**I know this is long, skip to the questions at the end if you like**

My toddler is two, will be three in December. She currently attends an in home daycare she loves, but they don’t do any structured learning at all. I’m pregnant with our second who will be due in September.

It doesn’t make sense to spend nearly all of one of my paychecks to have two kids in daycare... with all of the sick days and scrambling that come from balancing work and family. If I continue working, we’d also have to switch to a more expensive daycare or figure out how to add preschool to daycare so that my daughter doesn’t fall behind.

I have a job I like but don’t love... but spend 2-3 hours commuting every day. I make good money and have great benefits... and I’m a little afraid to walk away from that.

Having said that, I do feel called to stay with my kids rather than spend half my income to have someone else watch them and have to call out sick every time one of them gets sick.

As our budget stands, we’d be short about $2,000/month with our current spending habits. My husband believes he can make that working a second job doing pizza delivery with Papa Johns... but I’m scared we’ll make this leap and he won’t make enough and we won’t be able to pay our bills. If I try to get a different job with evening or weekend hours I would never be able to rest since I’d have the kids during the day.

How did you make that choice? What factors hurt or helped your decision? Do you regret it? Any other sage advice?