Any tips or advice for being a stay at home mum/ trad wife as they call it

[householddog]

I’m currently on maternity leave with a 9 month old my husband is self employed in a very demanding job. We have agreed that I will be a stay at home mum indefinitely to make life easier. my husband won’t be able to do school drop and pick ups maybe occasionally but not on a routine his job has him working too much late nights and early mornings. It does mean he can some flexibility with coming to sports days etc but he is a workaholic and loves to earn money. he’s very hands on when home but isn’t home a lot but does make sure we spend family time with us on the weekends. My job pre baby was stressful and flaring up my chronic illness and we can afford for me not to work with I’m very thankful for. I want to make sure I’m protected if things go wrong. Currently i have my own savings and own my own property which is due to be sold but the money will be left to me to keep in my own account and do with as I wish. Everything I spend is on the joint account and then I earn some small passive income which I use to save or spend on some frivolous things for myself. The house we own together I put half the deposit down on and that is in in our prenup to go back to me the prenup we have is mainly for my savings and property as most of this was gifted to me from grandparents. We’ve also arranged for him to go to nursery one day a week as off July and we already have a cleaner Who comes every other week. I love being a stay at home mum but want to be cautious I don’t get bogged down and resent my husband we have family near by but they don’t help out. I’m not here trying to gloat I know I’m in a fortunate position and very lucky I’m just trying to make sure I’m protected and can manage while chronicling I’ll to be a stay at home mum and wife. When he starts school I would obviously reconsider what’s best for me and our family but I can’t see it changing much.

And “trad wife” hasn’t evolved to remove the right wing, religious origins. You’re just wrong. A trad wife is not a stay at home mum.
Trad wives don’t even need to have kids!

I honestly would get advice re your situation if you split up. I know no one thinks this will happen to them but it could.
I know you have ring fenced money but month in, month out is a long time to support yourself & DC in a house with all the bills. I was very naive & with I’d had my eyes more open.

This was my friends situation but as she was in the UK the pre- nup didn’t really count for much in the divorce, and effectively all assets in the marriage were put in the pot for division so it didn’t benefit her having a pre-nup.

For now the finances seem ok however over the longer term the difference in assets grow between the parent who is earning Vs the sahp.

I really hope you and your husband are in the 50% of couples who remain married but if not please be aware of how badly most women suffer financially post divorce. The agreement to stay home to support your work alcoholic husband soon is forgotten and women end up with a very raw deal fighting for a fair share of the husbands assets.

I have witnessed several friends going through this so a lessons learned is to keep your finances strong and in step with his. Pay into a pension in equal amounts. Be hard nosed about it.

Recognise that you are likely to lose earning capacity by taking time out. So in 5 years time his income may have doubled whereas your potential may be 50% from now.

I think it's wonderful to spend time at home and I did similar although always worked in some capacity. Once my children were older I did go back full time and had to work my way back up however I didn't keep my pension current during the "at home years" and I regret that.

I've been a SAHP/housewife for 15 years. Others have talked about the importance of own money/pensions/NI credits etc. In our case, DHs wages go straight into our joint account and I manage the money. We check any significant purchases with each other. I keep our savings roughly equally split between the two of us. I pay into a pension for me, directly from DHs salary in the joint account. More generally, DH still shares household chores, took the kids out alone when they were younger and encouraged me to get out and do things for myself (including weekends away), to have a break.

What has changed over the years is my realisation that despite this seemingly perfect SAHP set up, I'd still be fucked if we divorced. When I stopped working, my PT salary was more than DHs full time salary. Now, DH earns a good wage but if I had to support myself I'd be looking at part time minimum wage, because of heath problems and that I'm still a carer for DC3. I've also lost confidence, not having been in work for so long. So if we divorced, he'd still be fine, able to afford to live and keep his savings intact, whereas I'd be having to start again at the point I'm the least able I've ever been, and having to use my savings to supplement my income/house myself.

With hindsight, I would advise anyone now that if possible, to try and keep at least a toe in work (1 or 2 days a week would be fine) just because it gives you options. You have something for your CV, you have references, you have a much better chance of being able to start again, should you need to, because you don't know what life is going to throw at you.

Sounds like you have everything set up well.
I wish I had kept up payments into a pension but we couldn’t afford it when I was a SAHM.
I did return to work after a lot of years (one child has health issues so I wasn’t able to work until they were older). I had to reenter the workforce by retraining and doing some voluntary work. Might be something to think about how you will do this in the future if you want to work when the children are older.

As a few other people have mentioned, the biggest risk apart from your pension is loss of earning potential. I had 10 years out of the workplace when my children were young and it has taken me a hell of a lot of hard work and two further periods of retraining to get back on a decent footing career-wise. Despite a good salary, I still earn less than half what my husband does.

Not working at all isn't just a risk in case of divorce, it also puts a lot of pressure on the partner who is the sole breadwinner. We have friends where the wife gave up her career because he made enough money to support the family. Sadly, 15 years later he's been made redundant and hasn't been able to find another job and has basically had a breakdown over it all. If you both work then you spread the financial risk. I also think there's something to be said for feeling that you contribute financially - not all men, but certainly some, do seem to lack respect for their partner if they're not earning.

If I had my time again I would have worked at least part time throughout.

I see that a lot of people have only a joint account. That wouldn’t have worked for me- I wanted to have money that was mine,so that I could buy things without dp automatically knowing about it. We had a joint account-but also an account each. DP paid some “play money” into our two separate account and the rest went into the joint account.

I love being a stay at home mum but want to be cautious I don’t get bogged down and resent my husband

The problem won't be you resenting him. It'll be him resenting you.

I've worked with a lot of men who have SAHPs. Resentment is never far from the surface.

You don't have to pay your NI. If you get child benefit it's credited automatically and if you don't you can sign up for it through carer credits, til the child is 12

The way we work this is having credit cards in our own names, but the direct debits to pay them comes out of the joint account. So only the grand total is visible. And as so much household spending is also on the credit cards (ours pay cashback so almost everything is paid for on them) you can't tell how much is for individual purchases and how much is just general spending.

@householddogWould you consider asking Mumsnet to amend your title? You might get more responses, and as a long term SAHP myself I think it’s an interesting and important subject. But obviously my hackles rose at the suggestion that I greet my partner at the end of the day with a how in my hair, a dry martini, warmed slippers and polished children!