To wonder how it is affordable to be a SAHM?

[Moobieboobie]

This is not a WOHM vs SAHM debate but am genuinely curious ....... I am on mat leave with DC2 and keep being asked if I am returning to work. I would love to stay at home this time round but sadly this is not a possibility as both myself and DH earn roughly the same thus my salary is 50% of the household costs. We would not receive any benefits etc as we would still be above the threshold even without my salary. If there is someway around this please let me know as I will try anything!!

I'm the same as beast - even if I lost money by working, I'd still try to do it. Because the long-term costs to my career (plus loss in pension contributions) would mean we'd lose a lot more money in the long run.

However, I'm in an industry where you can't really afford to take long periods out, because things move on so quickly. If I did something different, it might be less risky to take time out.

You do what you need to do, based on your family and your circumstances.

I think that in a pooled financial arrangement one party rarely earns £4k whilst the other £40k

Usually there is a childcare bill of about £1k per month
This looks like a lot when taken from one salary...which for whatever reason is usually considered to be the woman's
When taken proportionally from both or even when split evenly between both it seems like a much more viable and worthwhile option for both to keep working

I note that not many men take the option of giving up their career for 6-8 yrs.

Long term I feel it is better to remain in the working world. Whether you are retraining, working full time, part time, from home.
I think that being a SAHM ends up being damaging to your career and often your confidence. It can change your financial prospects for ever. It also very often puts you in a worse position when your relationship breaks down.

Don't apologise parallax80 DP snd I did the same for few years - he worked days, I worked nights, evenings and weekends and we juggled childcare .

Lots of families do it. And it is utterly exhausting.

It may seem like a viable and worthwhile option to both keep working but when it is costing the same or more than one of the salaries it isn't financially viable, irrespective of whether it comes from both salaries or one pooled fund.
Surely people can see this, I can and I struggled to gain a level 2 maths.

For us me working would cause us to be over £400 a month worse off, so all mine and 400 a month of dps wages would go on cc. It would be more in holidays.

If my wage covered cc, I don't know, I might go back to work now the younger 2 are 3 and 18 months. I worked when ds1&2 were small but with the job dp has it put a lot of strain on me, and family members had to help look after the dcs at times when we were both at work after 6 at night.

I don't know what is classed as a higher earner, dp has just had a promotion and is on just under 50k, I'd say this is a high wage, certainly amongst the people we know but a few years ago 24k was a high wage to us! For some people, like my dbil and dsis 50k wouldn't be enough for them to live on, higher mortgage etc

My dh earns significantly more than me. With one child I would have netted £40 per seek part time but would have extra expenses like clothi g and fuel. By the 2nd child child I woul be paying (sorry we would be paying) for me to be away 2 x 10 hours from dc.
We do not receive any benefits including child benefit. No overseas

Ronald

Why would a sahm want a career, surely they'd not be a sahm?
Why would it damage confidence?
It can change your financial prospects forever, yes it can either for the positive or negative depending on who you married.
Why would a sahm relationship break down more than a working one?

Holidays etc but I am happy.

I think I was kind of forced into being a SAHM... A nanny / nursery costs way more than I ever got.

I'm lucky because DH allows us to have a life of seeing friends, having lunch, going to baby groups and classes and lovely days out..

But I'm stir crazy. I want my job back.

Given the rates of relationships that do break down I'd say there is a good chance that your relationship will break down

As a SAHM you are then at the mercy of your ex H/P and what he sees fit to pay, when he sees fit to pay.

A career is useful for everyone. You cannot be a SAH forever as eventually little Jimmy becomes big Jimmy and wonders what it is you do all day
Then trying to rejoin a career you left yrs ago is impossible mostly and you are left with the option of ex SAH jobs, terrible contracts for minimum wage.

I think that there is a better way.
Pretending that money coming into the house is pooled and free to be spent by both is perilous unless you have a larger or equal pool coming in.
No one likes looking at an empty pool

My decision to be a sahm has nothing to do with the welfare state topping up our lifestyle. We aren't entitled to benefits.

It has everything to do with the low salaries in my area, coupled with the high cost of childcare, and in addition I spend quite a lot of time looking after my elderly parents. I also provide free childcare for my niece so that my sister can continue working. If you want to break it down into financial terms (although actually I don't particularly like the idea) I don't think I'm a 'taker' from the taxpayer overall. A previous poster said that sahms are everyone's concern because they're not contributing, can't pay as much into a pension etc but it is a far more complex picture in real life. I would guess there are a lot of women like me, sandwiched between caring for children and for elderly relatives.

Most people are saying that their wage wouldn't cover cc, in which case I'd assume that they don't have careers, as I didn't.

Therefore talk of rejoining a career left years ago, or husbands leaving is irrelevant.

I wonder how women afford childcare.

£700 a month in my town when my eldest was born. I earnt £850 a month. A following £50 on a bus pass, and I would have been left with £25 a week after working full time. With no Tax Credits.

With me as a SAHM we got £40 a week in CTC. I didn't want to back to work anyway, and the maths only further sealed the deal.

NowExDPs salary was 25k at that point too.

I have been a SAHM since DC1 was born nearly 9 years ago. We lived in London at the time (although have moved out since) and my salary was the same as DH's, so we were losing half our income. It was possible for us because a) DH is a high earner, b) our mortgage was not high compared to our earnings (area not very popular, and we bought in 2002 before the worst of the property boom), and c) because we lived separately before we got engaged (for practical reasons rather than moral ones), so were both used to budgeting based on one salary - we hadn't really got used to our joint salary.

DC3 starts school tomorrow and I'm going back to work next week!

Ronald not everyone wants to return to work when their children start school. It's a sad world when everyone is defined by the career they have. Not everyone wants a career. I had one. I hated it. As long as dh is happy to support me staying at home then I'm happy to be at home. If my relationship breaks down (and I say that as a divorcee myself) then I'll deal with it but potentially I could spend 20 years or more working for an eventuality that may not even happen.

I had a very good pension before and bought our house before becoming a sahp. We planned ahead like all parents should both working and sahp.We will top up my pension on my return and did actually continue with payments for a while after I gave up work.

Dp and I have been together 23 years,I was perfectly capable of weighing up any risks during our time pre kids thanks.

Us sahp aren't brainless bimbos.We can judge character well and some of us can even make financial,provision.

Not all of us want the same job we had before.Some of us don't want to plod on for eternity in the same field.

Ronald

You can be a sahm forever, of course you can if you want to.
I don't know any sahms who are at the mercy of their dh to pay them.
I actually manage all his/our money as do my sahm friends.
I don't think you have much of a point tbh.

"Then trying to rejoin a career you left yrs ago is impossible mostly and you are left with the option of ex SAH jobs, terrible contracts for minimum wage"

This is quite simply not true. I know many women who've taken years out of a career and gone back to work when their kids have grown up. My sister took 10 years out and re-trained into a profession she loves. Also some women want this and would be miserable in work so why would they if the family pot was worse off.

Around 40% of marriages end in divorce so there's a better chance your relationship won't break down.

Millions of working people, parents or not have no private pension provision.

I don't see how considering the pooled money as ours not mine and his is perilous or how staying at home "damages your confidence".

I manage all finances in our home too... dh doesn't have a clue what goes in or out and doesn't give a toss as long as he has enough spare for the odd book... (he's a bookworm. We both read a lot).

The set up is probably more perilous to dh than me to be honest. I could be buying ipads all week for all he cares (not that I would!)

You sound bitter Ronald.

It is perfectly possible to be a SAHM forever. Not that I intend to. I am certainly not going to not kife the life I planned and can afford on the off chance that my husband might leave me (he has more than adequate life insurance so god forbid I was widowed very little financially would change.) I can't imagine looking back at my life and wishing I had worked. If I had been a WOHM I know I would look back and wish I hadn't.

I can see how you can be a "stay at home person" forever, but a "stay at home parent"? Surely if your kids have moved out long ago, you wouldn't call yourself a "stay at home mom/dad" anymore?

I have seen many of my friends surprised by exactly how quickly their financially clueless partners can catch up when they decide to do so. It isn't exactly hard now is it?

You might administer your husbands earnings and believe it is pooled money but that only lasts whilst he decides it does.
Your choice to be a SAH is rarely compensated accurately on relationship breakdown.
I'd guess the money wouldn't matter though, right?

I have no problem with someone deciding not to work. I do have a problem with them pretending that it didn't make financial sense based on their salary.
Say you want to stay at home and that you'll deal with the consequences of that decision in their many forms when they arrive
Stop this, it didn't make sense out of my salary, stuff.
Strange how quickly the money is pooled equally once SAHs cease working...?

Retrain, work pt, work from home, diversify take business quals, layer education
Don't spend vital years solely on the wheels of the bus. Unless you always want to be trying to hope to find the change for it in the future

also, and more to the point: I think being a sahp is wonderful if it works for you, I would just advice to "test out" the life first if possible, because it really is not for everyone.

I thought I would love it before going on ML, and it turns out I would much rather have a job, if only part-time. I'm flabbergasted at myself, and very glad I didn't make any rash decisions - much easier to quit one's job, than to get it back after a few years!

I have been a sahm for 23 years and 9 days
Has anybody else on here done longer? I would love to be the record on here

I too know I will never look back and wish I'd worked, but know had I gone out to work I'd be regretting it now. It is a personal choice.

I think most people justify their choice to themselves whether they make any profit or not, whether its financially viable or not.