SAHM Finances

[hopeitgivesyouhell]

Hey
Not so much an AIBU but more a question
How much would your partner need to earn for you to be a SAHM and live comfortably with these outgoings??

Mortgage - £1000
Bills inc CT - £500
Travel - £450

I'm trying to work out if it's viable

Depends on your definition of "living comfortably".

Not struggling, few treats each month and a holiday once a year to somewhere like Cornwall

Depends on what you need to be comfortable.

It's not really enough information. Depends on how many kids, how much that holiday would cost, what you define as treats and how many you want. You also want to be able to save or have some "emergency money" if at all possible.

If you can't work it out by a spreadsheet then either record your outgoings, honestly, for a month or two and try looking at it again. It's important to be honest about what you spend, because you might find that you'd need to go without some things you're used to and you'd need to decide whether or not you were prepared to do that.

Alternatively, put your salary away somewhere untouched for a couple of months and try living solely off your partner's income. See how it goes.

How much do you spend on food? How many in the family? I think I'd want the working partner to being home at least 3000.

Do you need a car? 2 cars?
How often would you eat out?
What extra activities would the kids do?
Do you or your h have hobbies that cost money?
Any pets?
How much is your weekly food bill?
How old are the children?
Would your holiday be Haven or posher?
Is travel travel to work?

Do the bills include food?

If not I'd say at very least £50k - the bills are around ~£2k per month so I'd want a take home pay ~£3k per month to be comfortable. The remaining £1k would have to cover food, clothes, irregular payments (eg new boiler) and preferably savings too which all add up quickly.

It's worth remembering that you can scrape by on very very little money if you have to, but fuck it's a wretched existence. Ask me how I know.

Does bills include:

Clothes
Car maintenance insurance
Fuel costs
Mobile phones
Entertainment/leisure..I.e gym membership
Household maintenance

Look at your outgoings for the past 6 months, add it up per month, see if you could pay for it on one salary. If not, keep cutting things out until you can, then decide if that's comfortable or not...

Don't forget Christmas, birthdays, holiday etc

At least 3k a month.

I’d say around £75k, your outgoings are nearly £2k so you’d want at least £1.2k ‘disposable’ each month (i’m assuming your savings would also come out of this £1.2k). You could obviously do it for less but this would mean you were very comfortable.

Personally, look at current incoming and work out how much you can afford to lose.

Also, a sahm won't be paying into a pension and might not be paying national insurance. You might also be spending more by being at home more.

What's your current joint income?

At a guess a monthly after tax salary of about 3k

I would say 3.5-4k to give you a bit of slack.

As a minimum

By my definition of living comfortably I’d say at least 80k, probably closer to 100k. But everyone’s comfortable is different...

£3k take home pay minimum. More if you want to pay into a pension yourself and save for a holiday a year. I think a grand a month after everything except food etc is still not comfortable but doable. How many dc do you have?

Depends on your definition of “comfortable”, I could probably make it work on £2500 pcm but that would mean not a lot of meals out, no soft play trips, not many days out. Also how long are we talking? If you have 1 kid at school and 1 pre schooler already then potentially you would be going back to work within a couple of years which is more manageable, than say if you just have a 6 month old baby at the moment but are planning for more and could potentially living on this income for several years yet.

We currently bring home £85,000 together but I'm about to go on maternity with our first baby. We were talking about me not going back so we could try for second soon after (all going well!!) but would be on just DH salary of £50,000. He is getting a pay rise to £55,000 in December though.
He has a car but gets train to work hence travel costs.

I'd want net pay of between £4-5k but it's hard to know what you include in bills etc. Some people have less vices than others too eg. We don't really drink and are home bodies so don't want lots of expensive days out. If your bills really does include food etc closer to £4K would be ok.

So what would your monthy income take home be after he's paid pension/any student loans etc? You'll lose some cb when his salary tips over £50k too.

£60k at a minimum but even then it would be a squeeze to live what I would consider "comfortably" (which includes money in the savings and travel to visit my family.)

You don't need to be off work to try for dc2. In fact it would probably benefit you more to stay in work and get maternity pay for dc2 and then consider being a SAHM.

Honestly, I think £50,000 for a family of four (assuming all goes well) is 100% doable, many people do it on a lot less...but you may be in for a shock if you're very used to £85,000 for two, especially as they get older.

I'd also wait until you have the baby before you decide. I'm not saying you'll change your mind, I'm just saying that nobody really knows how they're going to feel until they have a child.