<prompt> Human: All,29 years old next month. Married. No other outstanding debts besides mortgage. I work in the IT sector and have been at my job about 4 years now. It started off strong but now in addition to there being no room for growth, there have been some pretty abhorrent HR complaints as well. I want out. Problem is, husband and I want to start a family, and soon. So I dont want to job-hop while pregnant or tell theoretical new employer I need to take FMLA within a year. Well, here are my best laid plans: Husband and I both agree it would be great if I could be a stay at home mom for now, add one more baby 2 years later, then go back to work when youngest is 2ish. So, we are talking 4 years without full-time employment. Am I insane? Husband and I both net about 2,300month each. So 4,600month together. Current finances look something like this: 1,550month mortgage300month food120month cellphones80month internet50month car insurance150month misc expenses gas, cat food, shampoo, paper towels... etc If you add a baby... 300??month diapersformula50month family health insurance at my husbands jobTotal expenses: 2,600month...more complications. As you can see, we are over budget by 300month. Now for some good news. Husband has steady additional employment, albeit not guaranteed, so I didnt include it, but he has netted 3,000year for the past 5 years from that. So you could add an extra 250month to our income. I also have a steady freelance job on the side, I net about 1,000-2,000yr from that. I guess every little counts. In addition to that, we have 10,000 in a savings account, should be able to get to 15,000-20,000 when baby arrives. So we can supplement our income with that or dip into it for emergencies. When baby arrives I hope. hope to find remote-based or flexible part-time work so I can supplement our income. I think 500month would be at a bare minimum totally doable- if I cant find anything online I can pick up a factory shift or two on the weekends for 15hour Im sure. Well, before I ramble any longer, Im really just wondering if complete strangers like you think we sound completely insaneidiotic for wanting to do this? Maybe you think it sounds actually like a very good plan, maybe somewhere in between? On quitting my job - I was making 19hour, Im sure I could return to the workforce at 15hour and work my way back up after a few years in IT again or another sector. Just afraid Im going to regret doing this when I get older -- then again, I never hear anyone say I regretted staying home with my kids while they were young either. Thanks for any advice you can throw my way.  <response>: Unless youre already pregnant, I would probably just work for now and save up for it. Employers are not supposed to ask you about being pregnantplans for pregnancy during interviews, so there no reason to bring it up.Also, unfortunately many couples find that its more difficult to get pregnant due to medical issues, so there is no guarantee that you will have a baby in the next year or two.You could give it a trial run. Get a job, but pretend you are not working and have a kid. Budget as if that were the case. Put your entire salary aside as well as whatever baby costs you estimate, and see how it goes. If you are successful, then youll have a ton of savings a year from now. If unsuccessful, you can decide what kind of tweaks to your budget you need to make. 