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?

My DH is a fairly new consultant. Not an orthopedic surgeon but NHS consultants have a fixed payscale so will likely earn a similar amount.

Worth saying that my DH does not do private work but earns a considerable amount extra per month by picking up extra shifts due to gaps in the rota (ie because there are not enough doctors) I assume this is possible at most hospitals and specialities as there are shortages all round.

I earn £70k. We have a comfortable lifestyle (Yorkshire based) but wouldn't describe is as luxury. Could just about afford private school but would have to cut down on holidays etc. We do have a fairly large mortage though, and nursery fees

Yeh it’s a niche question but salary goes up every year for 5 years post qualification and then at a slower rate after that and ortho has a tonne of private possibilities. I’m gonna say you’ll be OK.

https://www.pulsejobs.com/news/nhs-consultant-pay-scale-in-england/amp/

Junior doctors may not earn enough, but orthopaedic consultant surgeons earn a LOT. Going private is like owning a money printing machine. Easily breaching £1m a year.
There are plenty of old people paying £20k for a new hip, knee, or all four.

Our combined salary is slightly more than his (DH 90k and me working very part time at 25k), we have two pre school aged kids. We have a nice live, largish house, a few moderate holidays a year, decent savings and no money worries. BUT we live in Scotland in an area where housing is substantially cheaper than pretty much anywhere in England eg our mortgage is £1100 pm for a 4 bed detached period property with large garden. We don’t plan to go private with schooling as we would have a pretty large drop in lifestyle. We don’t live a lavish life, no flash cars or 1st class holidays here. So it’s perfectly doable to have a nice lifes on your DH salary but it very must depends on what youre looking for.

Why wouldn't you want to work? Maybe you just need a more enjoyable job?

If you don't want to work then you'll have to manage on just the 110k salary. It will be tough, but you can do it OP. Good luck 🙄

Mine earns 120k but has just gone part time so is now on about 90k. I earn much less, 45k and work full time.

we have one child at private school and only about 40k left on our mortgage.

We couldn’t survive just on his salary no. But then take private school out of the equation and we could. So you make your choices really don’t you?

It also depends how many kids you want, how big your mortgage is, what kind of car you want, holidays etc. But if you’re used to a nice lifestyle then no, I don’t think you’ll get it just based on his salary.

I get what you mean though, I don’t want to work either! My plan is to get child through senior school and then stop, or massively cut back.

The fact he is a surgeon is irrelevant.
You could have said 'My DH earns £110K and I earn £80K- can I afford to give up work if we have kids?'

How much is your mortgage?
Just do the maths. Your outgoings.

You see, my son is not a surgeon but he earns more than your H. His wife is roughly on your salary. Because of the cost of housing, they will both need to work if they have a child.

Don't want to sound rude but you both earn way more than a registered nurse earns - not even half of your 80! Most likely many on here earn even less than that! I don't grudge consultants their pay as they have a huge responsibility for patients well being and lives but there's a huge discrepancy between those that have decent wages and those that don't! By all means go part time or something but please don't moan that you have 190k as an income.

I know several orthopaedic surgeons and they have all left their first wives after multiple affairs, so I wouldn't plan on being married to him forever.
However, on the plus side, once they went private their salaries went stratospheric. Serious amounts of money. US orthopods are the highest paid doctors, or used to be.
I couldn't bear to live with those egos but plenty of women seem to think they are great.

My DD uses a private orthopaedic surgeon and he always seems busy. In fact he’s towards the end of his career and I don’t think he does any NHS work now

Same 🤣

Just sounds like a numbers question that depends on how much you need to live the lifestyle you want and you are better calibrating against your current lifestyle than against other people who all have different ideas of comfortable/luxury.

If you are happy with your current lifestyle with two incomes and no kids, then assuming you are not stashing unspent thousands away every month into savings and investments, then roughly the amount you need to live the lifestyle you want is £190k a year, maybe £200k if it's all down to one person so higher tax liability.

Add however much you want to spend on kids - say £12k on nursery or whatever, you get to a new total.

He either needs to earn that much, or you reduce your lifestyle expectations.

Can I ask why he doesn't agree with private work?

This

The OP has been clear she wants a luxury lifestyle, take home on a single individual earning 110k after tax NI , student loan, professional development and registration fees, probably about 5k a month, which sounds like loads, but if your mortgage is £2000+ council tax £500 , it soon disappears and yes of course you can easily raise children on it, but maybe not to the luxury standard the OP says she wants, you wouldn't be and to afford private school for example

£110k with kids is not enough to live a luxurious lifestyle on. It's enough not to have to worry but that's it, unless you live somewhere with a very low cost of living. I would say you need to be on £400-500k to feel like you are living a notably well-off lifestyle (multiple lovely holidays, a nice car each, family membership of a good sports club, large house) if you're the only one supporting a family.

Agreed, in London £110k wouldn't be a lot - especially after tax then childcare then school fees if she wants them in private school

Husband is a GP, but knows and trained with medics across several disciplines, most of whom are now Consultants. All of them do some private work - I seriously can’t think of any that don’t as the pay is so much better (despite increased indemnity costs).

The big change I’m seeing now in increased opportunities for private GP work, showing that this is a growth area.

I think you need to calculate what outgoings would you classify as luxury

If you are used to a privileged lifestyle then it's unlikely you will be able to continue it if you sacrifice your 80k salary and add Dc into the mix

However you can probably raise a family comfortable on a consultants salary alone, bearing in mind salary does increase with experience. But you need to decide what sort of lifestyle you want

Well, some people are and do. But it's pointless asking what they earn. She needs to know whether her partner is up for her being a SAHM and whether they're prepared to have whatever lifestyle that would entail.

Obviously £110k is a very high salary but these things are relative. It goes much further in, say, Swansea than London. And people have different ideas of what constitutes luxury.

It really doesn't matter what other people earn!

So don't work and make compromise in other areas, assuming your DH is willing to support you being a SAHM.

You cannot have it all.

Well if your assumption is correct OP will either have to continue working or get the very privileged people who brought her up to help out.

Yeah, she wants to be a SAHM but have a luxury lifestyle. She asked the wrong question