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Is there a salary your partner would have to earn to encourage you to be a stay at home partner/parent?

209 replies

Peppynana · 09/05/2026 18:35

Just wondering what salary your partner would have to earn in order for you to be a stay at home partner or SAHP....your answer could of course be that no salary would be enough to give up your own income and security!

OP posts:
KeeleyJ · 10/05/2026 11:07

No, I would never give up earning my own money and paying into my pension schemes etc.

Savvysix1984 · 10/05/2026 11:12

I don’t think I would. My dd is a teen now anyway. I think the only time I’d do it if we both became wealthy together (lottery win etc) as I never want to be reliant on anyone. Plus my career is important and requires registration and ongoing training with professional body so if I stepped back I wouldn’t want the hassle of trying to register.
luckily my role is flexible, part time and term time only.

measuretwicecutonce · 10/05/2026 11:12

The salary would have to support the family and pay me to do the job of running the home ie pay me to cook, clean, garden etc. I say this because I’d I worked and I had a DP that didn’t do 50/50 I woukd be expecting those jobs to be funded. I would also want pension contributions and to have roughly the same financially/ half of the house.

WaryCrow · 10/05/2026 11:12

It would have to be millions, we would have to be married and lots of assets and pension would need to be in my name. Every single day multiple women post on here that are being abused and have no way of really sorting their lives out because they have no money of their own and they are often not married so no rights to any of the assets not in their names. No man has ever said it ‘just made sense’ for them to give up their financial independence when they became a parent so it shouldn’t ‘make sense’ for women to do it or to pontificate about what that would look like.

Quite. I’m glad there’s some people of sense.

Since we are living in a world of cultural change that’s been foisted on us willing or not, the only other option to accept that change is to lay out a real price, a price for generations of women and a real cultural change.

How about, if men want women out of jobs, for women to own all land and all rights thereto, as may have been the case in pre Roman Britain. Newborn female children to be given allotments, as was the case in old English villages, sufficient from which to raise a family. Make owning land as unthinkable for men as it has been for women since they stole it and literally wrote us out of ownership and power.

Build administrative and law making bodies representing women alone to complement the current duality of House of Commons and House of Lords, with special responsibility to discuss all demographic matters. HoL to be reformed with equal numbers men and women. Police forces of women alongside the police force of men. Law courts of women to preside over abuse. Descent of children to be counted automatically from the mothers.

Build a culture where women are acknowledged as the future and source of life, and any man who commits sexual crimes actually suffers for it - death for rape, losing hands for assault, fines for abuse. Sexual crimes against children to be drawn by the penis and balls until they break off then hung and quartered.

Fantasy in this age of the world, yet it’s pretty much what men have had since Rome. We need to be more ambitious and not sell out our female descendants for ‘twenty quid to do the trick’ à la Blackadder, to push for equality in change, not just keep trying to get men to shuffle a bit to move over and make a bit of room. Because they won’t and don’t and are inherently untrustworthy.

JLou08 · 10/05/2026 11:12

I'd be a SAHP for pre-school children with just enough to cover the necessities. I wouldn't be a housewife or SAHP for school age children, not because of financial security/independence but just because I would be very bored. I don't enjoy housework or cooking, I do them because I have to. If we were loaded I'd be outsourcing them things anyway so I would have no role at all and I think that would make me miserable.

notacooldad · 10/05/2026 11:17

Probably not.
I am very risk averse and take the view you can lose anything in an instant.
With me working it gave us a safety net. If either of us lost our job we still have money coming in straight away.

Also I have paid into a work pension and that has given me future security.

The third point was for family life. My sons grow up seeing a mum that was working and how their mum and dad worked as a team to run the house. When I was at work they had a dad who took made a list of food shopping and took them to the supermarket with him, cook, clean, get the washing on polished their shoes for school and made sure they looked smart, etc. ( All the things that mum's do everyday, im not saying he i
s anything special( I worked shifts and sleepovers so he did the homework with them some nights.

They are adults and both started but g their own home at 22 and neither are a man child. Its nice going round and seeing they've pegged the washing out and batch coked!! 😆

Also i liked working. I had a job where I would do compressed hours so I would work until 11pm sleep over, work until 3 next day but I got a lot of time off to spend with the childtren as well.
I liked my job and the staff I worked with

It worked well for us.

JoWilkinsonsno1fan · 10/05/2026 11:31

No salary would make me give up work. I would never want to be financially dependent on another person or screwed over by another person.

Plantlady10 · 10/05/2026 11:48

MN is very anti-SAHM

My husband earns about £45k and I am a SAHM to two preschoolers. Yes we dont have much spare money but I'm so glad we have lots of family time - my husband works shifts so if I worked a mon-fri, some months we would only have 2 full days together.

I never had a 'career', just a job and I dont have any desire for a high earning job with lots of responsibility. When I go back to work I will look for an 'easy' admin job like I had before.

Safarisagoody · 10/05/2026 11:51

Plantlady10 · 10/05/2026 11:48

MN is very anti-SAHM

My husband earns about £45k and I am a SAHM to two preschoolers. Yes we dont have much spare money but I'm so glad we have lots of family time - my husband works shifts so if I worked a mon-fri, some months we would only have 2 full days together.

I never had a 'career', just a job and I dont have any desire for a high earning job with lots of responsibility. When I go back to work I will look for an 'easy' admin job like I had before.

I dislike statements like this, it’s knee jerk and over emotional simply as you don’t like the responses. Mn is anti step parent, stay at home mum, working mum, disabilist, racist I’ve seen it all.

there is approx 10 million folks on here I think. And quite frankly a lot of stay at home mums, it isn’t anti stay at home mum. A question was asked and answered, it doesn’t mean any given person is responding on behalf of anyone other than themselves and their own situation, it isn’t an attack on someone who decides to be one. We are not a hive mind.

honeylulu · 10/05/2026 11:56

No there isn't. I want my own career and income and achievements, not just a supporting role in some big important man's life. That's before I even consider the importance of being financially independent if he ran off or died unexpectedly or became too ill or disabled to work.

It's rather a sexist notion too. Can you imagine if a bloke started a thread saying "how much would your woman need to earn before you could jack your job in". He'd get called cocklodger, manchild, pathetic etc.

BunchTulip · 10/05/2026 11:59

No. I would base it more on financial security/net worth and how easy it would be to pick up my career again (after a multiple year break) rather than one income.

Girasoli · 10/05/2026 12:06

I wouldn't want to be a SAHM forever, but I would really like a sabbatical for a year or two to sort out our fixer upper house and to get DS1 ready for secondary school.

Maybe 75k?

MaggieBsBoat · 10/05/2026 12:09

My DH earns more than 100k and I wouldn’t give up work! Financial independence is vital and I’d never want my children to see me as someone who just lives off my husband. They need to see that earning money and supporting yourself is vital.

TheBlueKoala · 10/05/2026 12:16

BiddyPopthe2nd · 09/05/2026 18:42

No amount - I couldn’t wait to get back to being a person in my own right and not just “mum” in every transaction (literally “mum” - I had apparently lost my real name when I gave birth, it seemed).

I don't get this. I'm a sahm and def feel like a person in my own right. If anything I felt less "me" at work as I would just be performing a role. And intellectual conversations were sparse so not working for me has been great for my mental and physical health.

Totaldramallama · 10/05/2026 12:20

Bryonyberries · 10/05/2026 10:13

It’s interesting how the general mindset is now individualism rather than family unit.

I think I grew up and had my own children on the cusp of this change in mindset. When mine were little we worked as a family, sharing income rather than thinking in terms of mine/your earnings. It was can we pay the bills together. I stayed home when I had small babies/toddlers and loved it. Life was much easier when someone was home and I’ve never regretted it. I understand not everyone wants to be home with young children but they were some of my favourite years. It’s working I hate and I can’t wait for retirement!

I think there are many changes that contribute to this mindset change. For one, so many women were relentlessly screwed over by men, left with nothing, no money, no career. It still happens regularly, you can read about these situations on MN almost daily. Many of us are trying not to leave ourselves open to this.

Also, the coat of living is such that most families need two incomes. So it's not that it's 'my money, your money' it's one pot of money but it needs both people to contribute to cover expenses.

InfoSecInTheCity · 10/05/2026 12:21

He’d have to make what I do plus his existing salary to maintain everything as it is, so he’d have to go from £30k a year to £160k a year which seems highly unlikely. He on the other hand could go part time or become a SAHD and we wouldn’t need to reduce our lifestyles much at all.

SmallBlondeMum · 10/05/2026 12:21

He would & did earn enough to cover my salary.

Floppyearedlab · 10/05/2026 12:21

Butterme · 10/05/2026 10:56

Can I ask what jobs you both do?

And do you both work FT 5 days a week?
If so, have you never thought about reducing your hours?

I’ve always thought if I earned over a certain amount, I’d drop a day and then have best of both worlds.

Perhaps because they don’t want to.
Work isn’t just about money.

We don’t earn anywhere near tat amount but we could afford for one to work less. But we never would. Both would loathe being at home.

SmallBlondeMum · 10/05/2026 12:23

Floppyearedlab · 10/05/2026 12:21

Perhaps because they don’t want to.
Work isn’t just about money.

We don’t earn anywhere near tat amount but we could afford for one to work less. But we never would. Both would loathe being at home.

Edited

Why wouldn't you want to spend more time with your dc over work, if its not about money?

Undertheeaves · 10/05/2026 12:25

No, my DH has at times earned 10x what I was, and even now the interest on our savings earns more than I do... And I'm pretty well paid!

I love my job, I love my colleagues, I love the dimension it adds to my life. I like contributing even in a small(ish) way to our household income. I like showing the children that women can have an interesting and demanding career that is respected. DH is immensely supportive and proud of me.

I work part time so have lots of time at home with the kids, and a great work/life balance. I am really, really lucky.

Notmeagain12 · 10/05/2026 12:34

WhatAMarvelousTune · 09/05/2026 22:33

No realistic salary. Even if we could easily live comfortably off his salary, I’d work and just put it all into a pension/investments and we’d both retire sooner.

It would have to be so much money that my earnings were just not even worth mentioning. And even then I think I’d work a bit.

This.

his salary would need to cover all our outgoings, give us a good quality of life, and pay me an equivalent salary/pensions etc so I remain financially independent and had enough money in my own name that should we separate I could buy a house and have a decent passive income to live off.

we’d need amazing life/critical illness insurance in case of death or illness which meant he couldn’t work.

plus enormous savings and investments so should he be made redundant/lose his job/quit we can continue our lifestyle for the foreseeable.

So we’d be looking at at least 400-500k, plus a good few million in savings/investments, before I’d give up work.

in reality, I’d rather we both worked in lower earning jobs with a better life balance. Gives us more financial stability, lower stress and risk of burnout, and we bit retain pensions and financial independence.

my friends dad was a very high earner. Big, Big job. Worked all hours, with the plan of retiring at 50. Friend had everything, lovely house, private school, ballet classes. Stay at home mum who had never worked.

then her dad died suddenly at 45. Her mum has an excellent widows pension by most standards, into the higher tax bracket. But it didn’t stretch to 2 kids at private school, all their hobbies, big house, nice cars etc. they had to move, leave school, and make significant life changes. All while grieving.

Floppyearedlab · 10/05/2026 12:35

SmallBlondeMum · 10/05/2026 12:23

Why wouldn't you want to spend more time with your dc over work, if its not about money?

Because they are at school!

anotheranonanon · 10/05/2026 12:38

I earned about 200k last year and I expect my husband to work and contribute to our finances. I had full mat leaves with each of my children but never stopped
work completely and now I have better earning potential to him (who worked the whole
time) He does most (not all) of the school pick ups.

Safarisagoody · 10/05/2026 12:47

SmallBlondeMum · 10/05/2026 12:23

Why wouldn't you want to spend more time with your dc over work, if its not about money?

People get a lot of fulfilment from their work. Not everyone, but using their skills, job satisfaction, adult conversation, achieving something, facing challenges. Work isn’t just about the money. For some it is, but for many it is not.

TwitchyNibbles · 10/05/2026 12:55

Probably minimum £200k with watertight agreements about splitting assets in case of a divorce, pension contributions every month and an agreed allowance for me to spend on myself every month (so not including things for the kids/household).

Tbh though, I still probably wouldn't give up work completely even if all that was in place. What if he became ill and was unable to work? What if he was made redundant? What if (and this happened to a friend) he fucked off with another woman after I'd been out of the workplace for 8 years? What would I do when the kids are older and don't require the same time input? I don't think any amount of money would be enough for me to give up my financial independence and hard-earned experience in my profession. I could just enjoy working part time and the extra income for more holidays/early retirement/hiring a cleaner or gardener for the housework I don't want to have to do!

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