There are a lot of unanswered questions besides The D's survival. Will he grow into a manchild? Will he catch up socially? What is his mental capacity? And probably most importantly, who will take care of him after we are long gone? His brother Ryan, who has already been dragged through some tough years not knowing if his brother would even survive the treatment protocol, has some serious weight to carry on his shoulders. We are blessed that he is mature well beyond his age and has taken this whole situation in stride. He will always be a great brother to The D and is smart enough to realize that his life will be forever changed, as will ours.
Speaking of change, I've been thinking a lot about the family's future and more so, how to pay for it. Though Lisa has returned to work, her commute is terrible (don't even get me started on how the hell it can take nearly four hours out of her day to commute fifteen miles each way on public transit). My employer has been absolutely fantastic through this ordeal and I've been working remotely (from home) about three days a week which has made our quality of life much improved. But this means we now have to pay for a nanny to help take care of The D and to drive him to his many therapy sessions which are only available during the work day. The growing gridlock in northern New Jersey does not make it any easier. Plus, nannies are not cheap. To find a reliable one, we need to spend at least $18 an hour and average about twenty hours per week. We would love to cut it back to around fifteen hours, but no one reliable wants to work that little. We do not see this changing any time soon as The D needs a lot of therapy to catch up. It must be done when he is young to have a fighting chance at a more normal life.
So where it looked like retirement was just around the corner based on our existing budget. We now have unexpected costs of close to $2,000 per month, that we didn't have before. Plus, our taxes and commuting costs are now increasing faster than our wages increase, adding to the difficulty. Though, we are not crying poor. Most of our savings are intact, and so far, we are still managing to sock away a little bit of money towards our retirement. But my plans to retire when Ryan gets out of high school are pretty much an impossibility. Especially in light of all of the tax increases the middle class continues to face. Unless...
Speaking of change, I've been thinking a lot about the family's future and more so, how to pay for it. Though Lisa has returned to work, her commute is terrible (don't even get me started on how the hell it can take nearly four hours out of her day to commute fifteen miles each way on public transit). My employer has been absolutely fantastic through this ordeal and I've been working remotely (from home) about three days a week which has made our quality of life much improved. But this means we now have to pay for a nanny to help take care of The D and to drive him to his many therapy sessions which are only available during the work day. The growing gridlock in northern New Jersey does not make it any easier. Plus, nannies are not cheap. To find a reliable one, we need to spend at least $18 an hour and average about twenty hours per week. We would love to cut it back to around fifteen hours, but no one reliable wants to work that little. We do not see this changing any time soon as The D needs a lot of therapy to catch up. It must be done when he is young to have a fighting chance at a more normal life.
So where it looked like retirement was just around the corner based on our existing budget. We now have unexpected costs of close to $2,000 per month, that we didn't have before. Plus, our taxes and commuting costs are now increasing faster than our wages increase, adding to the difficulty. Though, we are not crying poor. Most of our savings are intact, and so far, we are still managing to sock away a little bit of money towards our retirement. But my plans to retire when Ryan gets out of high school are pretty much an impossibility. Especially in light of all of the tax increases the middle class continues to face. Unless...
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