good news.

My hubby got a promotion.  He will be making $1 more per hour and have some built in overtime...not much, about 1 hour per week but we figure with the raise and his OT he will take home an extra $150 or so per month.  Very nice!  The best part is that he has very small odds of getting laid off now.  That is a huge plus.  We could follow our original plan now, which was for me to stay home with the kids.  After some consideration today, we are postponing that decision until at least next April.  We get bonuses in April where I work and you have to be employed there when they pay out the bonus in order to recieve it so we will wait.  That gives us a lot of time to save more money and for him to really get into the job and make sure it is a good fit.  At this point, I have no plans to quit but I will stay part-time as I am doing now and just enjoy my time with the kids.  Part time is a perfect mix of adult interaction, making a bit of money and getting time to just be me...not someone's mommy.  I love my kids with every fiber of my being but I need time to be me and be away from them.  Working part time gives me that.  Also once my car is paid off, I want to start saving a lot more and then when we have a more comfortable amount in savings...I am thinking $7K-$10K, I wanted to start hitting the mortgage heavy.  So I believe that I will stay working so we can accomplish this.  Being home is wonderful and I love my kids but I also see the advantages to working part-time for my employer.   I am paid a really good wage for part-time work, I have a lot of flexibility, and the company is a good company (minus a few quirks...but which company doesn't have them).  If I do decided to quit, I won't necessary quit.  I will reduce my status to temporary seasonal and only work a couple months a year.  If I do that it would be very easy for me to go back to part-time status once the kids were in school.  I would basically be guaranteed a year round part-time position when I was ready, whereas if I just quit outright, I would have to work back into a year round part-time position, which is not easily accomplished in some departments.