SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CAREERS / BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY : Free-Lance Workers With Children Face Mixed Blessings : Parents enjoy flexible schedules, but health coverage and child-care expenses can add up.
As companies across America downsize, more and more people find themselves self-employed in contract or free-lance work, and that has important ramifications for workers who want to start families.
The plus side is that free-lance workers often have more flexible hours to spend with children and don’t have to contend with aggravating bosses or rigid corporate culture.
The downside however, is that sick leave and health care coverage--two important benefits for those with families--often go out the window.
But not always.
One common misconception is that temp workers are stuck paying for their own health care benefits. If you are considering temporary work, shop around for companies that offer competitive packages, sometimes with surprising benefits. Consider Manpower Inc., a national temp agency based in Milwaukee that has 35 offices in Los Angeles.
Once employees log 400 hours of work, Manpower offers to pay half of their health care premium, company spokeswoman Gretchen Kreske says.
“About 55% of our work force is working mothers and they like to temp. . . . So we have a very extensive benefit package,” Kreske says.
In addition to health care, Manpower offers paid vacations and holidays and free computer software training, Kreske explains. Manpower temps can even purchase stock in the company at a 15% discount.
Financial planners say the ideal scenario is when free-lancers have a spouse whose firm provides medical coverage for the entire family. If that is the case, they recommend calculating how much it will cost to add dependents to the spouse’s insurance policy and setting aside that money each month.
Pasadena financial planner Mitchell Kauffman says it’s also important to put money away for retirement if you’re independently employed and don’t have an employer contributing to a pension fund. Self-employed people may want to consider Keogh plans, which allow you to put in up to 20% of your net profit before taxes.
Kauffman, who says a growing part of his business is free-lance workers with families, says he has noticed that more independent contractors opt to buy coverage only for major medical expenses and to pay out of pocket for smaller health care costs.
“They’re doing that because the premiums are just astronomical; it’s not unusual to see people paying $4,000 to $5,000 per year,” Kauffman says.
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The second big expense for free-lance workers with families is child care, experts say. While many would-be parents dream about working peacefully at home while caring for a baby full-time, the reality is it is often necessary to turn to child-care providers so that you can get some work done.
Child-care consultant June Sale, who wrote the book “Working Parents Handbook” along with Kit Kollenberg and Ellen Melinkoff, says it is possible to get work done at home but parents need to prioritize.
“Make sure kids are paid attention to first, but set up very clear limits,” says Sale, who suggests telling a child, “ ‘I’m going to be doing this with you now. Then Mom or Dad is going to work and you’ll have to play over here by yourself.’ You’d be amazed at how early kids understand that. Certainly by age 3.”
That’s what Jeffrey Hutter, a Santa Monica psychologist who teaches “Zen and the Art of Personal Change” and other classes at UCLA Extension, did with his three children. Hutter had an office in his home and would regularly shut the door when he needed to work, relying on a housekeeper to watch over the children.
“There’s a speil I gave my kids,” Hutter recalls. “They’d come into the office and I would tell them, ‘you think I’m here but I’m really not, I am at work and you have to treat me like I’m at work, and if you need me, you have to knock, and if I’m on the phone, you can’t interrupt me.’ ”
One option is to enroll children in a play group where parents trade off care as the kids rotate from house to house. Some free-lancers prefer day-care centers that will take kids on an irregular basis, but they are harder to find. And full-time day-care centers are expensive--$600 per month for one child is not unusual, with half-day programs running about $325 per month.
It may be cheaper to have a sitter come to your home occasionally, although that may run up to $1,000 per month for full-time work. By the hour, professional sitters often charge $5 to $7 per hour, although all child-care costs vary. If you are lucky, you’ll find someone who cleans as well as watches your children.
Once kids are in school, working parents still need to plan around school holidays, summer vacations and sick days when children need special care, which can mean a day’s lost income.
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Lastly, parents and financial consultants say it’s important to work out a budget for after the baby is born. Most shower gifts focus on the cute and frilly instead of items that really add up on the monthly budget, such as 50-cent jars of baby food and $65 per month for a diaper service.
Oliver Butcher Sophie of Pasadena adopted the strategy of putting Oliver’s lump-sum payments as a screenwriter away in an account and trying to live off his smaller, week-to-week jobs as much as possible.
The Butchers also made a conscious decision to keep costs down so they can continue the free-lance life and spend time with their three children. They rent a small, two-bedroom house. They only hire a nanny for two mornings of the week--the time when Oliver Butcher does most of his writing. And the family gets health insurance through the Writers Guild of America West.
“We’re certainly not a typical California couple in the fast lane,” Sophie Butcher says. “I sometimes wish he was doing a salary job, but I think he’d be miserable. And we’ve worked out a way to live that suits us quite well.”
