Back to workforce woes

The kids are all out of nappies and the eldest has even started school. Maybe now is the right time to start earning some serious money so you can keep up with the Joneses and raise your family's standard of living.

But is the timing right and will your new job really raise your standard of living?

And, most importantly, are you prepared for all the costs of returning to fulltime work? Childcare costs are the obvious biggest expense but there is much much more.

First, you are going to have to pay for someone else to takeover all the things you have managed to do as well as look after the children - or you can look forward to having one hell of a Saturday.

And what if your job takes you away from home from time to time? Who picks up the pieces?

And as for the office wardrobe, if it's been a year or two, you are going to have to replenish your clothing stock. So it's off to the mall and to the drycleaners.

There are many reasons women return to the workforce - for sheer sanity, to raise the family's quality of life, to resume a career they have a considerable stake in.

Says one Auckland mother of two: "It is about having a sense of purpose of life. Once the kids were at school I felt like I needed to have something else."

Amanda Cosseboom, a Wellington mother of one, went to Style Studio image consultant Leonie Dobbs for a makeover recently. The attention gave her much-needed confidence that she could go out and be taken seriously in the workforce again after five years at home with her daughter, Brooklyn. Cosseboom, an office administrator, is keeping her eye out for jobs in the paper and is meanwhile staying in her comfort zone and working for her husband's company, mainly from home. There are certain things the 29-year-old won't do in her next job and one is work beyond the hours of 9am to 2.30am.

"When I go to job interviews and say I need these hours, they look at you as if you have asked for a million-dollar pay rise," she says.

Cosseboom would like to do a bachelor's degree in early childhood learning but is nervous about building up a $40,000 student debt.

The young mum says she has been shocked at the price of makeup and work clothes.

"I have not worn a business suit in six years," says the former administrator for Harcourts in Auckland.

As for the advantages a job can afford her and her family, she takes that with a grain of salt. "You have to get transport organised, a sitter if you are working late, clothes, makeup. I looked at it and decided with the money you are paying out for everything ... if they paid me a normal wage of $300 a week I would be lucky to see any of it."

Cosseboom is torn. She enjoys having her own identity again now she is working.

"The hardest thing that you have as a stay-at-home mum is trying to get away from being a mum. Where's Amanda? All you see is the mum and the wife but there's no me any more."

If you are able to return to a profession where you left at a relatively senior level, the costs of taking care of the family will not outweigh your salary. But for those who are taking up a job at a lower level, like Cosseboom, there may be little monetary incentive for you to make the change, particularly if you do not have family to help out.

Wealth coach Joan Baker says: "It is nightmarish, the cost of going back to working unless there is family back-up - Granny or a sister.

"There is huge expense around returning to work - suits, extra pairs of shoes, good haircuts. In anything other than low-paid work this stuff is obligatory.

"It is wise for parents to tot up the true cost of them both working. It usually means there has to be a second car, childcare, buying prepared food, clothes, getting someone to do the washing, the ironing ... The only way that works economically is if it's worth keeping the career open."

Before you decide it is a good time to return to work, outline exactly what that second job is going to pay for, advises Baker.

"Is that second job there to pay for extras like ... the iPods and the holidays? Or is it to pay the mortgage?

"So many women are working extremely hard at jobs which are taking them nowhere at huge expense to their families," says Baker sympathetically.

A dangerous mistake families make when both partners are back working is that they immediately expand their spending to fit their new incomes and they leave themselves unable to escape their new commitments, says Susanna Stuart, author of Your Family Fortune. "People load up their borrowings when they move back to two incomes," she says.

"Because they are earning more, they tend to take on loans so they can afford things like renovations.

"Once you start depending on two incomes the cost is greater ... You live up to your income.

"I know of one couple, both in equally demanding jobs, and they have had to hire nannies, cleaners - a whole army of support people.

"We all need a wife to do the job properly," quips Baker.

Julie Moselen, a freelance jeweller, who works in retail at times, is delaying going back to work full-time for practical reasons.

"For me it's the cost to the rest of the family stress-wise," she says. "If I work any more than three days a week it all starts falling to pieces.

"If I were to work full-time I would definitely have to earn a fair amount to make it worthwhile. If you work more, you end up spending more.

"Other costs are clothes, lunch every day because it is such a mad rush to get out the door, petrol. And getting home, dinner has to be something quick and easy, so often there's takeaways."

Moselen worked at a shop at St Lukes and felt she had to wear trendy clothes and suddenly the beauty thing became so necessary.

Leonie Dobbs, the image consultant who founded Dress for Success in Wellington, which helps women with their wardrobes when they want to return towork, says women have to build confidence before they go job-hunting.

For those who have a choice about returning to work, life coach Andrea Molloy recommends they improve their skills to maximise their earning power first.

She also suggests that if women decide now is not the time to return to the workforce, they should re-evaluate their circumstances every six to 12 months.

"I tell them you can have it all but not at the one time. You have got to get the timing right," adds Baker.