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?

I know couples like this with kids.
Its fine BECAUSE
their parents paid for their house either in full or largely so the mortgage is small

The parents pay for the GC private education

the parents pay for all the 5 star hols

Often they pay for extra curricular things too.

Consultant pay in NHS only is going to be pretty flat
If your parents wont fund you you will struggle and you'll either live a simple lofe and not work or you'll work too andyoull have a sort of MC lifestyle
Okays hols but no flash cars no 5 star lifestlye

It also depends on the family’s childcare needs. A family with two working full time on £50k each and 2 children in nursery would probably be worse off than a family with a £100k income and a SAHP. Obviously the nursery years don’t last forever although the family with two full time working parents will still need to pay for after school and school holiday childcare whereas the family with a SAHP will not.

To be fair - no one said you couldn’t just that you wouldn’t have the same lifestyle. Which is accurate. I wouldn’t have had kids if my household income was 110k. I love travelling too much. 🤣. People have different views and priorities. And that’s ok. No one is wrong or right.

sorry you are in the 100k ballpark and you can’t have netflix??? what?

This thread is such an obvious wind-up 😂

Your income should match the lifestyle you want, not his! Why is your income topping it up instead of covering around half? You don’t have kids so your lifestyles should be fairly equal!

Dh is not an orthopaedic surgeon. Actually he works in a traditional trade and earns about that. 😂 But he is the company director.

Can we live reasonably comfortably on that income with a very nice lifestyle and a big house with dc in state schools? Yes. We do. We live very well, with 2 dc, big detached house, land, horses, expensive hobbies, though we drive secondhand cars and mostly go camping (personal choice, rather than financial).

Would we have gotten all of this on only one income? No. Would I want to have no fallback? No. We are currently living on one income because I’m out of work due to cancer. Financially it’s fine. We don’t struggle.

But we’re very fortunate that it’s me who got the cancer.

Dh, in his much more physically demanding role, would absolutely not have been able to keep working. Me keeping us all afloat on my £40k a year income and my set working hours would not be the same as dh’s £100k+ and very flexible hours. It would have been something else entirely if he was the sole earner.

If this past year has taught me one thing, it’s that it’s a very tenuous position to be in for the whole family to rely on one person’s income for survival. Because one day you can be well and earning and the next you can be staring at a long period of sick leave and unemployment.

I would hope OP’d DH knows! The pay scales are widely available:

www.nhsemployers.org/system/files/2025-02/Pay-and-Conditions-Circular-%28MD%29-5-2024-R2.pdf

£110K is the spot at which taxes are highest in the U.K. as you lose your tax free allowance, giving you an effective tax rate of 67% on earnings over £99K a year. Also parents of preschool children lose access to funded nursery and preschool places, giving them an effective tax rate in excess of 100%. It’s a mad system that would make it worth her husband’s while dropping to 90% pro rata. His take home pay would be much the same and he’d get funded childcare.

Private school is completely out on £110k a year! It costs about £25k per year per child. So two kids would be almost half his salary!

Even with £190k it wouldn’t be a doddle

This is a joke, right?

Not sure how much it goes up or how fast.

I mean, if he asked the question at work, they'd be far better placed to answer it than Mumsnet 😳

I don't understand the point of the thread really.

Nice principle I’ve seen it before. He’ll change his mind. Wait it out a few years..

Most in private do NHS too, so he can still do his bit for the greater good.

He’ll earn a Lot more.

Ortho surgeons do tonnes of private work. Who do you think is doing all the knee and hip replacements for people who don't want to wait on the NHS list?

You have clearly had a very privilliged upbringing which is good.
However, you come across as being somewhat entitled

That's a very well earning and in-demand specialism :)

That’s not a huge amount of money nowadays.My husband earns £130k and I work full time.We have a young child.

No fancy holidays for us.Children really do add a lot of expense and we only have one!

OP putting it bluntly if you want a ‘nice life’ you will have to work.
110k sounds huge but assuming your DH has NHS pension and higher rate tax, probably student loans etc deducted it’s probably about £4800 take home per month? Two people could live an ordinary life on that but if you are used to luxury you won’t manage it on that salary alone, and definitely no private school fees, top end cars/ holidays. My DH earns similar, we have two teenagers and a big house ( no mortgage) and I have to work to allow us to have the nice holidays, meals out etc.

Orthopaedic surgeons rarely do private practice because the demand is lower than other areas of surgery and the insurance costs are much higher. What’s his orthopaedic specialism?

Truth be told, all professional wages in the uk have been massively suppressed compared with the cost of living and compared with countries like the US or Australia over the last decade or two. NHS consultants no longer earn the salaries that used to support owning a big house with a tennis court, sending three children to private schools, going skiiing every winter and having a long summer holiday in the south of France every summer. The cost of living is based in two income households. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy a good quality of life if you have children. You can without all of those things.

I wonder if you married your DH because you expected as the wife of an orthopaedic surgeon to be in clover?

£110k in the South East is absolutely not funding a lifestyle traditionally associated with a consultant surgeon. You’d struggle with skiing and summer holidays, let alone private school fees if you have normal housing costs in the SE, esp. if you have to live close to a hospital.

The OP said she was from a priveledged background so she probably went to private school so would more than likely want to send her children. Both myself and my husband went to private school and when discussing schools we never discussed any school that was not private - it was just an assumption we both held about our children’s education. Though her DH might not be on the same page if he didn’t. But a couple of children at private school would eat into her DH post tax salary probably making it very difficult to afford comfortably.

Of course you can raise them! Just not “in luxury”, which is what OP is asking.

No, £110k for two people and children isn’t a lot - also depends where you live. In London it’d be a struggle, not a life of luxury as you desire. I earn £90k as one adult and half a child (she’s a full child but her dad pays half!) and certainly don’t live in luxury. Have a small 2 bed, second hand car, one holiday a year etc. You’d have less than that

It all depends on your outgoings.
How much is your mortgage?

What does a privileged lifestyle look like to you?
Housekeeper? Gardener? Live in Nanny? Luxury car? Designer clothes?
No, I wouldn't think that was sustainable.

Ordinary semi in a cheaper area of the country, doing everything yourself, driving an ordinary car, being careful with budgeting, then yes, that's doable, but that might not be what you are envisaging.

Me to!