% of our gross income.
When we got married our joint financial assets barely paid for the budget wedding. We owned almost nothing. In other words, we started from ZERO.
Also, for the car...
Will you be living inside of town or in the countryside? We have always been a one-car family. When we lived in our former town, my husband had to drive 20 minutes to work everyday. I usually didn't need the car in the daytime--ran my errands at night. But once a week, I attended a playgroup. On those days, I would drive him to work and come back home with the car. (I also made sure to invite somebody over to our place at least once a week so I wouldn't get too lonely. ) I had nice neighbors, a few people on my street were retired and a few others were SAHM's themselves. If I had an emergency, I could have sought their aid or called 911. If I lived in the countryside without close neighbors, though, I probably would have wanted another vehicle. If I had attended school at this time, I probably would have wanted another vehicle, too.
People on this forum are mostly hoping to reach early retirement and/or financial independence. If that's what you and your partner really want, you can figure out ways to do so. You don't have to go at the same pace as others. Do what feels best for your family.