SAHM Money

The guilt of spending money I don't earn

Do you enjoy cooking? For free? What about cleaning for free? What about carrying a 25lb weight all day while performing other tasks? Can you read the same book ten times per day? Do you know all of the words to Moana’s How Far I’ll Go to relieve stress in tense situations? Do you also manage the household, stay on top of ordering all the things, and planning all the things, and fixing all the things? And do you perform the job of a small team entirely on your own, all while caring for your child or children? Good news, there’s a job for you and it pays NOTHING. Don’t you worry your pretty little mom brain, your husband makes the money, sweetheart! All of this and more is what sold me on the stay at home mom lifestyle, oh yes, and the profound privilege of caring for my daughter all day.

$200 for groceries — seems normal. $150 on baby’s essentials for the week — fine. Another $100 Amazon order — typical. And you’d like to buy yourself something nice? Ooh, not sure that’s in the budget, love. The self imposed budget I keep myself on that only applies to things I want. I busted my ass professionally to afford anything I’d ever want so it feels like quite the departure to convince myself even for a second that I don’t deserve the things I want, material or not.

I’ve been a stay at home mom for nine months now. It took me a few months to work up the nerve to walk away from my career and consistent paycheck. I took my four months of maternity leave, thanks USA, and then attempted to juggle newborn life with zoom calls for three months. I held onto that paycheck just until my soul nearly left my body for good.

My phone autocorrects SAHM to SHAME and that’s what I feel whenever I spend money on things I don’t need, like the stunning jacket I saw in a window and bought, but only after texting my husband a photo, asking for permission and deliberating the cost per wear in my brain before I went back for it and then still continued to mentally debate whether or not I deserved it.

Deserve is a tricky word, isn’t it. The conditionality of it feels so cruel. Do you deserve that? “To ‘deserve’ means to have earned or be worthy of something based on your actions, qualities, or circumstances. Whether it applies to receiving a positive reward or a negative consequence, it is fundamentally tied to a sense of balance, justice, or being entitled to a specific outcome.”

Well, I happen to have the hardest job in the world, one would think I deserve whatever the hell I want. However, I can’t help but feel like I’m playing with someone else’s Monopoly money and that inherently makes the jacket feel like I stole it in a way that wears on my conscience.

It’s OUR money. This was our agreement when we said “I do.” And this was my agreement with my husband when I gave up my career to become a stay at home mom and care for our daughter full -time. My husband thinks it’s silly when I ask permission to spend a large sum. “Go for it, you deserve it, babe!” he would say. It even makes him uncomfortable when I ask for permission, like he’s in charge of every dollar I spend because he’s the one bringing the dollars in. My husband does not suffer from the same money mentality, probably because he’s the one making it. As soon as he gives me the green light for something, I feel better about it, which is also the incorrect way of deciding when to pull the trigger and he would agree. My husband would light a hundred candles to wish that I could freely spend money on myself and not think twice about it. I might need to order the hundred candles and arrange the cake and any other logistics in order for that to happen, but he’d make that wish for me!

Where does this money insecurity come from? I would never deny my own mother anything, my mother deserves the world and I do my best to spoil her. So why is it I don’t feel the same way about my own expenditures?

I buy the groceries, I fill the Amazon carts, I pay the bills, I buy our daughter whatever she needs, more food and treats for the dog. I shop for my husband, he’s reportedly the second best dressed guy on the trading floor. And when it comes to my own desires, I walk in circles around the buying decision, only to land on “I don’t need it anyway, I have shirts.” And then I keep the tab open on my phone forever, hoping for a sale on unrequited love.

When I made my own money, I could spend it however I saw fit and didn’t bat an eyelash at the most frivolous expense: $100 is the new $20. I worked hard and wore my money. Never a gray hair on my head, I’d never miss a dye appointment — $200. Nails must look neat and polished, I talk with my hands after all — $60. I took the time to highlight my cheek bones. Westman Attelier highlighter — $48. Thank goodness for Davinder, my brow lady. She used to keep these bushy caterpillars tame for $22 every few weeks. I recently got my grays colored for the first time since becoming a mom, until then, I was using L’Oréal Magic Root Coverup for $11.97 a bottle. I paint my own nails, immediately after my baby falls asleep so they’ll dry before she inevitably needs me again. My brows have seen better days, I miss Davinder’s skillful threading. But I don’t need any of that glam anyway! It all adds up so quickly. I’m not going anywhere, I’m just a stay at home mother.

I’ve worked since I was fifteen years old. Spending your own money feels so good, doesn’t it? I’d receive my paycheck in hand, back in the olden days without direct deposit, and I’d walk to the bank and deposit most of it and reserve a little stash for fun. I always blew through my cash quickly because I liked to take my friends out, to be the friend who pays the bill because isn’t that a big part of money? To take care of the people you love?

The more ambitious I became, the more I made. What love birds money and ambition are. When I resigned from making my own money, I was making the sum of money kids make up when playing pretend because it sounds like a very large number.

I once got a tarot card reading and was told that I struggle with living in a lack mentality instead of a mindset of abundance. Thank goodness I didn’t pay for that reading because I’ve landed on this realization myself, for free. I’m not sure where it came from, I had everything I needed and wanted growing up, my mom made sure I never felt like I didn’t fit in, my dad got me a cute little car so I could drive to school and park next to the rich kids, I’ve never felt like I was missing something and I’ve never felt like I was longing for more of the mundane material stuff so much of our modern world becomes flooded with. I just opened my inbox while writing this: New collection available now, the Roman holiday lifestyle guide, 1st dibs, order now. BUY BUY BUY! Would I be this aware of not making money if the world wasn’t trying to sell me something every minute of every day?

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There is great financial privilege in being a stay at home mother. There are mothers I respect deeply who didn’t have the option to stay home with their children, who had to go back to work because this is the way the world runs – on dollars. I admit I chose to stay home because my work was passionless and sacrificing money felt like the noble thing to do. I’m very lucky my husband goes to work and makes enough to support us all. Just the other day, we chatted through our future goals. We agreed to lock the fuck in and take our future more seriously because we’d like to have a yard some day, we’d like to have another baby, maybe two, we’d like to have a life that feels rich and full in a way that unfortunately requires money. These bigger goals sit in the back of my head whenever I buy a little something here or there, a pricy cappuccino, a refill of my collagen cream, leggings to replace my pilling pair so I don’t embarrass myself in play group. I know my expenses won’t be the reason we can’t fulfill our dreams and I still stop myself before I spend, in case I do break the bank. And then as soon as there are big and small problems to be solved with money, it’s spend spend spend — the groceries, the Amazon cart, the dog’s vet bill, my husband’s next great trading-floor outfit. It’s a good thing I suck at math because tallying all that up in my brain every day would turn sticker shock into a topic for my therapist. And I do talk about these money insecurities in therapy. I ask myself, why is it I’m not bothered by the spending of money when it’s on those sorts of important things but I’m full of buyers remorse for whims and desires that are just my own. After all, I firmly believe a girl needs a few pretty things that spark joy.

New York can feel like your worth is defined by the number of zeroes in your name. Today, mine is only worth one. I like to think we live in New York for all the right reasons. My husband’s work is here, our life is here, this is everything we know and the only place that feels like home, until we find some place else that feels like home. And yet, as long as we’re here, spending money can feel like breathing air. And in my case, if someone already feels like they’re borrowing that air, living in a city of overconsumption and $8 lattes comes with guilt and shame.

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I like to try on imaginary hats when I’m nap trapped or laying awake at night. I looked up side hustles and ways to make money as a stay at home mom and the top result is start a blog. Whelp, jokes on them because I started this one and side hustle it is not. Shoutout to my two paid subscribers! I could become a dietician and do something useful for my family, is there money in that or is that just something people do for the wellness lifestyle? I could go all in on photography and give families the gift of memories, how nice would that be. I’d just lose money on the expense of running a business and I’m not the entrepreneurial type. I’VE GOT IT! I stumbled on this fantastic article about a dark, mysterious woman who shows up to funerals and sits in the back to make families question everything they know about their loved ones, all for $500 per gig. I’d make a phenomenal dark mysterious woman! Just sit in the back and sob softly while everyone whispers among themselves about love children and scandalous affairs. This definitely screams life calling potential. Unfortunately, the only fantasy job I can conjure for extra income is pretending to grieve for strangers, meanwhile, the job I actually do (raising a human) doesn’t count as valuable labor.

It’s not all doom and gloom, being a full-time employee with no pay. I’ve finally started to feel a sense of pride in being a stay at home mom. When I call myself a stay at home mom, I mean this is my whole life, for right now. I do nothing without my baby. I am with her all day every day. I have chosen to stay home and care for my kid, a job with no paycheck. I get weekly messages on LinkedIn from salesmen and recruiters. LinkedIn is a scary door to open once you’ve resigned from paid work. Nope! Not in there, wrong door, so sorry! If I’m bored, I’ll go peek in my inbox, just to feel like I’m still desired for skills I used to have, just for the assurance that I could go get a paycheck if I was ready to. I’ve started to reply to messages with “hi there, thanks for reaching out. I’m actually a full-time mother now. Best of luck!” And let me tell ya, it feels fucking fantastic to be so sure of my reply. I spoke with an expensive career coach just before quitting my job and she was thrilled for me, choosing motherhood for a little while. Also a mother, she said something I think about on my hardest of unpaid, relentless days — remember, you’re choosing this. I’m choosing everything about stay at home motherhood, and the lack of paycheck is also part of what I’ve signed up for to be this bonded to my baby and I wouldn’t trade it for a million dollars. A million dollars used to feel like A LOT of money, because it is, but it’s not worth more than these crucial years of motherhood.

What’s enough money anyway? Enough is enough to have our basic needs met, take a family vacation once or twice a year, and have the funds ready if there was ever an emergency, God forbid. But also, we’ll want to own a home one day, we’ll have more mouths to feed, we’ll want to take care of our own aging parents, and still have a slush fund for toys, infatuations and fun. I’m afraid the needle on “enough” is more like a pogo stick, it moves often and jumps high.

There will always be money to be made and money to be spent. These early years are currency, I’m spending it as wisely as I can. I can’t move things around the way I would with money. There are no shares of motherhood, I want them all.

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This is, I’ve come to realize, the psychology of spending within a financially comfortable marriage. I’m a woman standing in her closet, negotiating with herself over a $300 jacket. That’s not a nothing expense. When I made my own money, spending it closed a loop: I earned it, I spent it, saved some, done. Now that loop runs through my husband, even though we both insist it’s “our” money. Buying groceries or diapers still feels like doing my job. Buying something just for me feels like asking for a favor. It’s not that he’s rationed anything, he’s even on record telling me to stop asking. It’s that unpaid labor is nearly impossible to feel entitled to compensation for, no matter how many people insist you’ve earned it. The narrative in my head was never “can we afford this.” It was always “have I done enough today to deserve this.” As long as I’m on the clock, the ledger for what I do and don’t deserve never closes.

I found this video on Instagram about the value of a stay at home parent and it gave me quite the ego boost. Who knows if this is accurate but I’m rolling with it — $327,860 is the “annual salary of a stay at home parent.” If you’re a stay at home parent, memorize that number! Turns out I actually do deserve whatever I want. I’m perfectly content attributing my self-worth to this Instagram video.

*Writer’s note: I showed the video to my husband and he says, “But you don’t do half of those things.” Whatever, even if that number is half of my worth, I’ll take it!

I realize this whole essay might sound completely tone deaf. New Yorkers have a way of losing the plot on what's normal, and I'm not exempt from that, I know how this all reads. But I also spent a summer in college pulling doubles as a barista to pay off $700 in credit card debt, one $9 per hour shift at a time, and I’ve never forgotten a single hour of it. When you learn a dollar's worth the hard way, it stays with you every time you make money and every time you spend it. And now, I struggle to understand why I feel so protective over money that isn't scarce anymore, especially when the dollar I'm most protective over is the one I didn’t earn.

In case you’re wondering, I kept the jacket on the basis of cost per wear. As long as mom is my job, we’ll call it a business expense. It’s a nice neutral, it’ll go great with smashed banana and cottage cheese. I threw it on the other day when it was just a few degrees too warm for a coat, but might as well start getting my money’s worth, or our money, that is.

Buy yourself something nice, mama. You deserve it, and not because you need to earn it.