To ask how much your OH makes so you can be a SAHP?

[justasliver]

Curious. How much does your DH (or DW!) make in order for you to stay at home and not be skint at the end of the month? I don't know how couples do it!

Bibbity I'm not trying to sound combative but no one was fighting really until you tried to start an argument. Anyway. It's an interesting discussion so why 'yawn yawn' some of us like it.

Name changed. My husband earns about £100k. We probably spend quite a bit, and we manage to save about €25k too so we could probably do it on about €75k without cutting back much. We live in Holland though, if that makes a difference...

Thanks, trying to find a better job for the husband, but we've both always worked in retail, which for us haven't led to many promotion opportunities and I see a lot of favouritism for people picked (spouses of people who are already high up being promoted). We're both losing hope at the moment as to what to do to help our life and finances. We've been so stretched in the past they've we've got ourselves into debt. I don't know what jobs pay more for someone who is almost exclusively retail trained with better pay than just above minimum wage.

Have just quit my job and am a Sahm (waited until all 4 kids at school!) because I'm exhausted and need a break. DP earns about 60k but no mortgage so it's ok.

I supported a missus and 2 kids on £21k, while we lived in a HA flat.

Eventually got promoted and earning about £24k I managed to save for a few years and bought a house. Life is/was not extravagant, but it wasn't like we were on the bones of our arse poor.

*I am SO VERY proud to look after my children

🙄 I was SO VERY proud to "farm" my children out to continue my career. I "farmed" all 4 of them out and paid my nanny an excellent wage. My children are all adults now and I still have my career ☺. I wonder what you'll have when your children grow*

Hopefully adults that don't feel angry and resentful towards me because I was never there.
Sorry though is that an assumption? Like the one you just made about sahm's having 'nothing' when there kids grow up?

Sp: their not there dammit!

I am a SAHP, not because of DHs salary, but because of having no one to provide free childcare - a benefit enjoyed by the vast majority of working mothers I know.

I chose to be the SAHP as I wouldn't have earned enough net to cover childcare costs & travel despite having a good salary.

Plenty of people on here are proof that you can have a SAHP on a low household income.

.

38cody

£3,500 take home salary per month with no mortgage or rent is pretty comfortable. I agree.

My hubby earns around £40k. I stay at home because if I worked all of my salary would have to go on childcare, so rather than work for nothing I stay at home for nothing. We manage but other than our mortgage we have no debt. And also we live in an area of the country that is much cheaper than other places, we have a four bedroom house for less than the cost of a two bedroom flat in the centre of London for example. So it really depends on your personal finances, mortgage, debts etc and how expensive it is to live in your area.

I don't think we need "farming out" comments or "never there". Most men and women feel they do a reasonable job of being a parent whether they work or don't. Just be content with your choices.

My 5 children are very happy I worked and like my parents before that I was just about always there for bed time stories and the like and now I can ensure they graduate debt free etc. In fact in the 60s my father always came home for lunch even as did we at primary school (that was a fee paying primary school) so even more parent/child contact then.

Children of working fathers or mothers do pretty well.

People should just respect the choices of others but never stay at home because you think it is better for the children - it rarely makes a difference. Children want contented parents - that's all. Also now women under 30 earn more than men the norm may well become that the lower income is male so makes sense men stay at home. Plenty of we women earn many multiples of what our husbands do these days. In deed even in the 1950s my mother supported my father through medical school through her teaching earnings - she says she was the first woman in Newcastle to claim the married man's tax allowance and her mother before her (widowed with a baby) always worked in the 1920s and 30s too.

I am SO VERY proud to look after my children

🙄 I was SO VERY proud to "farm" my children out to continue my career. I "farmed" all 4 of them out and paid my nanny an excellent wage. My children are all adults now and I still have my career ☺. I wonder what you'll have when your children grow up?

Kate I get that the pp was being sanctimonious, but there is more to life than a job you know! Lots of SAHP have hobbies, friends, volunteer, have caring responsibilities etc. One day you'll be retired and work won't be your life either.

I agree enormoustiger and I respect a mothers right to work. But the snarky "I wonder what you'll have when your children grow up" comment needed to be stamped on. It seems to me the sahm mothers on here have a lot more understanding and respect for the working mothers than the other way round.

"People should just respect the choices of others but never stay at home because you think it is better for the children - it rarely makes a difference."

How on earth can you possibly know that?

posttruthera - YES! thanks for that, good point.

If you want to know what benefits you might get if you (or your partner) are looking into being a sahp then you should use the benefit calculator on www.turn2us.org.uk
It even tells you how to claim them.
You can do as many as you want so can check if you'd be better off working and having childcare costs or being a sahp.
They've also got a grant search if you're really struggling

EnormousTiger you are Xenia resurrected, right?

Fascinating to see that the families struggling are those in the 'squeezed middle' not making enough to have disposable income but not entitled to handouts or support.

BTW nothing wrong with suggesting SAHM might think about the long term and quite significant ramifications of not working to their financial future. The divorce rate in this country is 42% so you've pretty much got a 1 in 2 chance of splitting, not odds that I'd gamble on. But it definitely won't happen to me, says every woman ever.

For me working FT ensured I had a sound salary so if I was one of the 42% ( and I was -DH left me) then you and your kids aren't plunged into poverty. If I'd been a SAHM it would have been highly unlikely that I'd quickly find a job to support us adequately - b/c you know how how much employers like 48 year old women who haven't worked for 11 years.

Peeping over the parapet gingerly........my DP is a SAHD and I earn 60K in a great job. We live in London and have 5 DC plus mortgage so it doesn't go as far as we'd like. I have pined to be at home sometimes but sometimes have been glad to be away. People have sometimes judged, some think its great. But who cares about the doubters, do what you can, be strong and set a good example however you run your lives.

I am a SAHP, not because of DHs salary, but because of having no one to provide free childcare - a benefit enjoyed by the vast majority of working mothers I know.

Unless all the working mothers you know are lesbians and/or single parents where the father isn't on the scene shinysink, it's a benefit enjoyed by the working fathers you know also. I agree very much about the importance of family help and the disadvantage many people who don't have it face, and it's good that your anecdote draws atttention to that. But let's not perpetrate the idea that childcare is the mother's responsibility. If a couple get free childcare, the father is also benefitting from the extra income.

I do understand everyone who says they couldn't deal with the financial insecurity of being a SAHP, but no one is asking you to! Please don't patronise those who have made a different choice and presume they haven't thought it through.

SAHP are just as clever as WOHP, and are just doing a job (childcare) that WOHP pay other people to do (because childcare is hard work - it's why you have to pay lots to get people to do it!). All parents are trying their best for their kids. No one is saying one method of parenting is better than another. Everyone is just trying their best. Each choice has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

Can we all hold hands and be friends?!

can we just answer the bloody question

DH earns somewhere in the mid twenties K in a job he mostly enjoys, with interesting opportunities for travel.
I have worked P/T since having the DC, mostly mornings in pre-school, when work has been available (for which I am well qualified) but sector is under resourced with poor employment security and much competition too for the family friendly school hours.

So, not working ATM (doing a course at local city college) I realise you didn't ask for this much justification BTW OP! Just to respond to some of the general assumptions. As PP's have said not always a clear choice, more often the best or only option at that time?

Circumstances have enabled us to pay off our mortgage, buy little new stuff including clothes (passed down for the DC and from friends or charity shop - DD enjoys getting things from these and volunteers in one too - looks good in anything at her age!) Do spend on experiences, extra curricular etc. But even so, no idea where the money goes - generally it doesn't go far does it?

Oh and in answer to the question it's 0 as I don't have a DH. Some don't!

Muggle good point.

According to just about everyone, your rent/mortgage should cost approximately 30% of your total income. So OP, if, when you give up work, your rent/mortgage is 1/3 of your total household income, you are laughing. if not, rethink your finances.

This is a rough rule of thumb, needs to be applied using common sense!

This has been enlightening! I had resigned myself to the fact we both had to work. However lots of posters have more than one child and a manage on a lower income that us makes me wonder if I could stop work and have another hmm ...runs off to find a calculator!