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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

382 replies

justasliver · 16/01/2017 17:58

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!

OP posts:
user1483804139 · 16/01/2017 22:18

40k. We are skint atm though as we've just bought a 250K house that needed a new boiler and radiators Shock

GruffaloPants · 16/01/2017 22:19

He doesn't. But I earn £55-60,000 so he can be a SAHP.

bellie710 · 16/01/2017 22:20

Slightly pointless question as no one has the same outgoings! My DH earns £35,000, we have 3 kids live in a 4 bed house which we own outright. We do however spend a large chunk of his salary on the kids activities but our outgoings are around £500 a month

LuluJakey1 · 16/01/2017 22:21

Gosh, some of you live on huge amounts of money! £800,000! I think DH is well paid but he'd have to work for 10 years for that.
I think we are very comfortably off. Small mortgage, no debt, can save good amount a month and not worry what we spend. Love our house. We live in a really great place. Life is so much less stressful for both of us with me at home. In the north-east there are a lot of low income families and I just feel lucky to have what we have.
DS goes to nursery two mornings a week and I have him the rest of the time and it is great. Life is cheaper now I am not working. I cook properly instead of DH and I eating out, I fritter away less on coffees and sandwiches. No cleaner. I buy fewer clothes. Not intentionally more careful, just priorities have changed. I got the equivalent of 12 months salary tax free as redundancy - if I remember - and we haven't spent it yet.

AutoFillContact65 · 16/01/2017 22:25

We also have a very healthy savings account(s) which many higher earners don't.

Eh? That's an odd thing to say. How do you know this to be true?

Mollyringworm · 16/01/2017 22:25

Not pig ignorant at all actually bibbity - before I met dh I was a single mum working in a low paid job and living with my mum in a very deprived area. My dad was mentally ill and never worked - he killed himself when I was a kid. I suspect I know what it is to be poor more than most people on here.
Op asked the question and I answered honestly - we have some good assets in our houses and send our kids private school but we're often skint at the end of the month - haven't been abroad for several years. My point is that although my dh is a high earner it still doesn't mean we've got cash to splash around, having 4 dc's means every penny is used up. Don't have savings either.

StarUtopia · 16/01/2017 22:29

DH on £24k. I make about £4k pt evening work.

If i'd have gone back full time, my earnings of £1300 a month would not have paid for the £2000 a month we needed for childcare.

So, yes, we literally could not afford for me to work.

I do wonder, when some people say that they couldn't afford to not work whether what they actually mean is - they have free childcare provided for by grandparents and they need that second wage as when they took out their mortgage etc they based it on two incomes.

As, if you can't afford to not work, i.e. you need that money, you're not going to actually get it are you if it's all going out on childcare!

We are skint. Literally. Rent is £700 a month. Bills in total £1300 a month. £90 a week to live on (including food).

Holidays?! Hahaha. Hair cuts? Hahaha New clothes? hahaha. But we are happy.

I would also add, pre kids, DH was on minimum wage job and we had more income coming in as it was topped up by tax credits massively.

There's something wrong with the system when you're better off being in a minimum wage job and letting the state give you more than people in more qualified positions.

SingingSandwich · 16/01/2017 22:35

My DH earns around £70-80K a year and I have been a SAHM for the past 8 years for all of our children but now the youngest has started school I have decided to pursue my dream of becoming a teacher and am now partway through my PGCE. The hours are really rubbish, I'm barely seeing the kids at the moment and I can't see that improving but we've decided that I'll get through this year and my NQT year and then I can either go part time or just go on supply. That means I can get out of the house and work but still be able to see the children. I am lucky that DH's salary gives us that option. He'd be perfectly happy for me to stay home but I think I'd go mad with nothing to do but clean the house!

PyongyangKipperbang · 16/01/2017 22:36

I hope that you are all happy for this to go in the Daily Fucking Mail.......OP's first post.....

OohNoDooEy · 16/01/2017 22:37

For us to have our lifestyle if I were working (dh has an expensive commute) we'd want about £3k a month after tax but we could survive on less.

ChocoChou · 16/01/2017 22:38

Pyongyang nooooo please noooooo

AutoFillContact65 · 16/01/2017 22:40

Does the Daily Fail Fucking Fail of journalism fucking losers publish shit like this from MN?

Isn't usually more relationship dramas or whatnot?

Fuck off Daily Fail.

PyongyangKipperbang · 16/01/2017 22:50

Its exactly the sort of thing I can imagine those cunts putting on their website.

May I suggest that in future you advance search the OPs name on threads like this, and post with caution if its a first timer?

icy121 · 16/01/2017 22:54

Woohoo another thread degenerating into arguments people living in the affluent south with large family incomes and corresponding outgoing having relatively little disposable incomes and feeling relatively skint, being mocked and called (erroneously) "ignorant" by others who earn less and have correspondingly less outgoing who feel relatively wealthy. Great job MN 💪

This is the only reasonable comment so far:

@Truckingalong

You may be scoffing at enormous tiger but she makes a very good point. Your financial independence is precious and whilst some on here might not give a stuff about earning big bucks, you absolutely should care about being able to stand on your own 2 feet financially. Like it or not, money gives you power and control of your own life

To use the vernacular, being financially dependent is pig fucking ignorant.

Original poster
justasliver · 16/01/2017 23:19

Varying degrees of answers on here. DH on just under £40k and I am on £24k, we are in our late 20s. We live in SE and rents are extortionate - currently paying £1400 pm for our 2 bed flat. At the moment with two people working and no children we have plenty of freedom and choices. With DH income only we would need to live off around £2.5k a month take home pay and things would be tight with bills on top of rent and costs associated with raising children. I was curious how other couples manage it and they do so I guess we can to!

Certainly not my first post Confused I once posted something very personal about a year ago about problems I was having with Dh and someone 'advanced searched' me on a discussion on another thread and used that personal info to attack me. Since then I change my nn every now and then as I got really upset by it.

OP posts:
AutoFillContact65 · 16/01/2017 23:22

I change names all the time as well. That's why I'm not so cynical of first time posters.

Still, I hate the Daily Fail!

PyongyangKipperbang · 16/01/2017 23:27

I NC too, I do understand why. But it was the type of question along with no posting history that flagged it up for me, its exactly the sort of question that a journo desperate for a non story would post.

Luciana000 · 17/01/2017 05:51

Icy121 - "to use the vernacular, being financially dependent is pig fucking ignorant."

Are you not reading this thread? Not everyone has family around to help with children and many wages simply don't support the cost of childcare.

Where the benefits of going to work are very marginal, many people make the decision to take the stress of juggling work and childcare out of the equation because they believe this is in the best interests of the children and the family as a whole.

In other cases, one partner doesn't work simply because they don't need to.

Millions of people live like this. Have I been pig ignorant for the last 14 years?

Blackfellpony · 17/01/2017 06:21

40k and things are tight but manageable.we do have a large mortgage and debt though.

I am returning to work 2 days soon to give us a bit of a buffer Sad

Catsarefluffy · 17/01/2017 06:29

Roughly 34k but no rent or mortgage

mynameisnotmichaelcaine · 17/01/2017 06:39

Go you GruffaloPants! I quit my job to be a SAHM in 2007, when dh was on £17k. I was desperate to be at home, so I took a calculator around Morrison's. I had six years at home in the end, and went back into teaching. I had another (surprise) baby in 2013, had a year off and then continued to work part time, as I love my school. I'll never regret those years at home though. Hard and sometimes boring, but I look back with very fond memories.

MollyHopps · 17/01/2017 07:52

Double the average salary.

liz70 · 17/01/2017 07:53

DH earns approximately 36k take home; we have three DDs plus pets (dog, 2, guinea pigs and tropical fish). We now own our house outright, so no more mortgage. We take a 1 week holiday in April, plus a 2 week one in summer, usually in the UK, but we manage to get abroad every two to three years. We're in NE Glasgow.

Daytona79 · 17/01/2017 08:04

£170k and I was doing a p/t job 2 days a week for £20k but its not needed so I'm going to quid once I go back off mat leave. That's said my hubby was made redundant before Xmas (oil industry) so he is taking a year off to spend with me and kids(we have savings) so we don't want me working and him not So we can do lots of stuff through summer.

We are in lucky position though due to high wages paid to oil workers. We have saved well.

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