To ask how much your OH earns if you are a stay at home parent?

[LittleLeif]

Or how much did you have in savings?
This is very very nosey of me but I am trying to figure out if it is viable for me to ever stay at home with my baby. Unfortunately I have to go back to work full time but am hoping to maybe take a career break when she is a two or three.
We are both in jobs where you get opportunities for annually or bi-annually pay rises that can be quite substantial so I'm interested to see if he will be earning enough to support us for a year by then.
TIA

200k but when when I stopped working he was on about 60k and it was fine.

It's interesting reading the figures people need. I think it comes down to what kind of life style you are used to and what outgoings you have.

I'm not a SAHP but DP is, I get £20k (after tax/inc child benefit etc) in the South East, we cope on that. Obviously we'd be more comfortable if we had more but our rent is low (housing association) we have no debts, we don't have a car or travel costs unless going somewhere nice (work, school, the kids activities and shops all walking distance) none of us have expensive hobbies, we don't eat out or order take-aways, are on a low council tax band and we don't have many bills. I grew up extremely poor (8 kids on just Dad's low income) so there are things my friends consider essentials that to me are luxuries. I don't tend to buy brand name stuff, quite often I actually prefer the cheap versions of food, toiletries etc (I think because that's what I grew up with). I've always batch cooked anyway and in all honesty pre-DC, when we both worked, the majority of our money went on pubs, gigs, clubbing and cinema none of which are as much of an option with DC anyway.

So to me £20k is manageable, other posters would barely even cover their mortgage on that.

Dp earns £47.5k. We live in the North and our rent is £750 a month. We live reasonably comfortably but we're by no means extravagant. We don't run a car, holidays are a week in the uk, no flash clothes or jewellery, no fancy haircuts etc. We can afford to eat out once a week or so and to do things with the kids but we enjoy walking and take advantage of free museums and things like that a lot. We buy the kids clothes mostly second hand with new bits thrown in.

My interest only mortgage was about £90k a few years ago when interest rates were 6%. Childcare was £30k a year full time out of already taxed income.

However what you need and what you want are very different things. I've survived on remote islands catching stream water to drink. you don't need much more than food, shelter and water.

Teacher salary. Head of year. Everything is secondhand and we live economically.

Reading this has made me think there is no way on earth we can afford it. Was nice to day dream though

What you earn is only one half of the equation though op. What are your outgoings like? Is the anyway to reduce them if this is something you want to do?

Why is choosing to be a SAHM/P mostly seeming to be based on the financial implications?
I really want to be a stay at home mum, even though I earn almost twice as much as my dp (and that's only £18000 gross)
We will budget and MAKE it work. Because that's what people have to do.
I'd like to be a SAHM because I couldn't bare someone else raising my children. I see that as mine and my partners job. No, not just our job. Our privilege 😊

The point I'd like to make is you do what feels right for your family. Then work out everything else in life around that. There's always a way x

My dp earns £16k a year and I am a SAHM/carer.

LittleLief- Have you done the sums on your own income/outgoings? It is the only way you can draw a conclusion.

It might be more helpful to know what kind of percentage buffer people have to stop them worrying. For example, I aim to have at least 2 months' (ideally it would be 6...a work in progress) net income in savings, in case a job was unexpectedly lost.

I work and DH is a sahp. After all bills and (high) rent in London we have around £400 for food and all spending money. No savings. It's very tight once you start factoring in stuff like prescriptions, toiletries, cat food/litter, family birthdays and all the other stuff that just adds up. Grocery budget is roughly £50 pw and we find it a struggle even shopping and eating cheaply. I think we'd be comfortable if we had some savings and maybe another couple of hundred pounds per month after bills. It's not about income but about outgoings.

@Pinky333777 find your comments really insulting and arseholey to WP and SAHP. By your own logic SAHP don't parent when their kids are schoolaged so do they become housewives/house husbands then?

Totally agree re age and london salaries

Does my head in in the City when senior men seem to think over £60k is a 'high' salary for someone in the 30-35 age range, usually with a mortgage £2.5-3k pcm and a baby or hoping to have one. Err no.

Everyone I know in london ages 33-35 has a mortgage of £2.5-3.1k. All couples earn jointly £90-165k (inc us)

Most go on one foreign hol, have a house that requires complete renovation, not many luxuries (e.g. Camping for holidays), all have nursery fees / after school club as no family nearby

In london I sometimes think the just about managing plus category could be families ages 30-40 on salaries £90-150k. U get no benefits etc. And mortgages and childcare is high

My DH earn £9.5k gross but £3k mortgage & £1.5k childcare.

Student loans are £450 pcm (each) at this level too.

It's who you know though isn't it saucy - I had to do some 6 as we didn't have a high income and most friends renting on 1k or had bought a long time ago. And that's nurses/teachers erx when I loved there. To think you need 90k to manage mean you have a limited circle of friends to high earners.

Certainly many people manage without being high fliers ( although to be fair we moved to a cheaper area as on far far less!!)

zone not some.

6k per month after pension, tax etc.
4 children.
1k mortg
1k approx other bills.
2.5k holiday per year
Our life is not extravagent by any means but we are comfortable and do improvements on house etc.

I'm sorry @genghi, it wasn't my intention to offend.
Im not sure what you mean either I'm afraid.
If you use childcare you're sharing the care of your child with someone else. I'm just saying I'd personally prefer not to do that if possible.
I'm sorry if that seems offensive to anyone x

@Pinky333777 - using childcare is as much 'not parenting' as sending your kids to school. So I assume by your own logic you stop parenting when your kids become school aged right? WP still parent their kids even though we work full time and use pre-schools and nurseries - we get work from home, flexible working, term time contracts. At more senior levels you get more flexibility not less - my boss spends almost every day working from home and has never missed putting his kids to bed/making them brekkie/plays etc. He still runs a billion dollar corporation though.

DH £150k, me £50k. I can't afford not to work. London, 2 kids in private school and another on the way. I'll go back to work after 6 months mat leave.

We don't have many luxuries. Living in a nice part of london and private school fees sucks the life out of us.

Oh OP, you are infuriating! Easier question - how much do you currently have left over each month after bills and food, is it similar to your wage? (Knock any childcare bills you currently have off the bills amount).

If your DP/H earns enough to cover all the outgoing you have now, then you can afford it. If not, then you can't unless you can change your outgoings.

If your DP earns £10k a month after tax but your outgoings are £11k then you can't afford it. If your DP earns £1.8k a month but your outgoings are £1.2k then you probably can!

It is pointless asking others, it comes down to what you have coming in and going out, and what sort of lifestyle you want.

Invisible, I think your username is apt. I feel like InvisiblePenguin on this thread!

DH £150k, me £50k. I can't afford not to work. London, 2 kids in private school and another on the way. I'll go back to work after 6 months mat leave

Of course you can afford not to work. You just can't afford not to work AND make the expensive choices you do. You could easily live in 150k, you just choose not to.

People need to differentiate between being able to afford to SAHM, and being able to afford it and still have an expensive lifestyle!

£50K-£60K depending, 3 children, we have horses, children have lots of hobbies that require money spent. We manage, don't go on holiday often, think every few years, but the children do lots of summer camps & the older ones do school trips to France etc.

shesaid of course you could live on £150k a year. You might not be able to privately educate your dc or live in such an expensive area but you could certainly afford not to work!