If you are married to an orthopaedic surgeon (not private practice), how well off do you feel as a family, if you don’t work yourself?

OP - your DH is starting on £110K and consultant nhs salary currently tops out at £139K
Consutlants were sold don the river when junior doctors got their massive pay rises. They wanted more monies now and were prepared to earn less later! The NHS no longer rewards experience.

Depending on where you live he is going to have to work hard in private practice to take home £100K - it is a piss poor business model. Say good bye to the family man if he does and in my experience 95% of orthopaedic surgeons do pp.

On a simply female to female advice - divorce is high in the medical profession, affairs are rampant and if you stop working he will not be paying spousal support you will be expected to work. i would not stop working and rely on him for the rest of your life but maybe go part time after children.

can i say there would be plenty of room for private orthopaedic work, hip replacements, spinal operations, you name it, huge amount surely

Your husband needs to run a mile and not even consider getting you pregnant. You are a gold digger!

Do you really want to go from being an equal financial partner in your relationship to an old fashioned housewife who is dependent on her husband for money?

Well yes I agree, it’s madness to do this if you want to be a SAHM and maintain a relatively luxurious lifestyle. Can’t have your cake and eat it! But I don’t think it’s madness to choose to be a SAHM, I understand why people do it and wish I’d had the opportunity myself (I’m a single mother following domestic abuse and consequent divorce and I have no choice but to work to earn money to live on!). My mum worked full-time growing up and I was honestly jealous of most of my friends who had stay at home mums there when they came home from school. Especially as a teen when I was having a difficult time with bullying, and my parents sometimes wouldn’t be home til 8 or 9pm or had to work on the weekend or night shifts etc.

It is ok if you want to be a SAHM when you first have children , so I’d start saving to put money aside for when you lose some of your income and plan to economise when you’re not being paid .
I’d plan to work part time once children are a little bit older and settled in nursery if I were you ..and maybe in time get back to full time .

.

£110k is not enough ??? Are you for real ? You are currently on £190k with joined salaries but you can definitely live a very good life on yih DH salary. If you work, you will lose a lot of your income on childcare. 80% of people live on half that salary so you can still afford nice holidays and nice things. You need to decide whether you want to return to work in future in which case working part time might be a good idea? You seem to have a really good job so might want to keep it going. It’s nice to have a break from looking after the children and good for kids to go to nursery and socialise.

Well with 40% less household income, potentially double the household income, and more hours available to do things during the day, if say yes, you're going to struggle.

Good on you! You’re a role model for sure.

£110k is beyond the dreams of most people in this country..

Not simply asked to be a SAHM. She has said she wants a "nice" lifestyle. I am happy with my part time set up. I personally couldn't see myself taking a financial hit by giving up work. SAHM is nice before they hit school. But otherwise, don't kid yourself it's for the children.

Good for him!

A lot here is going to depend on how you define a nice lifestyle, and on your personal expenses e.g. size of mortgage, cost of living in your part of the U.K.

The suggestion by a pp of not spending any of your salary for a few months to see how that feels is sensible.

As for how much your DH’s salary will go up and how fast, google NHS consultant pay scale. It’s nationally set and publicly available. There may be a bit of variation depending on stuff like whether your DH works slightly more or less than the standard hours, on-call payments etc, but the pay scale will give you an idea of what his salary will look like moving forward.

@Britneyfan sure, but the OP has n

You really can’t understand why some people would choose this? In order to be able to be a SAHM? A lot of people value being able to spend a lot of time with their children and spouse over more money for things like private school or holidays or fancy cars etc.

It can work out really well for both adults and any children. Of course we just hear the horror stories on here, but I have lots of family and friends who are very happily married in this sort of arrangement. In many ways I think as long as everyone is on board with the plan and pulling their weight and committed to each other then this more traditional set up actually works out so much better for everyone. But yes it should not be done naively and without a thought for protecting oneself financially and having the skills to earn money again in future if needed.

Which makes you wonder what's the point of it, all that effort and stress, never seeing your family, and then come retirement they tell you to bugger off and you are forgotten the next day.
Much, much more to life than money, but each to his/her own.

I know several SAHMs , most have teenage DC and have been at home since they were born. They have pretty comfortable- luxury lifestyles but all are married.
The only ones that send their kids to private schools are investment bankers or hedge fund managers. The Dr family has (comparatively) the least luxurious life style ....but still very comfortable

Don't you have a trust or something to carry on bringing in money when you're not actually working? Surely if you're from a "privileged background " you have some form of private income?

Also because of the way tax allowances and bands work two people earning £110k and 80k have more tax home pay than a single earner on £110k …

A single earner would have to be on approx £221k (not 190k) to bring the same home as 110+80k

But also as much as you say you don’t want to work … the same could also
apply to him!

Sure you can be a SAHP, how much do you save a month now? You need to be able to save - and not touch at all - all your salary everything and then still have money left over for the future kids …

Stuck up oik come to mind.

🤣🤣🤣 our joint salaries are this and we have 3 dc, 4 bed detached house, car each and nice holidays. You can live well in £110k. Only in the world of mn is that not enough.

What sort of luxuries are you used to and would want to keep?

Would you want private education for your kids?

PS - admirable that your OH doesn't agree morally with private practice :)

Your husband is not obliged to support you though.

OP if you are from a wealthy background I imagine you are thinking you’d want to have kids in private school, a nice car (probably one each so 2 nice cars), nice detached house with big garden in a desirable location, designer clothes, a fancy skiing holiday in the winter and several other holidays a year, maybe a second home, a cleaner, a nanny/housekeeper etc. And I can understand it would feel hard to “downgrade” the standards of living you experienced as a child (I obviously don’t know your exact background!), though of course many people live perfectly good lives with children on far less.

However I think you need to be realistic here and have a frank chat with your partner as although he earns very well, a consultant’s income just doesn’t go anywhere near as far as it once did (it also doesn’t go up much from here), and you simply won’t get that kind of lifestyle as a SAHM in this partnership, especially if you live anywhere in or near London etc. You guys really need to discuss your outlook on the future as it does sound like you have a very different vision of what that might look like currently.

Unless you have significant family wealth behind you that you’re happy to dip into to fund it (as you haven’t mentioned this I am assuming not?) Or unless he goes into private practice. I’m a GP and I suspect that private orthopaedic surgeons won’t be short of work anytime soon and indeed it’s been the case for a long time that they are in demand. So he is very likely to have the option to significantly increase his earnings via private practice if he wants to. Either way he is highly likely to be working long antisocial hours and expecting you to support him by really shouldering the majority of housework, childcare, “the mental load” stuff. All the orthopaedic surgeons I have met (all male), actually all surgeons of any kind I have met, do not lift a finger at home. I’m not saying that’s how it should be but the reality is that’s the default right now. So in some ways, all the more reason you should be a SAHM, as it will be incredibly difficult for you to fill that role (which it sounds like you’re happy to do) as well as working.

So essentially one of you is going to have to be flexible here, either he goes into private practice (which currently it sounds like he is opposed to, and it’s actually lovely to hear of an ethical and principled orthopaedic surgeon!) or you 1. give up your plans as a SAHM or 2. accept a significant downgrade in lifestyle (I agree with a pp I do think you’d still be able to afford Netflix TBH! But not the ski trip to Val d’Isere etc) And you seriously need to talk about this!

I don't understand, with or without kids, if you could live on £190K, why would you let it drop to £110K,? On any single or joint income, kids massively reduce your disposable income. If you want more from life, you will need to keep both incomes or at least work part time. These pages are full of women who earn less than their spouse and then are resented for "sponging off" the earner later down the line. Keep your financial independence and be your own knight in shining armour.