What % of your income from work do you spend because of work?

[verdantverdure]

AIBU to ask you what percentage of your income from working you spend because you are working?

A younger family member has asked me to cast an eye over her sums and it looks to me like she can't afford to go back to work after maternity leave.

Once you add up nursery and the commute, she's already running at a loss even before she buys new work clothes to fit her post pregnancy figure and current norms at her workplace.

Not including convenience foods such as pre chopped veg or a bought in lasagne etc so she can get dinner on the table soon after she gets home, or takeaways for the nights she's too shattered to do that.

A cleaner do her weekends can be family time not housework time?

Treats to cheer her up because life is a bit of a grind?

Stuff like hair, make up and nails so she looks "groomed" at work?

What about you?

What percentage of your income from working do you spend because you are working?

@Dixiechickonhols

Do women in corporate roles go there every day on their way to work?!

20% as I have to provide a car to use during my working day, before I started the job I got the bus. Its a social care professional job, I think its mostly women that get caught by having to provide their own vehicle.

I agree with this too. Senior professionals tend to rely on their brains and skills rather than their appearance.

I've always taken the view that if men don't need nail polish and high heels to climb the career ladder then nor do I.

I've progressed pretty rapidly in my career despite juggling it with children.

I'd find a new employer if i thought they cared more about my manicure than my management style

I gave up on the looking groomed for work years ago. Clean and presentable is sufficient

No. The person I follow doesn’t work she’s whatever the American version of a WAG is.
I’m legal and have never come across what Op describes it sounds like an episode of LA Law.

Why doesn't her husband stop working then?

The impact of having children on women's earning potential is colossal. Taking time out because in the short term it seems more financially viable is catastrophic for income long term. There are many many studies that demonstrate this.

What is faulty in your thinking is that childcare and working costs are related solely only to a child's mother. It takes two people to make a child and every single aspect of their life beyond breastfeeding should be shared down the middle.

Time off for illness? Shared
Time out to attend assemblies and open days? Shared
Spending hours finding uniform and equipment? Shared
Supporting homework and revision? Shared.

It's absolutely antediluvian to believe that any of these are women's responsibilities.

Does it matter what her wages are if nursery, commute, wraparound childcare etc exceed them?

She is. She met some colleagues for lunch recently and said she felt like such a scruff.

Barely any

Probably £10 a week petrol and the same in Costa.

I have a work wardrobe but that's more through choice than necessity and I could certainly manage on what I had without buying more if I had to.

So maybe £100 a month out of a 3k salary

@verdantverdure out of interest what would be an acceptable percentage for her to go back to work. Also are you actually talking about you?

What do you mean looking fur excuses?

@verdantverdure

Well yes, it does matter what her wages are because the higher they are the less likely those costs will be greater.

Especially if she stops adding in nonsense

Less than 100%

No.

I wouldn't even ask my mum to look at these kind of figures. Never mind an aunt

The childcare will be less than 100% of both their incomes

Didn't I already say in the OP that childcare and the commute would already have her working at a loss.

She's going to have a small child. She can have daily manicures and her nails will still not look great.

Also if she doesn't have time to do the housework when is she going to find the time for all this unnecessary pampering?

Again, they either need to look at the situation from a joint household perspective - 100% of nursery fees from 100% of the combined wage - or from a 50/50 set of shared responsibilities.

You don't get to do both.

He's making a choice to work just as much as she is, the only difference is with her unpaid labour, he doesn't incur overhead. I have the feeling if they looked at it from a 100% of combined incomes perspective they would, in fact, be better off even by a little bit and that's why there's so much resistance to the idea. After all, in present arrangement, one person is unpaid labour and the other benefits.

About a third - my share of childcare, the bus, and the occasionally meal deal.

I just wear my normal jeans and jumpers to work.

@verdantverdure

Sorry, no, I missed that

How can nursery and her commute be more than both their wages?!

I spend about 10% on commuting costs. No childcare costs any more. DH wfh 3 days a week and does a lot of the housework in his breaks or after work, the rest we do on the weekend. We have a recipe book we’ve compiled of quick, easy, homemade recipes, and we sometimes batch-cook so there’s ‘ready meals’ in the freezer if needed.

I don’t spend any more on hair & make-up than I would do otherwise. Certainly don’t wear heels - as others have said, very few women do these days.

I don’t know what industry she is in, but I haven’t worked anywhere where corporate women completely dress up with hair, nails, & heels for a decade. If she’s worried about fitting in when she goes back, she may want to investigate that a bit more!

It can be tight with childcare - I actually paid to go to work for a while after DC2. But it’s worth it for the long-term - pensions, career progression (or even just getting a job!), and also having that bit of yourself that isn’t just ‘mum’

It definitely sounds as though she’s lacking confidence and grasping at straws to avoid having to deal with that.
I’d also worry about financial abuse - why hasn’t she felt able to have a haircut or buy make up on maternity leave.

If the childcare and commute alone mean that she would be working at a loss, she presumably doesn't earn that much, so why the need for hyper grooming? Can't she just find a job somewhere else?