Finance: Want To Stay Home With Your Babies? That'll be $300,000, Thanks!

Just the other day I asked my sister "are you sure you want to go back to work? It might be cheaper to stay home given the cost of childcare..."

Childcare is expensive, true. Most parents I know are paying $100 a day (no, I'm not joking) for junior to be looked after while they're at work.

But it looks like staying home has some serious financial downsides other than the loss of your salary.

MUMS taking time out from work to care for children until they start school face losing $160,000 in superannuation.

The savings hole has prompted calls for teenagers to be taught about the financial perils of being a stay-at-home mother.

The superannuation sacrifice blows out to almost $290,000 when women stay at home for a decade from the age of 30, calculations by financial research firm Canstar reveal.

One year out of the workforce costs $34,000, while three years out amounts to a $95,000 loss, it says.

I knew that being a stay at home mum for a year or two could impact on your super, but seeing the figures makes it real all of a sudden. $34,000 to take off a year?

Of course, my retirement plans don't really take my super into account. I feel like super is too hard to predict - you can't control the investments made past picking what kind of account you want, you can't control changing laws around super, you can't withdraw any money until you're 60. I want to be retired well before 60, and given that I'm committed to living within my means and deliberately building wealth, my super should just be gravy. (Let's keep those fingers crossed).

But there are a lot of parents out there who will be relying on their super in retirement, and it scares me that they could make decisions about whether to continue working or stay at home based on a less than complete understanding of the financial issues.

So is it worth it to stay home with your kids? Of course it is, if that's what you think is best for your family. But you need to know what that means for your financial situation, so that you can make an informed choice.

Finance: Would More Expensive Petrol Change Your Driving Habits?

This news article caused me to stop and think this week:

It is a hard sell, but economists from the Australian National University say Australians would be better off with a higher tax on petrol.

They have compared petrol prices around the world and say if consumers had to pay more at the pump here we would use less fuel and buy more efficient cars.

I've often thought, while reading personal finance blogs or news articles from America, you think your petrol is expensive? We pay way more! But apparently, we're not paying enough for people to switch to fuel efficient cars and drive less.

Australia (and particularly Perth) is extremely car dependent. Thing is, the excessive drivers of the world already have significant disincentives to drive. Getting stuck in traffic for hours, paying for petrol, paying for parking - which is $20 a day and up in the Perth central business district - and yet they still drive. I believe that petrol could cost $5 a litre and some people would still drive.

And the people who don't drive excessively? I'm not sure we're in it for the savings. Personally, I don't enjoy driving as much as I enjoy walking or taking public transport. There are times when I am happy that I can drive and own a car - it was particularly hard to get home from parties at night before I drove. But I didn't get my license until I was almost 23, and I coped just fine. I worked and studied, I lived out of home (alone!) and I didn't need a car.

These days, I live within a few kilometres of the city so I catch free central area transit buses, pay a very small amount to catch buses and trains further out into the 'burbs, and I walk a lot. I even walk home from work on a regular basis.

My point? I bought the smallest, most fuel efficient car I could find. But I bought a tiny car because it's a reliable brand, it's easy to park smaller cars, and I didn't see the point of a bigger car. Not because it was cheaper to run. And my household uses so little petrol that I sometimes forget that cars even need petrol. That's not a joke, though I am blonde so you can blame it on that if you like. To me, walking and taking public transport is just a part of who I am. I do it because it's convenient, it's less stressful than driving, I get more exercise by walking, it's good for the environment... But never once have I based my transportation decisions on saving money.

And that's why I think the people paying $20 a day to park next to the train station in the city centre won't change their ways.