I want to show you the childcare math that changed my life — because nobody showed it to me. I had to figure it out myself, and it took months of going back and forth before the answer became clear.
Here’s the short version: I had a bookkeeping business. I had a baby. Childcare in Nashville runs $1,500 to $2,000 a month. And when I sat down and honestly compared what my business was bringing in versus what it would cost to put Graham in full-time care — and then what it would cost when we had a second baby, which we knew we wanted soon — the math told us something we needed to hear.
So I closed the bookkeeping business, became a stay-at-home mom, and started building something different — a digital product business I could grow during nap times and the occasional evening block when I had the energy. It’s not glamorous. It’s not fast. But it’s mine, and the math actually makes sense.
I want to walk you through exactly how I ran those numbers — because if you’re a mom sitting in the middle of this decision right now, wondering whether staying home is financially irresponsible or whether going back to work actually costs you money, you deserve to see the real math. Not the simplified version. The real one.
The Number That Starts the Conversation
In Nashville, full-time childcare for an infant runs between $1,500 and $2,000 a month. That’s $18,000 to $24,000 a year — just for one child.
And Nashville isn’t even the most expensive market. According to a 2025 LendingTree study, childcare now costs more than rent in the majority of U.S. metro areas. In some cities it’s significantly more. That number alone is staggering — but it’s only the beginning of the real calculation.
Then there’s the nanny route. If you want the kind of one-on-one attention for your child that’s closest to what you’d provide yourself as a parent, you’re looking at a full-time nanny. The national average cost for a full-time nanny in 2026 is approximately $26 an hour, which translates to a gross annual salary of about $55,000 for a standard 40-hour week. But the “all-in” cost — including employer taxes, payroll fees, and benefits — typically ranges from $42,000 to $78,000 a year. There are real pros and cons to both daycares and nannies, and every family weighs them differently. But if individualized attention is what matters most to you, the nanny number is the one you’re comparing your income against.
And childcare isn’t the only cost of going back to work. There’s also the commute (gas, parking, or transit), the work wardrobe, the lunches, the convenience spending that happens when you’re exhausted and time-starved. And there are the taxes — because that income you’re earning to pay for childcare is taxed, which means you need to earn significantly more than the childcare cost just to break even.
When I actually laid all of this out on paper, the gap between what I was earning and what it cost to earn it was much smaller than I expected. For a lot of families, that gap is zero — or negative.
The Calculation I Actually Did
Here’s what my spreadsheet looked like when I was making this decision. I’m sharing real numbers because I think the vagueness around this topic is part of why so many women struggle with it. Nobody shows you what the math actually looks like.
The income side:
My bookkeeping business was bringing in revenue, but after expenses (software, insurance, my time) the actual take-home wasn’t what the top line suggested. I was working hard, but the net profit from a service business where I was the only employee had a ceiling — and that ceiling wasn’t as high as you’d think.
The cost side:
Childcare: $1,500–$2,000/month. That’s $18,000–$24,000/year before anything else.
Then I added the real costs of working: gas and transportation, work-related expenses, the meals and convenience spending that come with being stretched thin, and the tax impact on the income I was earning.
What the math actually showed:
When I ran it all, I was making more than the cost of childcare. But not by as much as we thought. The gap between my take-home and the cost of working was real — but it was modest. Not the comfortable cushion we assumed it would be.
And then the number that changed everything: we knew we wanted another baby. Soon. Which meant doubling the childcare cost. Two kids in full-time daycare in Nashville would run $3,000 to $4,000 a month — $36,000 to $48,000 a year. Against that number, the math didn’t just get tight. It broke.
That was the moment the spreadsheet told us something we needed to hear.
The Number Most People Get Wrong
Here’s something I want to flag because it trips up almost every family that runs this calculation: you have to compare childcare costs against your actual take-home pay. Not your salary. Your take-home.
These are very different numbers and most people don’t realize how different until they look.
If you earn a $100,000 salary, your actual take-home after federal taxes, state taxes, FICA, health insurance premiums, and retirement contributions is generally somewhere between $60,000 and $75,000. That breaks down to roughly $5,000 to $6,250 per month depending on your state and your deductions.
Now put two kids in full-time daycare at $1,750 each. That’s $3,500 a month — against a take-home of $5,000 to $6,250. You’re left with $1,500 to $2,750 a month. Before commuting costs, work meals, work wardrobe, and all the other expenses that come with being out of the house full time.
And if you’re considering a nanny instead of daycare? That $42,000 to $78,000 annual all-in cost for just one child could eat your entire take-home on a six-figure salary — before you’ve paid for a single other thing.
Someone glancing at a $100,000 salary and $48,000 in childcare costs might think they have plenty of room. They see a $52,000 gap and assume they’re fine. But the real gap — after taxes, insurance, and the actual cost of working — can be a fraction of that. For some families it disappears entirely.
This is why running the real math matters. Not the back-of-napkin version. The actual numbers, with your actual paycheck, your actual deductions, and your actual childcare quotes. The answer might surprise you — in either direction.
The Decision Wasn’t Simple — Even With the Math
I want to be honest about this part because I think a lot of articles about the SAHM decision make it sound cleaner than it actually is.
Even after I ran the numbers, the decision took months. There was a lot of back and forth. Because the finances were only one part of it — a pretty important part to actually know, but still just one part.
The emotional truth. The whole reason I started my own business in the first place was so I wouldn’t miss the once-in-a-lifetime moments with my son. His first words. His first steps. The slow mornings that you never get back. So what was the point of having my own business if I had to put him in full-time daycare just like every other W-2 worker? If the end result was the same — someone else watching my child all day — then what exactly had I built the business for?
That question sat with me for weeks. And I couldn’t answer it in a way that made sense.
The health reality. For any of you who have been down the breastfeeding journey, you’ll understand this. For those who haven’t — it isn’t as simple as “you’ll just know what to do and it comes naturally.” There’s a bit more to it than that.
Graham and I did really well with breastfeeding directly. But pumping was a different story. We both got ongoing yeast infections. Trying to pump long-term for daycare is not at all a fun experience — and the reality is that daycare works best with formula. But it was very important to me to continue breastfeeding Graham until he was one year old. That was a personal decision, and I can get into the reasons another time. I totally respect any and all decisions women make when it comes to this. These choices are not easy with the way our lives and society are currently set up.
The identity question. This was the hardest part for me — harder than the math, harder than the logistics.
My work was part of who I was. It gave me independence. It gave me purpose. And it gave me something that was mine outside of being a wife and a mom. Walking away from that — even when the numbers supported it — felt like losing a piece of myself.
And I know I’m not alone in this. Some women love their jobs. Some women can’t wait to leave them. And some feel something complicated in between — not quite love, not quite indifference, but a real attachment to the identity and the rhythm and the independence that work provides. All of those feelings are valid and they all make this decision harder than any spreadsheet can capture.
I feel deeply for every woman who finds herself having to make this choice. Our society is not set up to make it easy. Childcare is punishingly expensive. Parental leave is inadequate. The options available to most families are some version of “pay a fortune for someone else to raise your child” or “give up your income and career momentum.” Neither feels good. Neither should be the only options.
What I’ve found — and I say this honestly, not as a tidy resolution — is that I’ve been able to keep a piece of my identity and purpose through my writing, my digital products, and managing our real estate. It looks different than it did before. It’s smaller and slower and fits into nap windows instead of full work days. But it’s mine. And it’s enough for this season.
I hope if you’re in the middle of this decision, you’re able to find a version that works for you — whatever that looks like.
The partnership piece. Wes told me he would support me either way. I want to be very clear about this: you cannot make this decision without a supportive partner. The math matters, but the partnership matters just as much. If your spouse isn’t on the same page — or worse, if they’re going to hold it over you — the numbers alone won’t save you.
We talked about it for weeks. We ran the numbers together. Then we weighed the finances against the emotional truths and the health realities and our plans for another baby. And ultimately it was my decision. Wes backed it completely.
There’s no single factor that tipped the scale. It was all of it together — the modest financial gap, the looming double childcare cost, the breastfeeding reality, the milestones I didn’t want to miss, the identity I was afraid of losing, and the fact that the business I’d built was supposed to give me time with my son, not take it away. When I stacked all of that up, the answer became clear.
What My Life Actually Looks Like Now
I think people imagine that being a SAHM who runs a business means you have this elegant work-from-home setup with scheduled blocks of focused time and a nanny who comes three days a week.
That is not my life.
My work happens during nap time. Graham goes down, I open my laptop, and I have somewhere between one and one and a half hours before he wakes up. That’s my primary work block for the day.
Sometimes I get a short evening block after he goes to bed — if I have the energy, which is honestly not every night.
My parents split their time between Nashville and Denver, and when they’re in town I get an extra hour or so of help on Wednesdays. That’s a gift and I use every minute of it. But it’s not consistent and I can’t build my schedule around it.
That’s it. That’s the whole work schedule. Nap time, occasional evenings, and the odd Wednesday.
Everything I’ve built — the digital products, the blog articles, the Pinterest strategy, the courses — has been built in those margins. It’s slow. Some weeks are more productive than others. But it’s compounding, and every piece of content I create is an asset that works for me even when I’m not at my laptop.
The Math Nobody Talks About: What Your Time at Home Is Actually Worth
Here’s the part of the SAHM calculation that never shows up in the spreadsheet but matters enormously.
When you’re home with your child, you’re not just “not working.” You’re doing work that has real economic value — it’s just unpaid. Childcare, meal preparation, household management, scheduling, logistics, emotional labor. If you hired someone to do all of it, the cost would be significant.
But beyond the economic argument, there’s something else. The time you spend with your child during these early years is irreplaceable. Not in a guilt-inducing “you’ll miss everything if you work” way — that narrative is harmful and I reject it. But in a genuine, honest, “this is time I chose and I’m glad I have it” way.
For me, the value of being present for Graham’s first year — his first steps, his first words, the slow Tuesday mornings that don’t feel productive but are actually everything — is not something I can put a dollar sign on. But it factored into my decision just as much as the spreadsheet did.
How to Run Your Own Numbers
If you’re sitting in the middle of this decision right now, here’s what I’d suggest:
Step 1: Get your actual income number. Not your revenue if you run a business. Not your salary if you’re a W-2 employee. Your take-home after business expenses, taxes, insurance premiums, and retirement contributions. Be honest — this number is almost always lower than people think.
Step 2: Get your actual cost-of-working number. Childcare or nanny costs (get real quotes, not estimates), transportation, work meals, work wardrobe, convenience spending, and the tax impact on your income. Add it all up.
Step 3: Subtract. What’s actually left? Is that number worth the trade-off?
Step 4: Project forward. Are you planning to have another child? If so, double the childcare number and run the math again. This is the step most families skip — and it’s often the one that changes the answer.
Step 5: Factor in what you can’t spreadsheet. Like your mental health. Your relationship with your child. Your identity. The breastfeeding reality. Your long-term career trajectory. These things matter and they don’t fit neatly into a column.
Step 6: Talk to your partner. Not once. Multiple times. Run the numbers together. Be honest about your fears and your values. Make sure you’re making the decision as a team — even if one of you ultimately makes the final call.
There’s no universally right answer. There’s only the answer that’s right for your family, right now, with the numbers you actually have.
What I Want You to Know
If you’re a mom who works full-time and loves it — that’s wonderful. Your kids are fine. You’re modeling ambition and independence and that matters.
If you’re a mom who stays home full-time — that’s wonderful too. Your kids are getting something irreplaceable. You’re not falling behind. You’re choosing.
If you’re somewhere in between — building something in the margins, working part-time, figuring it out as you go — welcome to my life. It’s messy and imperfect and I wouldn’t trade it.
The only wrong answer is the one you make without looking at your actual numbers. Because when you know your numbers, the decision becomes yours. Not society’s. Not your mother-in-law’s. And not Instagram’s. Yours.
Ready to Run the Math?
If this article made you realize you need more clarity about your money before you can make big decisions with confidence, Face Your Finances is where I’d start. It’s the complete framework for understanding your income, expenses, debt, and net worth — written for real people, not finance majors.
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And if you and your partner want a starting point for having these conversations together — about money, about priorities, about the life you’re building — the free Money & Marriage Conversation Guide walks you through it in one sitting.
👉 Download the free Money & Marriage Conversation Guide
The best financial decisions aren’t the ones that look right on paper. They’re the ones you made with your eyes open.