Decision Time: 18 Months

[slschierer]

In 18 months, I can either continue to work, leave my job altogether, or go part time.  My household will not be FI as my leaving my job is dependent upon my husband continuing to work.

The facts:
1.  Our house will be paid off (I know, there are people smacking their heads right now, but we never owed very much on the house, anyway)
2.  There will be more than enough in retirement accounts to just allow them to sit and grow until my husband quits working in 20-30 years (he's 32)
3.  I make over $100k/year
4.  My husband makes $50k/year today, but he becomes self-employed on Monday (he will be farming and driving a semi truck locally)
5.  We have net rental income of about $18k/year
6.  With the removal of day care costs and mortgage payments, our expenses would be $40k.  I can get them much lower as we have a lot of fluff due to eating out and attending expensive events
7.  The meat that we consume is nearly free:  we raise our own beef and have friends who raise hogs

Obviously, I'm burnt out.  I work a ton of hours at my paying job and do all of the house work and most of the child care.  I pay the bills, do the grocery shopping, budgeting, appointment-making, managing the rental (6 unit property), etc.  If it's not outside, my husband doesn't do it. 

My husband has no desire to quit working.  He loves farming, and he enjoys driving a semi truck.  He also can't imagine that I will actually pull the trigger and leave such a high paying job, and I fear that he will resent me if I do.  He's never felt the pressure of supporting our family.  In fact, my income and steady state of employment has allowed him to quit multiple jobs due to burn out, annoyance with management, etc. 

Has anyone faced anything similar?  Does anyone have any advice?  If I work 8 more years, we are probably completely FI.  If I work for 2 more years, the children's education funds are probably fully funded; however, we can continue to put money into them each month at $40k of expenses so saving won't stop if I quit my job.

[EnjoyIt]

Just throwing it out there, but maybe going part time is a reasonable compromise.  Not only will you pay less in taxes, but I bet when you are part time you will also spend a bit less because you will have more time to cook and prep lunches as opposed to eating out.  It may not be as big of a financial change.

By you being around more, the husband may appreciate some of the fun stuff you two can do together?

Just out of curiosity, have you run the numbers in excel?

[slschierer]

Just throwing it out there, but maybe going part time is a reasonable compromise.  Not only will you pay less in taxes, but I bet when you are part time you will also spend a bit less because you will have more time to cook and prep lunches as opposed to eating out.  It may not be as big of a financial change.

By you being around more, the husband may appreciate some of the fun stuff you two can do together?

Just out of curiosity, have you run the numbers in excel?

Thanks for your reply, EnjoyIt!  I suspect that part time is the necessary compromise.  It would also help with concerns regarding health care coverage as I would still be able to get health insurance for the family via my current employer if they allow me to go part time. 

Part time just feels like the sub optimal choice.  I would making less money for only slightly less responsibility, but it may keep marital harmony--which may be completely worth it.

I've definitely created more than a few Excel spreadsheets on this.  I'm a CPA so I kind of live in Excel.  I've used cfiresim, too, and it supports everything I stated in my OP.

[Capt j-rod]

I would be concerned with the "part time" idea. If it is the same employer then they have come to know you based on full time production. It is very difficult to scale back at work. My wife tried to scale back at her previous job. They were happy to reduce the salary, but they just never let up on the volume.

[slschierer]

I would be concerned with the "part time" idea. If it is the same employer then they have come to know you based on full time production. It is very difficult to scale back at work. My wife tried to scale back at her previous job. They were happy to reduce the salary, but they just never let up on the volume.

Yes!  I've seen that, too.  I would likely face a similar situation, and I know that could result in performance review issues.  That would be difficult to swallow.  I really do see part time work as the least optimal solution.

[Livingthedream55]

I would be concerned with the "part time" idea. If it is the same employer then they have come to know you based on full time production. It is very difficult to scale back at work. My wife tried to scale back at her previous job. They were happy to reduce the salary, but they just never let up on the volume.

This has been my experience unfortunately.

[Viking Thor]

I agree for a job like yours part  time sounds concerning in terms of the demands.

If you were part time in some customer service job (walmart, librarian, etc) 50% time would likely be 50% hours and stress. But as a professional helping to run a business, the accounting still needs to get done and problems solved even if you are only there 50% of the time. You may end up with almost the same work for less pay. On the bright side, your financial position sounds very good whether you go part time or just quite.

Congrats on your progress and good luck.

[Monkey Uncle]

My husband has no desire to quit working.  He loves farming, and he enjoys driving a semi truck.  He also can't imagine that I will actually pull the trigger and leave such a high paying job, and I fear that he will resent me if I do.  He's never felt the pressure of supporting our family.  In fact, my income and steady state of employment has allowed him to quit multiple jobs due to burn out, annoyance with management, etc. 

Sounds to me like it's your turn.  Any idea how much your husband will make with his farming and truck driving gigs?  Will that plus the 18k in rental income cover your 40k spend (with a reasonable buffer)?  Will your spend go up if you leave your job and have to purchase your own health insurance?

If your husband's income plus the rental income will cover your expected spend, I think you have a strong argument for leaving your job.  Of course, I know nothing about your relationship and how that argument will go over with your husband.  Perhaps it will go over better if you cast it as becoming a full-time home maker rather than just becoming unemployed.  Point out how many hours you are putting in at home plus your more-than-full-time job.

As a CPA, do you have the option of going into private practice and just working seasonally (i.e., at tax time)?

[StetsTerhune]

Obviously, I'm burnt out.  I work a ton of hours at my paying job and do all of the house work and most of the child care.  I pay the bills, do the grocery shopping, budgeting, appointment-making, managing the rental (6 unit property), etc.  If it's not outside, my husband doesn't do it. 
... and I fear that he will resent me if I do.  He's never felt the pressure of supporting our family.

(emphasis mine)

I hope this doesn't come across as negative, but since multiple posters have mentioned "marital harmony" in their responses...

You're burned out, while your husband is happy to work because he never has to do anything he doesn't feel like doing at home. I don't think it's your husband's resentment that we need to worry about here.  You need to take care of you. It sounds like you've got a reasonable plan to do that better. I say go for it.

[Laura33]

What about giving him a choice?  It seems like the problem isn't the job or the kids or the housework, it's that you are doing all of the above.  It seems perfectly reasonable to me to say "I cannot keep doing what I am doing.  I am stressed/exhausted/burned out/not happy, and something has to give.  I have come up with two ideas that I think would be more livable to me:

1.  I quit my job and take charge of all of the other things.  [discuss savings and how $ will work]

2.  I stay full-time and [propose fair split of remaining stuff, including any paid help that is doable.  Note the key here is not asking him to "help more" in a given area, because that language assumes that it is your responsibility and he is just pitching in out of the goodness of his heart, and you can't be riding herd when he slacks off on that.  You need to find a way to allocate entire areas of responsibility so it is completely off your plate.]"

Then say that if he has other ideas, you are willing to talk about them, and it is ok if he wants to take some time to think it through.  And then hold your ground that something has to change.

I think it is normal for parents to fall into habits and patterns that become unfair over time, and harder to break out of them.  We had a period like that:  when we had our first, I was working very part-time out of the house and so naturally took the lead in house and kid stuff.  Then we moved, I went back to the office and was working 2x as much, and we added a second kid.  And I was *still* doing the bulk of the kid-and-house work.  I got really, really angry and resentful at DH for not taking his fair share of the load. 

But then one night I realized that I was the problem -- he was just doing what we had decided on 5 years before, and hadn't noticed that anything had changed, because I kept doing all the rest.  So one night (after I blew up at him over something completely trivial), I figured I needed to ask for what I needed directly instead of silently resenting him for not seeing what was so obvious to me.  So I told him that I was overwhelmed, and I asked him which kid he wanted?  And I said I was happy to consider any other ideas for how to divide things up more fairly.  He said he liked things the way they were.  I said "Ha ha.  So, which kid do you want?"  And he said DS.  So from that point on, we divided up the doctor's appointments and laundry and all of that stuff.

Tl;dr:  the way to avoid family resentment is for you both to talk openly about what you need/want and come up with a plan up front that you can both agree with.