It is realistic to be a SAHM on a household income of £38K, right?

[KnitFastDieWarm]

I was brought up on a tiny fraction of that amount by my student-at-the-time parents and I seem to have turned out ok - so I think the answer is a firm yes, unless DH and I start bathing in champagne or something but I've had a few people look askance at me. Am I being naive?

Situation- DS1 is due in November. DH makes £38,000 a year. I make less than £20K full time (professional job, but in one of those delightful media fields that can get away with paying peanuts because everyone wants to do it, apparently ). I like my job but I'm not especially career-focussed. Because of the nature of my work being pretty location-flexible, I'm hoping to be able to take a year or so completely off and then do some freelance work from home. It would cost an absolute bloody fortune to put DC in anything approaching full time childcare so this seems like a good option, on the face of it at least!

We own our own home in the south-west which DH can cover on his salary, no problem. He is very happy for me to SAHM when dc is small so no issues there.

Am I actually being unrealistic here? Or am I just talking to people who consider anything less than four foreign holidays a year to be the brink of desperate poverty and/or who live in London?

I'm a sahm in London and DH earns £36k. We're very lucky to have inherited a house though, and we have just one DD (no plans for more out of choice). I feel we're comfortably off, we have several holidays a year (one abroad), eat out a lot and do lots of activities (some free, some quite expensive). We have no debt and manage to put away money into savings and a small pension for me.

We lived on DH's salary too and saved a year of mine. I earned more than him at the time. I have been on ML since end of Dec and we have spent none of my saved salary. My maternity pay has been easily enough. Planning to have the whole year off. I am shocked by how much money we just wasted. We certainly are not being careful or missing out on anything- but we have paid our mortgage off so don't have big outgoings.

I don't want to give up work so will go back in January.

Wouldn't work for me. I like my eating out and nice holidays too much.

Plus the thought of giving up work to look after my very hard work toddler does not appeal in the slightest! Isn't that what Nursery is for!

Suppose it appeals to some though!

Are you/can you save your complete salary every month and add 1/3 to your grocery bill? If so, you will be fine.

We have managed on similar but have 5 children. However we have to be frugal. Share a car, caravan holidays etc. Rarely eat out.

Ooh knitfast, I wonder if we do a very similar job as your description of it fits! My DH earns the same ish as yours and I was earning similar to you before we had DD. I went back to freelancing fairly quickly - within the first few months - and we wouldn't be able to do without my part time income of around £1k a month. But we live in the pricey south east (DH is trying to get a job out of London so we can move to a cheaper area - not happening at the moment). We also like a holiday abroad each year and meals out occasionally. My wage covers the treats. When we have DS in October I'll be talking around three months off. When I go back, I will only work in the evenings and weekends to avoid childcare costs. You are probably more frugal than us so will be able to manage. I certainly think it's possible. But it you are able to earn money freelance from home around your baby, if and when you are ready, don't rule it out . Good luck!

We did it on far less than that, my mum even less than us. Depends on what gives you contentment and happiness in life? Some can't do without their holidays/fags/gadgets/etc, whereas others are happy with the basics in life if it means being able to be a SAHM.

My friend is a sahm and her dh's salary is less than that. They have a very low mortgage (about £60 a month as they over paid for years) which helps. She budgets really well and withdraws cash for the week rather than using cards.

They now have three kids and run two cars but don't have holidays.

Thank you all so much for responding, this is really helpful!

To answer a.few questions - we do have mortgage which is £700 a month, so that's our main expense.. We have no debts at all apart from a loan on our car which costs £135 a month. We already shop at aldi and I plan meals and we cook from scratch (bar the odd takeaway) because we enjoy it. We put a bit away into a savings account each month and we have about £3000 in more long term savings.

I am definitely not making any decisions until my maternity leave is almost up! It's more a 'could we transition to this' question than a snap decision, so I'm just investigating possibilities.

I'm not someone who gets much of my identity from my job - I do a lot of voluntary work and other side projects which I plan to keep up as far as possible, regardless of work plans. In my current role I'm at a point where I've gone as far as I can in a smallish company and would be thinking about moving on soon anyway, so this feels like a natural break point, if that makes sense?

I think I probably do work in the same (sadly slowly declining) industry as some of you - if it involves sifting through internship applications from over enthusiastic English lit.grads who think the entire job is about loving reading most of what I do involves coding and running websites but they don't want to know about that!

I've found that since being on maternity leave it's easier to save money as you can shop around for the deals etc more easily. I have the time to go to another part of town to go to a specific shop to get one or two items which I know will save some money....
Good luck!

Why don't you try saving your maternity pay for the first few months to see how you get on on one income? That will build you up some more savings and help you decide.

So many variables in everybodies individual circumstances that it isn't really a simple yes or no answer.

For us it would be a no - it simply wouldn't cover our minimum outgoings and we don't lead an extravagant lifestyle. With our mortgage, bills and repaying old debts we have nothing left for much else and we're on a joint income of £60k.

Hmm all the shopping around and not buying gadgets won't help much if your mortgage and council tax is 1.2k a month and his pension contributions are 400 a month. Your groceries could be another 350 leaving approx 500 for other stuff (petrol, utilities, clothes, holidays , and haircuts).

It is of course doable and but your fixed out goings are the ones you need to look at. It is no good comparing yourself to someone who has a mortgage free house.

We are on the same income and mortgage. It's fine as long as you're economic.

I would not make this decision yet. take the full year mat leave (the last 3 months are unpaid anyways) and see how you get on.

I went back to work part time. being at home full time would not have been for me (I only realised this once dc1 came along ).

also, I saw a few friends giving up work and they find it very difficult to get back into employment so you might want to consider the long term impact.

I have also seen relationship breakdowns in friends where one became a Sahm and how tgey subsequently bitterly regretted giving up work.

What about your pension?

As others have said it depends entirely on your outgoings. Have you written down all your outgoings over a year to see what they come to? Our bare minimum income to have a SAHP is £40k. That is our outgoings with everything stripped back to the bone so no paid tv, no holidays, no takeaway, no monthly saving etc. If you've done they same and it's less than 38k then it's doable.

It sounds like you don't like your job/career and are using mat leave/sahming as a convenient excuse to ditch it.

This isn't a good long term plan. Read the threads on here by women who have up work then tried to return once their DCs were in school and are fighting over themselves to get admin jobs in school offices!

Think carefully what you want to be doing in 10+ years time when you don't have tiny ones.

Becoming financially dependent on your partner changes the relationship dynamic. Have you read wifework? Is your DP going to expect you to do everything around the house? Is he going to value your non economic contribution? Is his money going to be 'your' money? Is he going to resent your 'lifestyle'? You need to have serious words about both of your expectations for the coming years.

We where the other way round I earned 38k my dp 22k and dropped to his salary. We saved my salary before MT and looked at our outgoings managed fine and included a holiday a year. It all depends cutting your cloth. Just before I went on mtl one of our staff came back from their first dd and wished she could be in our position but couldn't afford it even though had a joint income off 100k but they just like to spend money the 3 of them lived in a 5 bed house and enjoyed the holiday of a life time just before bb.

It's not about liking having money for "treats and luxuries" it's about things like having a pension, paying for occasional private healthcare (eg speech therapy, diagnostic tests), save for the DC if they go to uni or need help in future, and most importantly be able to pay the bills and keep the house if one of our earnings takes a hit. And reducing the chance of having to do low paid work for rubbish employers in future.

most of what I do involves coding and running websites but they don't want to know about that

I would love that

I'm a sahm to two children and we get half of that

So that's £2090 a month after pension contributions, assuming no student loan. Plus £87 CB. That leaves you £1350 after mortgage and car loan for everything else. Certainly doable in the short term, it's later that things might get difficult. I find small children are quite cheap: the main expense, unless you have access to free childcare or are willing to do split shifts (which is a considerable percentage of the population actually) is the cost of someone looking after them. It's later that they get dear, you can get almost everything for babies really cheap. You will need to be frugal as fuck though, because you'll need a buffer for if the boiler gives up the ghost or whatever. 3k is a good start but it's not a brilliant safety net for a one income household with quite high outgoings in an area of not particularly great employment opportunities, tbh.

You mention freelancing so it sounds like you don't want to stop working entirely. With that in mind, have you considered part time at all? Have you worked out what the cost of childcare would be? You won't get tax credits towards it, but if DH qualified for vouchers you could use them. You might be surprised how relatively affordable it can be if you're only needing a couple of days childcare a week. Especially if you could use a childminder, they're cheaper than nurseries. I would also make sure you take advantage of the new married couples tax allowance, you can transfer up to £1050 a year of your unused personal allowance to DH and this could save you a couple of hundred quid a year. May as well!

It is doable, if you go without a lot of luxuries. I agree with PP about trying to live off one income now, not least because it will let you build up a nice cash cushion to help if you get unexpected expenses.