SAHM's

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To ask how parents who stay at home afford it?

My husband brings in around £2k pm and myself £1.5k pm when working full time. I'm currently on maternity leave so our income is an awful lot less, and even still would be so much worse without my maternity pay!

We already do the weekly shop at Aldi, don't spend money going out (childcare issues) and will have 1 takeaway a week - hardly big spenders!

I would love to be a stay at home mum but don't know how we would afford it!

My wage would've barely covered childcare anyway but we looked at what our priorities were and we didn't need expensive holidays and a second car, expensive phone contracts, weekly takeaways or regular meals out. We'd already been living on a budget before children as we were renovating our house so we were used to having little extra cash but it did get very much easier as time went on and my husband had wage rises and promotions, and because I've been so used to budgeting effectively we've been able to afford some pretty spectacular holidays!

We took in lodgers before DC in our early 20s to batter down the mortgage

I returned to work after a short mat leave with DS1 and we have a large age gap with DS2

We also have PAYG old phones and old cars, don’t really go out, shop low cost - the usual.

DH now earns a good salary but wrap around care is pricey and no family help.

There are also long school holidays/kid sickness etc, etc and my commute was hideous.

In summary, we also fall into the can’t afford to work, either fanatically or practically

Because we don’t spend money like others - we don’t spend £££ on clothes or sky or take out or coffees or a social life or Christmas or birthdays. We live within our means. The children have age appropriate clothes and toys and imho don’t go without. I am bored mind. I’ve been looking for work for the past six months but not got anywhere. Our rent btw is very expensive. The reason I need a job is so we can get a mortgage. But the job has to fit in with children - h has to be at work at 7 so leaves at 6 and doesn’t get home until 6.

No benefits and not a high earning husband here Boxsets, at least by MN standards. We just always lived off of DH's wage so that we would never miss my income, and we cut our cloth accordingly. We spend our weekends mostly doing free or cheap things, holidays are self catering in the UK, don't shop much, cook from scratch, and bought a cheaper house to keep mortgage payments and rates down. It might sound a bit austere but we are so used to it that it's no issue.

We are utterly skint. But we manage, living a simple and modest life. We camp for holidays at Easter and October. Second hand toys and clothes. I will have to go back to work at some point but the youngest is still just three. Until then, we muddle along.

Childcare after having a second child would have cost more than my wage, so once I knew help from family wasn't an option I knew I was going to be a SAHM. In my circumstances it worked very well as my DD ended up with health problems and needed an operation, I couldn't have realistically worked and had enough time off to cover. It IS massively difficult to get back into work if you have had a long break though, especially if you still need to be fairly flexible for childcare.

How do we afford it? Sale or second hand clothes and toys, cheap UK holidays, memberships as gifts so nice days out are free, not buying anything on credit, small (compared to most people) mortgage, cooking from scratch, cash back sites and researching the best deals before I buy anything. The first couple of years we got tax credits but wont now DH's salary has gone up a bit. Child benefit. DIY rather than paying for other people to do things for us. It really depends on your expectations and what kind of lifestyle you want. I think we are pretty well off compared to most. Just not compared to most people on MN!

My OH earns £1700 a month and we just keep treats to a minimum. It's worth it to stay at home.

Some SAHMs are with men who earn a lot and it's a different thing.

I don't know how people can afford to go to work on low salary!

Just my train ticket cost around £4k a year, and the parking around £1k. Once you add the fortune that is childcare, because school clubs start too late and finish too early, I genuinely cannot understand how people who don't earn that much manage to do it.

I'm another that can't understand how so many people can afford to go to work tbh. My 4 day a week salary is 67K. But from that I have about 6 grand train fares and then loads of childcare. I'm lucky that my salary is okay so that I'm not losing money. I know childcare isn't just my responsibility but if I didn't go to work we wouldn't have to pay it.

Is it just me or are some of these smug examples of “cutting your cloth” or “sacrificing” a bit underwhelming? UK holidays, cooking from scratch, few takeaways, DIY, washing your own windows etc don’t seem any great hardship and are fairly normal for most working families I know. The only families I know with flash cars and expensive holidays are those with one very high earner and one SAHP.

I don’t know many families with a SAHP, but the ones I do know divide up into those with a well paid DP and those who can’t afford to work and are supplemented by tax credits. I don’t know any one on a low income who has afforded a SAHP simply by cutting expenditure.

To answer the question of how do people afford to work, we managed it by spacing children out, stopping at two children and using a childminder rather than Nursery. We didn’t have any family help. Ultimately we just accepted that childcare costs were an investment in maintaining two careers. It’s paid off as we now have good incomes and also the flexibility which comes with seniority.

Although having said that, I totally get that if you are in low paid work there’s very little point working just to pay for childcare. The whole agonising of whether to work or not to work is a luxury of the well off.

For me a life without work isn’t appropriate. So I choose to apply for high wage jobs that allow me to save after the childcare has been paid.

Benefit top ups and being careful with money.

My DP gets 1400 a month sometimes a bit less, but we live comfortably within our means.

DH earns above average salary and we have a low cost mortgage because we bought a 'project' house.

That's how we do it.

We have had a cheap mortgage, £390 a month. We don't spend much on clothes or going out, and do lots of picnics and days out at national trust, beach etc. It is hard sometimes but I'd rather sacrifice a bit of lifestyle than work full time (part time was not an option at my job). Dh is now away at least 1 night a week and can be away for a week or more always at random times, or working 18 hour days for weeks on end (runs own business). It would be possible for me to work but I don't think.I'd enjoy juggling all.of the responsibility at home alongside a job.
We have moved now and mortgage is more but dh work is going so well that if things continue as they are I can't see me going back. I hope when kids are older I will be able to pursue some of my passions.

My situation was different in that once I gave up my career after having DC1 I still wanted to work but pt (too difficult in old career) & it was more expensive for me to work then not work. Luckily DH paid the childcare & what I earnt was mine. I had 1 year of mat leave for each child but in between I managed to get good p/t roles & have worked myself up to £32k (pro rata). I still earn less then before but there is still progression & more importantly it’s in a school so I plan to switch from pt to TTO in a few years.

My husband earns around how much you earn and we are paying mortgage.

We don’t have rent to pay ( but a smaller mortgage).

I work from home the odd job or two , to help out ( tutoring, translation etc).

I meal plan and eat vegetarian half of the week or more. Cook from fresh and don’t buy expensive ingredients. I do takeaways when there is big offers.

We don’t have childcare costs because I don’t work.

We don’t have a car, use public transport.

I think with ur husbands salary u might need a part time or home based job , especially if you have rent to pay.

But I hear you if you have more than one child, it is quite difficult

You need to do a really detailed budget to see what exactly you need coming in. We couldn't do it until DH earned more and basically matched our previous combined income. The benefit of being a SAHM is there's no need to worry what DH is doing or if he's away with work etc, I sort the kids out, school drop offs/pick ups etc. No worry about school holidays or inset days. I do miss working though and am on the look out for something part-time now.

We budget everything. I have a food budget that I keep in a separate purse so I know how much I have to spend. We don't do take away as we could easily spend £20 on one and that could feed all four of us for 3 days approx . If we can't be bothered to cook we just get a large pizza from Sainsbury's. We don't go on holidays and instead go for trips to see family. This gives us a change of scenery and the kids enjoy it. Days out are free stuff in the area with a picnic from home. I don't get my hair done or buy new clothes. It's tough, and I worry about the car breaking down etc but we cope. I dream of buying a new wardrobe and having highlights in my hair again though.

My husband is a relatively high earner, we live fairly frugally though. I don't work due to illness but am considering trying to find a job due to boredom, dc 13 and 18.

We didn't overstretch ourselves when buying our house, knowing we'd want to have kids and me to stop working for a few years while they were small. We could have borrowed an additional 80k but we stuck to our lower budget which we'd worked out only taking into account DHs wage.

We saved really hard as soon as we started TTC, so nearly all of my (good) wages went into savings. We'd saved 8k by the time dc1 came along although we've only ever used it for car repairs and some new baby bits.

We haven't been abroad since I was pregnant with dc1 (I'm now pregnant with dc2). We do have a uk holiday outside of the school holidays - while we can - every year for a week.

Shopping is budgeted fairly carefully, by not to a shoestring. I do a weekly shop at Aldi then a more branded shop once or twice a month at Morrisons for the bits I can't get in Aldi.

Gone are he days where I'd drop £150 on a handbag just because I liked it. We each have a set amount of 'our own' money each months to spend as we wish, so if I want non essential clothes, lunch with the girls or luxury make up etc it comes out of that, same for DH if he wants to go to a gig or football match etc. Anything essential (for example I recently spent £100 on maternity clothes because I needed them) comes from the joint pot.

That's about it really. DH earns well but not excessively. We don't qualify for any benefits and run a decent size four bedroom house on his salary. We don't have any debt except for the mortgage though, so I expect that helps hugely.

Loads of people get Tax Credits - I'm not sure what they'll do once UC is rolled out because they then (quite rightly) won't be partially funded by the taxpayer to stay at home.

Loads of people get Tax Credits

And loads of people don't.

I don’t know anyone who gets tax credits anymore, the cut off is very low in relative terms for this area.

For us it needs both skill sets to run the farm I wouldn't earn enough to cover childcare outside