Reply #66: I think the point is that if you had to hire out the jobs that a stay at home

[Kber]

parent does, it would cost about $135,000.

Of course, you might decide you could scrub the toilet yourself rather than hire a cleaning service.

Personally, this stay at home mom could easily knock psychologist and probably CEO out of her job comparisons. But when I go back to "work", I expect that our household expenses will increase by 35 - 45K a year at a minimum, plus my husband is going to lose a fair amount of "free time" that he's going to have to use on things like picking up his dry cleaning, going to the bank, getting the kids ready for school and / or making dinner 2-3 days a week, and yes, scrubbing the toilets every once in a while.