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Is the wife's town job really helping?

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needtolearn

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As the wife I have tried several different town jobs to help make ends meet on the place. The problem I find is that after I pay for someone to watch our child and drive back and forth I haven't made that big a dent in the family budget. I was working an 8 hour job and making about 1100 bucks a month. But after taxes, day care, maintenance on my vehicle, and fuel I was only contributing about 200 bucks.

Some of you may be thinking "ouch, she had to be mismanaging something", but if you actually take a look at your finanaces, make sure what you or your wife is doing is really making a difference. Maybe she has great benefits that make it worth it. Maybe you have a grandma who is able and willing to help out. Maybe your kids are school age so daycare isn't needed. Any way you look at it, make sure it really helping, and here's why.

Though I understand the reasoning behind a husband wanting his wife to work a town job, what makes him think that this makes her happy? We as families of the rancher or cowboy are supposed to understand the tight times are ok because doing what our man is doing, though not always financially secure, is what he loves.

Do the men ever consider that they except their women to devote their lives to doing something that ISN"T their dream for the sake of him? Some women love their town jobs, but I would have to say that most I know ache to work alongside their husband, not leave every day to be stuck in an office that the husband would throw a hissy fit about if he had to do the same.

Men, take a sec to wrap your arms around the woman you love, and give her you word you'll do your best to remember that without her sacrificing her dreams, you wouldn't have yours.

We do what we do, ladies, cause our dream of ranching is wrapped up in the man we love. The sacrifice of doing the thing we'd rather not is our act of love. But it wouldn't hurt to sit down as a couple now and then and make sure that the effort we put out doing the town job is really having the needed effect of keeping us in the dream life. Let's make sure we utilize the resources of a town job to full effect. It will help us hold our heads up when the burden gets heavy.
 
My wife got a town job, about the time our oldest was going to be needing to go to highschool.


She never really made us any money, but she was there for 3 boys and provided our health insurance.

When the kids were all out of high school, she moved home. About a month later we decided we needed a town job. We both went and looked but I wasn't trained to do anything besides work for minimum wage. And when you've got to travel 55 to 85 miles for the job, it just won't work.

She found a job and left it after a year and a half for health reasons. Within 6 months she had another job and it pays a lot better. She likes her job, but hates the drive and won't stay in town unless she has to.

I've told her time and again, that she is more than welcome to stay at home and do the work that I do(and she dang sure could, but won't admit it) and I will go get the job.

I have several other sources of off ranch work or at least part time stuff that I can do and still get my work done at home.

We've had to ask ourselves lots of times, if it is worth it. So far I guess it has been.

Anytime we figured it, if she could stay at home and make $7000 a year, we would be just as well off, but we can't seem to find anything that she can or will do, that would pay that much, while working out of the house.

So I guess she is makeing about that much evidentley. And we have insurance. At our age, thats a big deal.

By the way, my dad always said he wouldn't allow his wife to work off the ranch. Guess she must have had him fooled as she taught school for 16 years while they were married! :wink:

On thing about ranching, lots of times, the kids can go along. And when they get into schopl, then you just have to be there at bus time. Schools are mostly high priced babysitters anyway. :wink:
 
Mine works at the FSA office, so you know whose file is always getting audited.
But the health insurance sure is a big help, but not much money left after that as most of what's left goes into her 401k
 
In the last year I've quit my "town job" at which I made what I thought was a decent salary. And I loved my job. But......this is MY dream too, and after all the expenses of gettin to and from work, the not havin time to do things with the kids that I wanted to, and was missin out on, I made the choice of stayin at home again. And I absolutely LOVE it. I now have time to go out and fix fence, or tag calves, whatever needs done. When I was workin those things always had to wait until the weekends when Mr. Lilly was off. Now there's more time to do the things we wanna do on the weekend, than those things that we hafta do.
 
Remember that old script that made the rounds; the one that said "You might be a rancher IF:"

Your wife has a full-time job at the courthouse.
Your dogs ride in the front of your pickup more than your wife does.

There was a lot more, anybody remember the rest of it?
 
Since my kids started school,I've nursed.For me it worked great because,I worked straight nights at first,so get home and send kids to school,then sleep.Never missed any of the kids activities,the thing is I love my job,but now I'm getting to the point I'd like to do what Lillys doing.....maybe this year.
 
LOL I'd love to hear some more of those "rancher if"s. I just can't think of any myself. I'll probably dream up a great one, and not be able to recall it in the morning. Jeff Foxworthy I am not! :D
 
Faster horses said:
Remember that old script that made the rounds; the one that said "You might be a rancher IF:"

Your wife has a full-time job at the courthouse.
Your dogs ride in the front of your pickup more than your wife does.

There was a lot more, anybody remember the rest of it?
Click to expand...

My wife has a full time job at the hospital as an RN.

and she wont ride in my farm truck for love or money but the dog sure will.
 
It is interesting that many farmers/ranchers face this dilema. I too became an RN when the last child was around 12. Worked for 10 years but the farm was calling me back home. To say I saved a lot of money working, no, impulse buying was easy. I know being a nurse pays great but I found if I curbed my shopping we were probably ahead. The insurance is a huge amount. It costs the two of us 800/month at our age. Just being home to market the crops better, hedge cattle at hopefully the right time, and help outside when needed, has made up the difference of losing my RN wage. One thing to remember, do what works for you and makes you happy, life is too short to wait for the right time to change course.
 
My wife started at the local high school when my son was a freshman (10 years ago) as the "Networks Tecnology Specialist"

After 10 years she is still making $7.00 per hour for 32 hours a week.

I have begged her to quit but she "loves her job" and wants to stay for two more years till our daughter graduates. This is the same woman who comes home at least three nights a week bitching about having to work thru lunch ( no extra pay) having to use our vehicle to transport computers from on school to another - - - she takes care of five schools in the district. No insurance, no paid vacation all while the superintendent tells everyone how broke the system is ( he makes $180,000 per year.

I feel we are lucky she is there if a problem arrises with one of the kids but we would be much better off if she quit and stayed home!!! By the time I keep up a vehicle, pay for "work clothes" etc. I can't afford for her to work. She was offered a starting pay of $25.00 per hour to run the network department for a local factory with paid insurance and paid vacation and would not even try it over the summer to see if she would like it.
 
On thing about ranching, lots of times, the kids can go along
Click to expand...

Very true. So long as the kids have just a little bit of age on them.
My daughter is four this year, and will turn five (a month after the official cutoff for kindergarten) next fall. But I'm going back to work this fall because teaching jobs are fairly infrequent in my part of the world since there are so few to begin with.
But Ty will be going along with Daddy most days, just like she does now when I work in town on Mondays.
Mornings she'll be in preschool, with any kind of luck.
 
George said:
My wife started at the local high school when my son was a freshman (10 years ago) as the "Networks Tecnology Specialist"

After 10 years she is still making $7.00 per hour for 32 hours a week.

I have begged her to quit but she "loves her job" and wants to stay for two more years till our daughter graduates. This is the same woman who comes home at least three nights a week bitching about having to work thru lunch ( no extra pay) having to use our vehicle to transport computers from on school to another - - - she takes care of five schools in the district. No insurance, no paid vacation all while the superintendent tells everyone how broke the system is ( he makes $180,000 per year.

I feel we are lucky she is there if a problem arrises with one of the kids but we would be much better off if she quit and stayed home!!! By the time I keep up a vehicle, pay for "work clothes" etc. I can't afford for her to work. She was offered a starting pay of $25.00 per hour to run the network department for a local factory with paid insurance and paid vacation and would not even try it over the summer to see if she would like it.
Click to expand...

Just playing "devils advocate" here, but has she ever asked you to quit your ranching job, and to take a more lucritive job, away from what you are doing now?
 
Not when it costs you almost as much as you make to get to and from that job. I quit my job last June (before fuel prices went thru the roof), drove a lil more than 50 miles a day. By the time ya pay for fuel, upkeep on a vehicle, meals, it just doesn't leave that much left over afterward. Yes there was some money. But the advantage of stayin home, and workin the ranch, leaves so much more free time in the long run for the whole family, you can't put a price on that.
I'd worked there for 8 years, with the intention of quittin when our herd got to a certain size. I actually worked about 3 years more than I'd intended. It's really tuff to put up hay when both have a day job, cuttin after dark, and tryin to time it so that you can bale on the weekend. That is IF and WHEN the weather and equipment cooperates. Alotta time we were balin in the evenin and after dark too. Feedin after dark in the winter time. Now we no longer hafta do that, because I can get things done durin the day while he's at work.
 
My wife has chosen to work off the place for many years. I had a budget and it was tight, she didn't want to live with in that.

I found the same as many others, by the time her extra spending and vehicle expenses were taken into account, she wasn't helping much.

When she quit one job to take one that paid 25% less, I gave her the car and all its associated costs, repairs, gas, insurance. She soon quit that job and found another that pays almost double that one and 25% more than her first. She is catching up slowly but has really had an education.
 
Jason said:
My wife has chosen to work off the place for many years. I had a budget and it was tight, she didn't want to live with in that.

I found the same as many others, by the time her extra spending and vehicle expenses were taken into account, she wasn't helping much.

When she quit one job to take one that paid 25% less, I gave her the car and all its associated costs, repairs, gas, insurance. She soon quit that job and found another that pays almost double that one and 25% more than her first. She is catching up slowly but has really had an education.
Click to expand...

When I asked couples to take the time to evaluate if working the town job was really helping, it was good to see that many did just that. But speaking to the men, as a giggling devil's advocate, when was the last time you were in the black with ranching?

When you figure in the work clothes and the fuel and the fluctuating cattle prices, perhaps your wife's problem is that she followed your business model.

Please guys take what I say with a grain of salt. This is the life we all choose to live.

To George, I'm sure you "love your job" too, but can you honeslty say you never ever complain about certain aspects of it. The falling cattle market, the tractor that broke down yet again, the banker who isn't being nearly understanding enough, the government and its interference, etc.

Even when we are doing what we love, we aren't always happy in it. :D
 
My wife doesn't really call hers a job- its her career- she went thru many years of training and experience to get where she is...And she made that clear before we got married, that she wasn't going to stop working- and we couldn't live on the north ranch because it would be too far away for her to get called to the hospital- so we built a new house on the south place...Thankfully with the help of grandparents, she only had to take about 1 year off when the twins were born and we had 3 kids within 11 months of age.....

She makes good money which she splurges with off and on- usually for kids or grandkids......But the most important part of her working is the health insurance...If I had kept my insurance it would have taken 1/3 of my state retirement right off the top............

Bad part is that the job and the on-call limit her being able to attend or help with many of both the on ranch chores and the off ranch functions I attend...If we do go somewhere usually we travel in separate vehicles in case she has to leave...One of her favorite times is calving time tho- she gets to play a bigger role- if she gets called in during the night, when she comes home she takes a drive out and checks heifers and cows- which I appreciate when I don't have to crawl out of a warm bed for the night check :) And Grandma is pretty handy at pulling a calf :wink: ......
 
Before my wife had a job, she always worried about what she would do if I died. I told her she could run this place, maybe have to have help, but she dang sure could make the decisions and do most of the work. She didn't believe me.

After she got to be the boss at her old job and they'd send her off with the checkbook to buy several hundred thousand dollars worth of goods and she found out she could make good decisions and do a good job, she finally realized that I had been right all along. So that has probably been the best thing about her working. It gave her confidence and a sense of independence. We are together because we choose to be, not because we have to be.

I can identify with oldtimer as when I go to lots of poetry gatherings and things like that, she can't go.

So I usually find a "wife" wherever I go , to keep me lined out.

I was teasing a lady at a gathering that I needed a wife while I was at this one gathering and she was having a fit. Said that I was terrible to talk that way as I was already married. I told her I had my wifes blessings as she knew I needed some good woman to keep me lined out and on time and things like that. Yvonne Hollenbeck was there and she cupped her hand over her mouth and said to this lady, like she was whispering, "We call her Saint Cindy!"

Yup, I'm married to a saint. Only she won't admit it. :wink:
 
Jinglebob and Oldtimer,obviously you guys respect your wives and thier contributions to your marriages,I feel I get the same respect from Greg.Never have I been put on a budget let alone a tight one.Never have I been told how to spend our money,its all about working together,and definatly about respect for a partner.I work because I love it,and the extra money is a bonus.
 

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