<prompt> Human: ABOUT US:Im 37 and my wife is 36, we have a daughter who is almost 2. My wifes plan was to stop working as a public school teacher to be a full time mom for a couple of years and then go to work for a friends company but unfortunately he wasnt able to follow through with the job he offered originally and a public school teachers salary and schedule is near impossible for us because more than 50 of my wifes salary would go to daycare and shed be working 12 hours a day... that leaves me the unplanned single income dadINCOME:My salary has been about 85-95k depending on bonus for the last few years and my wife was making about 50k pre-tax until she stopped working so as things stand today, Im bringing home about 2100 every two weeks. I receive about 300month from a relatives death benefits but that should end next year. Ive got a part time hobbyjob that can inconsistently bring anywhere from an extra 300-1000 a month. SAVINGS RETIREMENTWeve got about 15-16k in saving at a federal credit union but dont touch it so Ive been thinking about moving it to a high-interest 1 account with an online bank. The account hasnt grown in almost 2 years because we have no extra money to put in it!I just started a new 401k with Fidelity via work and have about 2500 in it contributing 223 per pay and another 25k or so sitting in a Mass Mutual IRA I need to roll over. I have 250k worth of ESOP stock with my company and an additional 25k is contributed at no cost to me every year. The stock value historically has increased by about 8 yearDEBIT BILLSJust over three years ago we bought a house that is currently worth about 410k and we have 363k left on the mortgage with a monthly payment of about 2250. We expect our house value to rise some amount in the low 5-figures over the next year or two due to some development activity nearby. We have a transition-able 10 year historic tax credit that saves us about 6kyear in property taxes and that expires in 2023. Were going to move our of the city into be burbs soon but unfortunately where we live you either pay cheap prices for homes with TERRIBLE schools or expensive prices for some of the best school districts in the country so I dont see us getting another house for less than 350k We have two newish 2013 and 2014 cars with monthly payments of about 250 each, with around 10k each to pay off. Insurance for both combined is about 250month My wife also has some grad school loans but weve gotten them lowered to only about 50month No home phone, no home internet - we use mobile phones for everything and pay about 95month for that work reimburses most of my monthly phone billOur city gouges us with utilities approx 350month and water approx 250quarter Ive been trying to manage a budget using MINT to pull all my accounts together but it is looking bleak... So far the monthly bills take up about 75 of our income and we still havent bought groceriesdiapers, gas, etc... we rarely eat out or buy things for ourselves and by the end of some months I need to dip into savings to pull out an extra hundred or two to get by and then I try to put the money back as soon as I am able to so we never really increase our saving account - just sort of maintain it for now but our expenses are only going to continue to grow with our kid and weve already had to have the terrible we cant afford a second kid right now conversation whew... wow that is a lot to stuff... never really laid it out like that before so Id appreciate any advice you can offer.EDIT: I understand why everyones reaction about my wife stopping work but you have to appreciate how hard it is to be a teacher for our city school system. For six years she was working 6am-5pm at a title 1 school dealing with junkie parents, fights, guns in backpacks, kids who hadnt eaten since they left school the previous day, etc... Shed come home exhausted, often in tears and was completely burnt out. Im the son of an overworked teacher who had a mental breakdown from the stress of the job so it was as much my choice as hers to not put her through all of that and stay at home and I dont regret the choice but we just didnt expect the other job to fall through.Also I should clarify - no city school teacher takes home 50k, that was the pretax amount.  <response>: 1 50 of your wifes salary going to daycare still leaves you with a good chunk of money to help out with the bills. Dont just scoff at having an extra 25k to help out with the bills and dont just write off that option out of hand. Either its worth it to your family to have her work so you can spend more money on stuff or its not, and if its not worth it to you, then you need to tighten your belt accordingly. But dont fool yourself into thinking that her working is pointless or not a useful option. Its a lifestyle choice. A perfectly valid one, if youre willing to make other belt-tightening lifestyle choices to balance it out, but a lifestyle choice nonetheless. And ultimately, if you cant make your finances work without her pulling in an income, then she has to go back to work, end of story. 2 Good for you for using Mint. Step 1 is tracking your expenses. Make sure you know where every penny is going. No excuses. Once you have a handle on where your money has typically been going, you need to sit down together and write out a detailed budget, and figure out where you can save. Do you have any subscriptions you can cancel? Can you eat less expensive food? Just because youre not going out to eat doesnt necessarily mean youre not splurging on food... its easy to over-spend at the grocery store too. Do you really both need cars? Can you sell one of them? Or at least sell one and get a much cheaper and cheaper to insure second car? Have you shopped around for better insurance prices? In most states, prices vary wildly from one company to the next, even for the exact same coverage, and which company is cheapest can fluctuate from one year to the next Ive even had situations where I saved a huge chunk of money just getting my same insurance company to re-issue my policy as a new policy with the same coverage. You said you dont buy much for yourselves, but are you spending excessively on your child? Kids are expensive no matter how frugal you try to be, but theres still a huge range of price points for a lot of the things kids need... just for one example, second-hand baby clothes are a lot cheaper than new ones. Ask yourselves if there are any areas of baby-related expenses where youre over-indulging. These are just a few examples... youll have to go through your budget with a fine-toothed comb and find areas to work on that are relevant to you. You either have to find places to cut costs or your wife has to go back to work.3 Great schools are really important. But if you cant afford to live in the good school district, then you cant afford to live in the good school district. Simple as that. Are there rental options in the good school district? It sounds to me like you bought way too much house without enough savings, then bought two shiny new cars you cant afford, and now you have a young child on top of too much house and too much car. You say you expect your house might appreciate five-figures in the next five years. Youre really willing to be up to your eyeballs in mortgage payments plus having a giant house isnt helping your utility bills either for 5 more years to get a 5-figure pay-off, but your wife isnt willing to go back to work for 1 year to get a 5-figure payoff? Again, it seems pretty clear that your easiest way out is to either rethink the house or rethink the single-income. or better yet, both4 I hope all of the above points read as some tough-love. You have the means to get by and give your child a good life, but you have to think harder about the financial choices youre making if you want to get there. BUT take heart, youre at the most expensive stage of raising a kid. In a couple more years, shell be in kindergarten. School-aged kids are still expensive, but a big chunk of your daycare costs go away by having them in school all day, freeing your wife to work without incurring so much in daycare costs. And that makes a huge difference to your bottom line. Ultimately, its not the end of the world to do a little dipping into your savings right now, but you need to make sure its sustainable for long enough to get you to kindergarten, and you shouldnt cut it too close... you never know when some big unexpected emergency expense will come up, and you dont want to be left high and dry if and when that happens. 5 back to tough love for a second: Youre both in your mid-30s. You have hardly any retirement savings, and your wife quit her probably pensioned? teaching gig. And youre living paycheck-to-paycheck putting hardly anything away for your retirement each month. That should make you very nervous, indeed. Youll be 54 when the kid goes off to college. Thats not enough time to wait to start saving for your golden years after the kids out of the house. 