Our plan ever since Emerson was born and Karissa took off of work was for her to return. The awesome perk in her contract that allows one to take the remaining school year plus the entire next year off after the birth of a kid let us have 505 days together.
In that time, we researched RVs, had a great summer at the lake, a fun fall at home, and then 6 months on the road – completely missing winter.
We debated staying on the road longer. Adelaide wanted to go back to her “big home” and have a more stable life. We continue to consider moving somewhere new, even if for a year or so…but with family so close and helping us so often, that’s an even more major change than just the move. We thought of businesses and income sources to fund the biggest expense in our lifestyle – health insurance – and ran out of time to get anything going.
Health insurance was costing us $2,000 a month during Karissa’s leave. We had to pay 100% of the cost ourselves vs. something closer to 40% when she’s an active employee. Switching to another plan would have created complications if/when she returned to the employer’s plan. Plus, those other plans have ridiculous deductibles for the monthly cost.
This isn’t meant to be a treatise on health insurance, but our healthcare system in the United States is messed up. I’m not a fan of nationalizing anything. Paying for what we use as individuals, especially as an individual who hasn’t seen a doctor in a decade, should net me savings in our system. But per-capita healthcare costs in the US are higher than nationalized healthcare countries. Either we’re subsidizing the rest of the world, or flat-out doing it wrong. Either way, I’d like to see healthcare costs minimized.
As it is, Karissa is going back to work. She had her first official day back earlier this week. She was lucky enough to return to her same classroom teaching the same subject. She’s going to experience the pride of being the family’s provider.
Meanwhile, I’ll stay home with the kids. Adelaide starts preschool soon. And dance class. And she’s returning to speech therapy. Emerson and I have much more open schedules, but I’m sure they’ll get filled with something.
Karissa going back to work rather than me makes the most sense for us. She could theoretically be home by 3:00pm. She gets Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, spring break, and summers off. We’ll still have a lot of family time together. Had I returned to work in my old field, we wouldn’t have that much time off together…let alone the day-to-day time together.
So, thanks to Karissa for becoming the provider. We’ll miss you playing with us all day every day, but will figure it all out.