Author Topic: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)  (Read 8077 times)

engineerjourney

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Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« on: January 22, 2022, 03:51:44 PM »
**THIS ORIGINAL POST IS FROM JANUARY 2022** Updates below in comments

Family of five, DW (34), DH (35), three kids (6m, 4, and 6)
Both of us work full time with two kids in daycare and one in 1st grade.  Its been 3 years of stress and we are both super crispy. Two years of pandemic without reliable childcare and the year before that was filled with family cancer diagnosis and a miscarriage.  This case study is for my sanity, laying out the options if we need to make a change, and seeing if I am missing something.  We have been in survival mode for so long and I’m trying to right the ship to give us the most options as this shitshow continues. 

Liquid assets as of 1/22/22 (so not highest in last couple months)
401Ks - $678k
Roth IRAs - $228k
HSAs - $52k
Cash - $41k
I Bonds - $10K
Total Liquid Assets - $1,009k

Other Assets
529s - $9k
Home Equity - $247k (will be staying in this house for at least 15 more years but it is not our forever house… way too big without kids)
Truck (long paid off) & Minivan

Debt:
Mortgage - $428k @2.8% with 29 years left, no rush to pay off due to amazing rate
Minivan - $20k @ 0% little over 3 years left, could have paid cash but 0% interest won!

Consistent Expenses
Expenses   Monthly   
Mortgage   $2,806   Approx $1.8k PI and $1k Escrow
Utilities    $508  Average of an expensive year (2021) for water, electric, propane, heating oil (previous year was $438/m so being conservative)
Life Insurance $30   2 10 year term policies
Cell phone   $36   2 @$18/m
Internet   $90   
Streaming   $20   Netflix, Paramount
Auto payment   $520   0% interest
Auto Gas   $171   More expensive than previous years due to no carpooling to work
Auto Ins   $128   
Auto Property Tax & registration   $70   Yay taxes on personal property every year
Car Maint    $75   Average of previous year's high spending
Shopping   $200   Diapers, clothes, Amazon, gifts, misc
Pets               $170   Food, litter, and vet for 3 cats
Food   $1,083    Groceries, Alcohol, Dining out (and anything bought at Coscto), still working on getting this down but lots of convenience shopping was going on last year (was $1340/m)
Travel   $70    Very minimal with 3 kids..
Misc   $200    Kid activities, hair cuts (me and the girls twice a year), entertainment, etc
Total   $6,177/month   -> $74,124/year

Daycare Expenses:
Both 6m and 4 year old til kinder in the fall - $2,306/m
Only 6m - $1,280/m
Before School care for 6 year old - $150/m
Total Current = $2,456/m
Total in the Fall = $1,580/m

Income
DW - $114.6k/year, DH - $111.8k/year, minimal interest income
Total Gross - $226.4k/year

Deductions
Currently Maxing out 401k for both, maxing HSA, $5k dependant care FSA, two Roth IRAs and med $4.6k/year
Plus a decent amount of taxes

Additional spending info - Last two years spending also included some retail therapy that I am already cutting back on but left in some extra ‘shopping’ costs above to be realistic about what will change quickly.  I’m the DW and I’m breastfeeding the baby and sleep deprived. He is adorable and worth it but omg starting over again with the baby phase is ROUGH especially with daycare pandemic issues. 

Work Situation:
Both DH and I are burnt out. 
DW- I love my immediate management and enjoy my work mostly but hate the big megacorp I work for that insults our intelligence with their policy changes that decrease our benefits.  When daycare closes for COVID I can WFH mostly to flex but now with the baby its really really hard.  I have a lot of social capital built up and I hesitate to look for another job even if the pay might be better because of the good reputation I have built and maintained even through the last three years of shitshow.  I have a great role of visible responsibility without direct reports.
DH- His group is understaffed and has been for a while.  His supervisor sucks.  He is really good at his job and good at the work.  He could easily get another engineering job elsewhere or in a different area of the company.  His manager is a big fan of his and would overrule any ass-foolery if his supervisor tries to do anything sketch. 
We are both currently in our performance review period and expect the usual “good” raise for the company which is usually a min 3.5% for us. 

If we decide to make a change, these are the options as I see it:
Option 1) Continue on in our current roles but care less.  Coast for now and don’t let work stress add to life stress as much as possible.  Might be a hard shift as we have been overachievers but need to let go of things causing the stress.  Pros - firehose of cash continues, Cons - probably less good raise next year (not a biggie), no immediate change to work time commitment
Option 2) I try to go part time.  Not sure how realistic this would be at my company.  My job has a possibility of allowing it but the megacorp is a difficult beast to overcome with standard policy.  I would need to work enough to afford daycare still as part time daycare is just as expensive here.  Would drop our 401k contributions to 6% for the match, keep the HSA max, and hopefully keep the Roth IRA maxing.  If just using the 6m old daycare expenses then I would need to take home a minimum of $35k to pay for daycare and the Roth IRAs.  So it sounds possible at 50% part time or more.  Pros - more time for me, still getting money, still involved in work projects, Cons - difficult to get, not sure how long it could be, reduction in benefits, not possible for DH
Option 3) One of us quits and we lose the daycare expense and have a stay at home parent.  I think being a stay at home parent is harder than my job so this would be only an option for my husband.  I estimate my take home after 6% 401k for match, max HSA, med premiums, and taxes to just cover our monthly expenses above without daycare and without the Roth IRAs.  Would have to actually pay attention to our spending more.  Pros - big change could be good, more time with the kids for one of us, Cons- significantly less money coming in, being a STAP is not easy and could still leave us both burnt out but with less income
Option 4) Unpaid leave of absence.  Both of us have the options of unpaid leave of absences with job protection.  Under 30 days can be approved by manager level and they would do this no question if its framed as taking care of the kids/mental health.  Not sure if 30 days would be enough to re-boot us.  Over 30 days up to a year is also possible but requires higher approval.  We have some cash on hand to cover some unpaid time but not super long for both of us.  Would want to wait for better weather to do this.  Pros - job protection with a break, not a huge reduction in income Cons - potentially not long enough of a break
Option 5) Get new jobs.  I’m not there yet but DH might be.  Pros - change could be good, probably more income, Cons - starting over with social capital, pressure to perform to establish reputation again, unknowns of management

The four year old “graduates” pre-k in June and I would want to keep her in daycare til then if at all possible.  I think we will go for Option 1 for now but would like some more eyes on the other options so we have them in our back pockets if things get worse at work or Option 1 doesn’t help.  Just typing this up helped me immensely. 

Question: Am I missing anything?  Any glaring holes in our expenses or the Options? What would you do if you were us?
« Last Edit: October 21, 2022, 09:04:02 AM by engineerjourney »

former player

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2022, 04:36:12 PM »
1.  You are currently at the hard part of family with three kids under the age of 7.   Add to that some family issues and a pandemic, and feeling frazzled by that and two full time jobs sounds about right.

2.  If you both carry on working you can afford to get more help with the kids.  Part time nanny/nanny share?  Au pair?  This could be expensive but if it gets you through the next few years with  careers, sanity and marriage intact could be worth it.

3.  It sounds as though both of you have been in the same jobs for a few years.  A new job for one or both of you might come with a substantial pay rise, which might make it easier for you to agree to spending more on help with the kids.

4.  You've got a nice stash, but most of it is in retirement accounts and isn't accessible to you for twenty years.  I entirely understand the desire to be tax-efficient but you might look at putting a bit more into taxable investments that would be available to you earlier if necessary.  Your 529s are also looking a bit light for three kids and the eldest maybe needing support in only 12 years time.  So I think you might put some time into calculating where your retirement accounts will be by the date you are planning retirement depending on how you load them from now on and whether that frees up any cash for investing in pre-retirement and education needs.

If I were you I'd certainly stop at three kids, and I'd pay for more help with the kids now.  I'd also be testing the employment market to see if moving jobs could generate a substantial pay rise.

engineerjourney

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2022, 04:57:47 PM »
Former player, you have echoed some of my thoughts. Unfortunately daycare centers are most reliable and available than nanny options around here, especially these days but we have thought of that before. Thank goodness I have family in the area that love taking the kids for a couple hours on a weekend for DH and I to reconnect. That is not available when kids have been covid exposed though.

I'm not worried about not having a taxable account yet, easy enough to do Roth conversions one day. Same with the 529s, we don't plan on paying all the kids college (or whatever it is in 12 years) but have the Roth money as backup to the 529s that is more advantageous.

If this pandemic ever gets under control more help with the kids for more money might be a possibility. For the jobs, I've been at mine for 11 years, DH at his for 9 years. I've been able to move around and be promoted without interviewing in that time.. after so long putting together a resume, applying to jobs, and interviewing sounds like a herculean effort right now. DH seems more interested in that route though. It's on the table for both of us, depends on how far we feel pushed, I do think we could make more money elsewhere but if that comes with more hours or more stress it's not worth it at all. Thanks for the comments!!

mamabear18

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2022, 05:26:40 PM »
I was in your boat a few years ago when my second was born. It was stressful before covid - I can’t imagine how stressful it is now with one more child. We made the decision to have 1 parent stay at home. We were worried about all the things you were- but guess what happened- my salary jumped tremendously over the last few years and we are still on 1 salary and we are doing great! IMO - you are in a good position financially with over a mil in your mid 30s. My two cents is to have one of you stay at home and have the other focus on earning more money. You will be ok. There is no price on the peace of mind to have a parent at home esp with the pandemic.

The other cool thing is that because you only have one income - there are some tax advantages that put More money in your pocket. I think I was making about $79k (we were fine but had to budget) when my spouse quit -m- my salary now is a tad below the both of you combined.  keep saving and get rid of that car debt. It will make life easier. Feel free to PM me if you have questions! Good luck on your decision!!!

10SNE1

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2022, 07:30:33 PM »
One consideration you will need to make is that although the majority of daycare/childcare expenses may go away during the grade-school years, expenses will start to creep right back up again if you plan to enroll the kids in any kind of extracurricular activities. This can vary quite a bit, of course (group sports vs private music lessons vs various summer camps), but I myself have seen a decent increase in expenses since we choose to allow our kids participate in several activities. Also, kids clothing, shoes, needing dental care (braces), uniforms, equipment, etc become more expensive as they get older and just really start to add up. I am in the midst of younger grade-school years, but I would completely believe it if someone told me that kids are MORE expensive as teens vs the daycare years. You will also want to travel more some day when you're ready, and that can be quite expensive, especially if Disney is ever a wish to visit. Anyway, just my input, and I would recommend significantly cutting current expenses if one parent considers staying home (which is very rewarding but also a tough job) as you'll be surprised what expenses still come up over the years.

alm0stk00l

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2022, 09:13:46 PM »
If we decide to make a change, these are the options as I see it:
Option 1) Continue on in our current roles but care less.  Coast for now and don’t let work stress add to life stress as much as possible.  Might be a hard shift as we have been overachievers but need to let go of things causing the stress.  Pros - firehose of cash continues, Cons - probably less good raise next year (not a biggie), no immediate change to work time commitment

I love that you added this as an option and I believe people forget that you can do this. It is obviously very dependent on your personality; however, I believe it is the best option for anyone who would feel comfortable.

Caring less does not make you a bad employee. Understand your compensation and meet those expectationss every 2 weeks or every month or whatever makes sense for your job. The 'above-and-beyond' work that so many employees contribute only makes sense if your goal is to continue to climb the corporate ladder at your current company.

Only work hard enough to deserve your paycheck... everything after that is corporate charity.

Freedomin5

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2022, 10:15:42 PM »
It sounds like your job is more manageable right now than DH’s, since you have a good boss. DH’s workplace sounds...pretty sucky. Since he is more open to finding a new job, why don’t you hold on for right now (and care less) while he puts his feelers out for a better paying job and a better work environment. Once he is settled, then you can decide whether caring less is enough to hold the burnout at bay, or whether you need to scale down or look for something different.

You’re making over $200k and spending $74k a year. Financially, you’re doing okay. There are some stages in life when you just have to (temporarily) throw money at the problem. Having several young kids plus two full-time jobs and pets is one of those stages.

engineerjourney

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #7 on: January 23, 2022, 06:18:42 AM »
mamabear, did your spouse love staying home?  I find caring for kids under 3 exhausting but my husband seems more apt to it.  Did your spouse go back to work or work part time at any point after the stay at home decision?  Thank you!

10SNE1, yeah if one of us quits we would make the effort to reduce expense further. Just cant handle the mental load beyond what we have recently reduced again right now.  I definitely will not be spending $27k a year on just two of the kids in the future... the only way I could see that happening is if they have ridiculous talents in something and I dont think my kids are that rare but who knows.  No private school or fancy summer camps here.

alm0stk00I, I saw this option on one of the burnt out threads here and actually my mentor/coworker/friend told me this a couple weeks ago! I was working from home with the 6 month old and the 4 year old and it was awful but I pushed through because I didnt want to use up my PTO time and I also had some work that others really couldnt do well without me.  I was able to work 30 hours out of the 40 which was more than I expected but I cared too much and it stressed me out soooooo bad. My friend said I needed to stop caring so much to make it through this rough time and I agree.  Its the only immediate improvement I can see to make right now to reduce my stress.  Even at less caring I'm still going to be more productive than 95% of the other employees... we have lots of retire in place people which doesnt help morale either.  Thank you for re-enforcing this idea!

Freedomin5, yeah I agree I am better off than him.  I've been trying to get through to him that he has lots of options, we have lots of money to fall back on, but I think he still feels some loyalty to his group.  I agree that both of us trying to get new jobs sounds way too unmanageable and he is the one better positioned to do so.  We will see.  And I wish I could throw money at stuff, with the pandemic I havent been comfortable adding a house cleaner or extra backup childcare.  We did do those meal mail kits for a while after #3 arrived so we could avoid grocery shopping and mental planning for food.  It was ok but expensive and the other two kids didnt like them much and some of the meals took sooooo long to make.  So we are back to meal planning and grocery shopping on the weekend which is cheaper and right now easier I guess.  We do get takeout for dinner if one parent has to work late since cooking with 3 kids underfoot is not fun. 

mamabear18

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #8 on: January 23, 2022, 07:37:47 AM »
I wouldn’t say he loves it lol - but I know he feels grateful that he has the opportunity. It is a hard job and requires a lot of energy like any job. If you decide to go that route - it’s important to take breaks- meet up with other moms for play dates- and take the kids outdoors regularly. It’s not easy but it’s less stressful than your current situation. The nice thing is your two older kids will be in school most of the day and hopefully your husband can be home by 5-530.  I’m able to work from home so I do help out - that is key too.

My husband has been home with the kids for about 5 years and has not worked during that time. He does plan to go back in a year or 2. My youngest only goes to school part time right now- so it’s better if he’s at home til they are both full time. He also plans to take a well deserved break when kids are in school full time lol. We don’t “need” the money as we are ina good financial situation and when he goes back to work - we will have a lot more money than we need but retirement is secured  for us IMO. We’re hoping to save his future paychecks and retire early.

Dee18

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #9 on: January 23, 2022, 08:11:49 AM »
It's great that you are considering so many options.  I have only two small suggestions.  First is to view that working less than you have before is not "not caring" about your job, it's about recognizing that right now you will be a better employee if you ease up.  Second, rather than considering half time, could you go on 4/5 time?  I was able to frequently take Fridays off when my daughter was young.  Having a day off when daycare was in session was fabulous.  I could get all the errands/shopping/prep for the weekend done and have some time for myself...and still do an early pickup at daycare.

SeaWA

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2022, 04:55:52 PM »
It's great that you are considering so many options.  I have only two small suggestions.  First is to view that working less than you have before is not "not caring" about your job, it's about recognizing that right now you will be a better employee if you ease up.  Second, rather than considering half time, could you go on 4/5 time?  I was able to frequently take Fridays off when my daughter was young.  Having a day off when daycare was in session was fabulous.  I could get all the errands/shopping/prep for the weekend done and have some time for myself...and still do an early pickup at daycare.


+1

My wife works 3/5 time (Tues, Wed, Thurs) and has time for herself during the week, and more time with our son. It is an enviable work level, and she loves it. I have another friend that worked 4/5 time for almost 15 years. He was always the person with time to garden, host dinners, go sailing, go hiking... he just had more energy for his life because he didn't drain himself into his job.

feelingroovy

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2022, 06:43:55 PM »
You may need a more permanent solution, but why not use the unpaid LOA for one or both of you to release some pressure?

You could use it to recover a bit so that you're in a better frame of mind to make decisions. It's really hard to make good long term decisions when you're already burnt out.

You have FU money. This is what it's for.

Morning Glory

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2022, 06:55:24 PM »
Welcome back and congrats on the baby!!!

I like the idea of taking the unpaid leave at least until daycare reopens (especially if benefits continue!). Maybe a month for you then a month for husband??? Trying to get work done with small kids is a nightmare, and it would give you some breathing room to sort out what you really want to do. This could be done in addition to any of your other options.

-You can definitely afford for one of you to be a SAHP. Worth a try anyway.

-Is moving somewhere cheaper a possibility?

engineerjourney

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #13 on: January 25, 2022, 05:44:02 AM »
mamabear thanks for the info! Being a stay at home parent seems like such a hard job especially during the pandemic with meetups and stuff curtailed.  With closures it definitely would be less stressful to have a parent always home and "available".  From March 2020 to June 2021 my husband and I alternated working from home because we didn't have daycare for the 4 year old and the kindergarten was hybrid most of the year.  It was nice to know someone was physically home at pretty much all times.  Now with the baby though working at home is infinitely harder. 

Dee, thank you so much for the re-phrase.  I needed to hear that.  My company is very megacorp with all the rules but I plan to talk to my manager about reduced hour options at some point.  I was going to wait til the second oldest was in public school this fall to originally broach the subject but now I am not sure if I can hang on that long.

SeaWA, those reduced work schedules sound heavenly.

feelinggroovy, if the daycare closes again for covid quarantining I will be taking a LOA for at least one week at a time.  I would rather wait for nicer weather to take more of it otherwise.  I am not a winter person and don't think I will do anything healthy if I take the time off now but we will see.  Just writing all this stuff out and laying out the numbers has helped my mental state because now I know we have plenty of options and I am choosing to do this routine for now.  The power of FU money for sure.

Morning Glory! Hi and thank you! Thankfully daycare is back open but one of us will be taking a LOA when/if it closes again (crossing my fingers it wont though).  Moving isn't really an option since my whole family moved here in the past couple years so it would be uprooting 3 family units and we do have a great support system here outside of family though we are all burnt out together right now.  I feel better about my working now and I am trying to get DH to open up more about what he wants or wishes could happen.  He is the typical stoic engineer so its hard to get him to talk sometimes, haha. 

engineerjourney

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2022, 05:46:56 AM »
This might be worthy of another thread but does anyone have any de-stressing tips/routines to share?

I would exercise but it tanks my supply which would stress me out more.
I am not sure if yoga would affect my supply but I always lumped it in with exercise.
I am not a bath person but that could be an option to try.
I usually have about 20-30 minutes in my bedroom waiting for kids to for sure fall asleep before going downstairs that could be utilized.  Currently I read or play on my phone which is nice but I feel like I could do something better for my mental health. 

Suggestions?

chemistk

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #15 on: January 25, 2022, 06:33:27 AM »
I'll first offer a bit of perspective - I often dream of what my life could have been like in your situation.

My wife and I are just a couple years younger than you (30 each) but have kids near yours (almost 7, 4, and 2).

My wife had to drop out of school because our first was an unexpected surprise, and after our second came around, all our daycare options vanished into the ether. So, she hasn't worked since we've been married. We take home less than half of what you do.

I want to be cry-stal-cle-ar that I'm not trying to parent-shame you into either of you leaving your job, but I'd like to point out that if one of you stopped working, you'd be absolutely fine. I say that, because I have to apply that same flavor of perspective to my own life every time I feel like the walls are closing in. To add, my wife is burnt out on being a parent - it can and does happen.

One thing you don't mention - what are your medium-term (or even long-term) goals? When is RE on the table? Or is RE on the table?

This is that time, as a parent, that I've had so many people tell me "you'll want this back". Our oldest is getting big enough that I don't know when picking him up/carrying him on my shoulders/carrying him to bed is going to be the last time. Our youngest has all but lost that sweet infant innocence and is now just a terrible two.

I say this, because every time I feel like I have to optimize something, or that one of us talks about picking up some part time work, I have to remind myself that the money we have is enough for us, and that we can't optimize everything every second of every day.

In your shoes, #1 is a no-brainer to start with. So what if the raise isn't as nice. Maybe your work 'slips' a little bit - you have, as you say, a lot of social capital at work and could easily lean on that especially knowing that your work circle actually cares about giving you space as a parent. Use it, don't just look at that capital on the shelf as a nice trinket.

Second, I'd sit down as a couple and talk about both of you taking an asynchronous leave of absence. Just test the waters of taking time off work. Overlap your leaves by a week or two and see if anything changes in your life staying at home.

Third, If you really think he'd be up for it, DH should at least start looking. Neither of you should be afraid to take a paycut if it means less stress. One thing my wife and I are learning the hard way (as I'm sure you are) is that as the kids get older, they become much more perceptive to your emotions as a parent and they're going to develop reactions and coping mechanisms to how you carry yourself. They'll look back at this time in their lives, always seeing you as you are right now. The memory of you being stressed/burned out is going to stick with them forever, long after you've moved past it.

I'm not going to comment on your expenses, other than maybe the grocery bill (food+shopping+pets). Being stressed definitely doesn't lead to the most efficient shopping decisions, but having to worry about being efficient also adds more stress.

This might be worthy of another thread but does anyone have any de-stressing tips/routines to share?

I would exercise but it tanks my supply which would stress me out more.
I am not sure if yoga would affect my supply but I always lumped it in with exercise.
I am not a bath person but that could be an option to try.
I usually have about 20-30 minutes in my bedroom waiting for kids to for sure fall asleep before going downstairs that could be utilized.  Currently I read or play on my phone which is nice but I feel like I could do something better for my mental health. 

Suggestions?

My wife loves bath time. Epson salts, a podcast or a book, maybe tea (or sometimes beer). She also will go for a short to medium walk (in warmer weather) if she's really worked up.

My wife also loves weightlifting, but she does it because it's her time away from the kids (our gym has daycare while you work out). As the W2 person, I find exercise stressful not relaxing and I hate it because it takes time from other stuff.


insufFIcientfunds

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #16 on: January 25, 2022, 08:18:38 AM »
I thought this was a great thread to read and I loved the responses. I am about your age and also have three kids - 15, 8, 6 months. We have one who we are trying to teach the basics of crawling and eating, a 2nd grader who struggles reading, and trying to give direction to a 15 year old who is essentially already in adulthood but needs the tools and skills to survive in the real world. Thankfully my wife is at home. It is amazing, but difficult. Our advantages for that include: (the obvious) Taking care of driving, saving on day-care, etc. The second biggest we have seen is access to each other. I Facetime with the baby once or twice a day on breaks, she can call me whenever she wants, we meet for lunch, etc. It's awesome. It does take a certain kind of person to do it. She is that person, I am not.

Some questions you may have to ask yourself depending on your chosen direction:
1. If I am a dedicated, hardworking person by nature, can I realistically throttle back to cruise control to meet only the basic standards of my position? This may go against the very nature of your own personality and being.
2. Part time work sounds great. Does your company offer a job-share type position? One role, two people filling the position. Can be challenging, but do-able.
3. If I take an unpaid leave of absence, would I spend that time unwinding, or stressing about not working or having to go back to work? I took paternity leave and it was tough going back!!!
4. Depending on your type engineering discipline, you might have options you don’t even know about. Jobs with the US Government offer 40 hour work weeks, pay close or the same as to what you make, top notch health care, and retirement if you can make it to 57. If not, vest and defer, and FIRE. If you live close to a military installation, child care can be found on base/post often only blocks from your office. Try USAJobs.gov and see what is out there. Can be low stress for sure.  To manage stress, civilian employees are able to use fitness centers and have access to free or low cost classes like yoga or spinning (which can be done during duty hours as to not sacrifice time with the family.)

Social equity is nice to have in a position, but if the folks to which that equity is invested with were to leave the organization, then your equity position in the new people might start out pretty low (although your 11 or so year tenure should garner some immediately.)

Choose happiness and always bet on yourself. Good luck.

Freedomin5

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #17 on: January 25, 2022, 03:01:30 PM »
This might be worthy of another thread but does anyone have any de-stressing tips/routines to share?

I would exercise but it tanks my supply which would stress me out more.
I am not sure if yoga would affect my supply but I always lumped it in with exercise.
I am not a bath person but that could be an option to try.
I usually have about 20-30 minutes in my bedroom waiting for kids to for sure fall asleep before going downstairs that could be utilized.  Currently I read or play on my phone which is nice but I feel like I could do something better for my mental health. 

Suggestions?

If you have 20-30 minutes, taking a few minutes to do some deep breathing helps. It’s a specific type of breathing. The article says to breathe in and out through your nose. I prefer “in through your nose, out through your mouth.”

If you get tense when stressed, progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is also quite helpful.

If you find your thoughts racing or trending toward the negative, a worry journal or writing in a gratitude journal may help.

Guided imagery can also be quite calming.

All of these are empirically validated CBT / Mindfulness-based CBT techniques to manage and reduce anxiety and stress.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2022, 03:36:39 PM by Freedomin5 »

getmoneyeatpizza

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #18 on: January 28, 2022, 09:54:59 AM »
You state you aren't worried about not having a taxable bc roth conversions will be easy. I disagree.

First, if as another poster stated you make 200k and spend 74k a year then where is that extra money going? Its not clear how much money you are saving and where it is going. You should have space right now, under the investment order (see pinned thread in investment forum if you haven't read) to be putting a lot into taxable.

Second, you don't know what situation you'll be in, what if you need to access to cash and only one spouse is working, you'll get hit with a huge tax bill to do roth conversions then.

Third, you need enough taxable over the 5 years for the Roth conversion to work.

engineerjourney

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #19 on: January 29, 2022, 09:36:15 AM »
chemistk, thanks for writing all that.  I agree with a lot of what you wrote.  I know my burn out would not be helped by going from full time worker to full time stay at home parent to a 6m old and 4 year old but some people might find that easier.  I fully believe my job is easier than entertaining kids under five 24/7, haha.  Maybe thats because my kids never nap more than 20 minutes at a time and drop all naps by age 2 though, haha.  We could definitely be better at spending, last two years there was definitely some creep due to stress and convenience.  We dont have a specific goal for RE.. I definitely want it to be available.  I was shooting for ability to go part time or have one spouse not work at age 40.  But we are pretty much already there.  We just save as much as we can and see where the market and life takes us.  I drive the bus when it comes to finances and its hard to get the "what do you want out of life" info from my husband sometimes. 

insufFIcientfunds, good questions to ponder.. I have pride in my work but not ego so I hope to be able to find a better balance.  Plus side is my job can not come home with me at all and rarely do I need to work over 42 hours a week.  There are a lot of positives to it, just been seeing so many negatives but it could be that I am looking for them as an excuse to change things up!

Freedomin5, thank you for those links, I will be looking into them!!!

getmoneyeatpizza, haha yeah I've been here since like 2014, I know the investment order and its why we dont have any taxable.  We used to but then we lived off it while funneling our paychecks into the mega backdoor roth one year.  Our expenses are $74k without the $27k+ childcare expense.  The salary is only as of Sept and was thousands less before and I took unpaid maternity leave because the USA sucks so we didnt actually make near that last year.  Plus you know taxes.  As I said we max out 2 401ks, 2 Roth IRAs, a family HSA, and a dependent care FSA... any extra money went into the mega backdoor roth (I think $20K last year) and into our savings account.  We have a large cash buffer right now because of planning for the unpaid maternity leave and I haven't invested the surplus yet since we are contemplating more unpaid leaves.  We plan to have 5 years worth of expenses in cash and roth contributions by the time we need to do roth conversions.  Maybe some will get into taxable by then too if they actually close the mega backdoor roth loophole with legislation. 
 

engineerjourney

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #20 on: January 29, 2022, 09:42:53 AM »
So I practiced caring less last week and had successes and failures at it.  When I was able to do it I definitely felt like it helped!  Then of course I came across an example of an awful policy change and how it impacted good employees around me and I got a little stirred up and emailed my supervisor and manager about it trying to show a concrete example of why the policy change was a terrible choice by upper management.  While it stirred me up, I also felt happy I was able to do it.  The power of FU money meant I was not afraid to speak up at all even though the policy doesn't really affect me directly.  I'm sick of seeing good people leave.  Maybe if enough people speak up they will change it.  If not, I at least feel good about speaking up and several others around me were grateful that I did so.  Also had my performance review for last year and exceeded expectations per usual.  Company doesn't really do anything amazing for raises but its nice to be on the upper end of the scale. 

In other news, my daycare is closed again next week due to covid so I am taking an unpaid leave of absence for the week!!  Very nice to not even hesitate about it, we have the money, its the least stressful way to deal with it for us.  So I'll see how it feels to be home with the 6m and 4 year old all week. 

FIRE Pun

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #21 on: February 03, 2022, 12:41:44 PM »
Our family is on a somewhat similar trajectory to yours (we are 36 and 37, kids 7, 5, 3, both working in engineering roles).  I endorse the caring less approach, and can tell you how it has been working for us.

"Caring less" can take a lot of different forms.  It can mean just checking out, working the minimum to get your paycheck, and going home, but that that kind of not caring is really hard for me.  What did work was:

1) Only working during "work time."  Pandemic work from home complicated this a little, but having clear periods during which I will not look at work at all are key.

2) Being ok with interruptions in work time to take a walk or play with a kid or something, even in hours long chunks.  Due to the nature of my job I sometimes have to work off normal hours, and being OK with fully off non-work interruptions during available normal hours was an important balancing tactic.  This includes taking vacation and leave whenever needed.

3) Filling "work time" with activities in order of those I'm most interested in doing to least interested.  There are portions of my job that I actively enjoy (digesting and communicating data and figuring out new ways to take advantage of it) and others that I really don't (rote data collection, entry, or replication, HR type administration).  By doing the things I like to do first with a limited time frame, I wind up doing the things I don't like to do much less often.  Sometimes these things get done by someone else, other times I find a way to automate the annoyance away; oftentimes they are just not done and it turns out no one cares.  It also means I actively find more things I like to do so I can avoid the annoying bits.

4) Being willing to take extra time now to save more time or annoyance later.  Learning a new scripting language to automate an annoying task, making easily followed documentation for a common problem or carefully teaching a new hire how to do something right all delay your immediate tasks but can pay enormous dividends over the course of months or longer.

Having a decent store of FU money and a working spouse were key to feeling comfortable doing this.  The results were much better than I expected.  I certainly became less stressed by work, which was the main motivation.  I also became better at my job.  Since starting this approach consciously a few years ago, my reviews, raises, and contributions have all gone from pretty good to stellar.  It turns out that (like most people) the things I enjoy and the things I'm good at are the same, and spending more of my work time doing the things I'm best at instead of things I'm not really great at has been a net win for everyone.  Additionally, being 100% engaged for a short time seems to be much more effective than being 75% engaged for much longer - at least in my job an hour of peak work that fixes an important problem is worth far more than an entire week of slugging through routine data collection.

It sounds like you're already on a good path with your last post.  It's definitely a challenge balancing kids and work, but taking the money concern out of the equation (or at least dramatically reducing its importance) and realizing that work is a thing we're choosing to do and can stop if we want has been enormously helpful for us.

Sanitary Stache

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #22 on: February 04, 2022, 08:16:50 AM »
This is a great thread.

My family is in a similar situation (38, 36, 5, 4, 2), but we have already switched to one STAHP (DW).  I work from home and am about to take 3 months on a reduced hour schedule.  I brought up this idea to my supervisor this past summer, knowing that in the winter I need spend less time in front of a computer. 

She suggested I just try working less.  So I did.

In the summer, I flexed hours to take Monday afternoons with the kids for hikes and swimming.  Then, when pre-school started, I just stopped working as hard.  I do more dishes, vacuum more, change more diapers, wash and put away more laundry, walk the kids to and from school, have lunch with friends, and go skiing in the mornings once a week.  The increase in disruptions during work hours has resulted in a measurable decrease in meeting my work metrics.

I am mostly not concerned.  I got "exceeds expectations" on my performance review in November, not because I actually met my productivity metrics, but because I have valuable experience that no one else in my program has and I share it.  I do feel bad when our customers have to wait what I think is too long for what I produce, but it is pretty easy to pass the fault of that onto my program for not having enough employees.

I am switching to reduced hours because even while I care less, I want to actually do less.  Even working less, I haven't reached the level of "retire in place" (I like the term used earlier in the thread), or even close. So in order to reduce my work load, and not just the number of hours I work, I requested the reduced hours schedule.  I framed it as a break for mental health related to winter and the pandemic (which is true).  I did this instead of using paid leave because I could and also because I wanted to experiment with reducing income to qualify for SNAP.

We seem to have made job choices that always reduce our income.  I started to realize that MMMs path to Financial Independence didn't make a ton of sense for families that already had kids, let alone multiple kids.  So increasing income and achieving as high a savings rate as possible were goals that we pared back on.  Now the goal is to maximize flexibility and time with the kids, or that might be becoming the goal.  The comment about not carrying the kids to bed on my shoulders got me thinking about this too.  I was much more receptive to carrying the kids to bed on my shoulders last night.

engineerjourney

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #23 on: February 22, 2022, 09:07:37 AM »
Wanted to come back and provide some updates. 

So took the unpaid leave from work for a week when daycare closed again a couple weeks ago.  It was a shitshow of a week due to some health issues for myself but infinitely better than trying to work during it!  I even managed to get a couple hours of alone time once we all tested negative and my parents could watch kids for a couple hours. I even took a bath for the first time in years and it was nice!  It was definitely the right decision to take unpaid leave and it also makes my management see that I don't idly threaten taking unpaid leave, I am not going to kill myself for this company.

Since I have been back the last couple weeks I have done a lot better about letting things go that I can't control and not stressing as much.  So far mission of caring less is going well. I still care enough to do a good job at my assigned work but I am limiting my circle of control and not letting things follow me home (mentally).  I've established that I will WFH every Wednesday unless they tell me otherwise which allows me to do some of the laundry while on telecons. This frees up our evenings.  We have gotten into a groove with meal planning which has helped a lot.  If only the baby would sleep just a little better and I would be feeling pretty freaking good, haha. 

I'm still keeping working part time or a longer leave of absence in my back pocket, but for now I am doing pretty good raking in all the money with my less-stress approach. 

I really appreciate everyone's posts and hope others got good information from it too!

engineerjourney

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #24 on: October 21, 2022, 09:02:59 AM »
I just re-read through this thread and enjoyed it immensely.  Hopefully others still get some use from it.  I’ve ended up taking two unpaid leave of absence weeks this year due to kid covid exposure and then us finally getting it (thankfully a decently mild case).  Trying to work through that would have been an epic shitshow.

Determined that I only made 40 hours a week 50% of the weeks this year without using PTO and I’ve been okay with that.  I’m still rocking shit at work but I’m letting go of things out of my control and mostly successful at not letting work stress me as much! Most of this was while pumping at work to feed an infant, I must say times were rough still but work wise I proved I am still a very valuable team member even when I can’t work 40 hours a week.   

Thus, I’ve officially requested to go part time in deviation from our company policy, this request was made about 4 months ago due to unprompted recruitment by another company.  So I thought, what could my current company offer that would keep me from applying to this other job and determined less than full time employment that’s still a good deal (not the current policy) would be worth more to me than the extra money the other job could offer.   Its taking so long to get approval to deviate from the policy because they are actually trying to change the whole policy to be better (it was seriously awful).  So I’m trying to be patient since hopefully it will benefit more than just me.  I could go part time under the current policy at any time with support from my management but that policy doesn’t have paid holidays so doing it now would be stupid with all the upcoming holidays. We only have one kid in daycare now so that’s helped with inflation and we are still comfortable with expenses with one of us part time.  I’m pushing for 30 hours a week but we will see where I end up.   

livinglife

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #25 on: December 08, 2022, 10:38:45 AM »
Wow, this. What a phenomenal thread, and way to go @engineerjourney. I have nothing to add, only to say that I connected with your experience deeply.

I was a SAHP for a couple years, but by the time my youngest was 8 months old I was fried out and needed to get back into the adult working world for my own sanity. Our kids were 2, 4 and 6 when the pandemic hit and what a shit show that was. For all the reasons. Despite earning a small fraction of my husband's salary, I opted to continue working fulltime because I needed it for me. At least working I secured a few hours of the day where my coffee was hot and I only had to think about my own needs.

Now, having made it through those couple years of juggling the stress, chaos, anxiety and more, we are coming through to the other side and we are just done. DH and I are both charred and done. We've been looking at the same list of options you laid out, trying to figure out what the best route is for our situation. So far we're just continuing to put one foot in front of the other, and if we keep it up we should be FI in 6 years... but not sure if we've got that much left in the tank. Maybe we try to swing part time (an option for me, but not DH), maybe one of us quits, maybe we do a leave, maybe we just suck it up and try to eek out a few more years. Time will tell.

I really look forward to hearing how the PT experience goes for you, and to follow along with what your DH ends up choosing. What a great therapy session this thread has been. Thanks!

engineerjourney

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Re: Burnt Out Case Study - Family of Five (Long!)
« Reply #26 on: December 09, 2022, 06:17:40 AM »
@livinglife oh hey!! Sorry you know the same struggles but we are definitely not alone!  My HR is still taking FOREVER trying to solve the whole policy problem and my management is pushing for them to just approve my deviation for now.  My manager is going to support me just burning out my PTO and using an unpaid shop order once I run out (frowned on by HR) if they dont get their acts together.  While its been super frustrating to still be in limbo, no one has cared that I've just been using PTO every week to deal with life.  I'm still killing it at work but trying to let the stress wash over me (sometimes hard to do).  At least my management (supervisor, manager, and director) are very supportive of me... probably the only reason I havent updated my resume yet (plus I do really like my work and the people I work with).  We will see.  For DH he still has lots of the same frustrations but I'm not sure if he will make a move or not.  It might take a "blow up" situation since he is very stoic in general. 

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!