<p>Hello! First time on here! I have 2 college students right now. I just went back to work after 23 years (quit when my firstborn...now a college graduate....was born). I am only making $1000/month. My husband made $56,000 last year. We also have a farm and an internet business that actually on paper, puts us in the hole every year. Our two college students received grants that covered their tuition this year. I don't want to screw that up! I've already found out that we will get $2000 less on our tax return, so if I'm working (at a job I don't particularly like!), is it just hurting us, so why bother?! I would love to find a chart that I could follow to find out the answer before it's too late!</p>
<p>Hi LaurieKayJohnson! Welcome to CC. Except that we don’t have a farm or an internet business, I could have written your post. ;)</p>
<p>I went back to work this year since both kids are in college now (after being mostly a stay-at-home mom), and I am pretty sure it’s going to end up being a wash financially. It probably isn’t worth it, except that I’m already pretty old (had my kids in my mid-to-late 30s), so I thought even if it’s a wash financially in terms of reduced FA, it at least gets me back in the working world… where I assume I’ll have to stay until I am overcome by the infirmity of advanced age. May as well get started on that now before I’m completely grey!</p>
<p>LaurieKay, I would plug the new projected income and info into the fafsa4caster and see if you get a significantly higher EFC than last year’s.</p>
<p>There is a break given to two-income families (to offset the costs of working - gas, clothing, etc). The last time I ran the numbers, the first $10,000 of income for the second worker is a wash - your EFC shouldn’t go up. Run it in the EFC calculator. You can also find the formulas (google EFC formulas) and plug in your numbers.</p>
<p>When I plugged in the numbers for my small addditional income this year (somewhere between 6 and 7K), it did change our EFC, and both kids will lose their Pell grants next year. They are smallish partial Pells because we were close to the cut-off, but it’s a combined loss of about 3000 between the two of them. Because they lose the Pell, they will also lose some state grants. My son’s private college will also expect more from us. (Not sure what will happen with daughter’s public.)</p>
<p>So I think my working this year will net us about 0, but like I said, it’s good in the long run for me because I needed to get back into the job market.</p>