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Most of my friends are having children. For some couples, the new financial realities are shocking. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance offers a financial calculator to answer the question: Can one of you afford to quit? This tool is for more than just new parents, though. What if one of you wants to start a new business? Go back to school? Simply retire?

Before deciding to live on only one income — to take care of children, go back to school or even start a business — a two-income family must consider a number of questions.  First, can you afford to quit?  Besides the reduction of income, you could face a new set of expenses and have to re-examine your saving goals and priorities.  This worksheet will help you develop a snapshot of your cash flow before and after these adjustments

This calculator does not presume to tell you what you should do. It’s merely a handy web-based sandbox tool for playing with numbers.