For me to be a SAHM my DH would have to earn.....

[CPHB2021]

Following on from a thread of 'if you knew all would be ok, I would...' and a resounding about said 'leave work and be a SAHP' I would absolutely LOVE to do this and by scraping the barrel, we probably could but we'd have little to no disposable income. I would only leave if I was able to still take my children to do things, meet friends for coffee etc. Go abroad once a year still. Have some money in savings. I often wonder HOW some of the mums at school don't work, we are technically 'above average' income which seem LUDICROUS given that we use almost all of it, every month! We live in the SE and I think our outgoings must be quite high! How much would one person have to earn for you to leave work?

I think it's just shorthand for "my husband is better than those nurses and teachers striking for better pay, he DESERVED lots of money, they don't. He was so manly I never had to work again"

Right!! I think this one might be a troll, as was also on the wedding attire thread stating it’s fine for her daughter to be a bitch about woman and she’s not insecure because “my DD has a super important job settling divorces, very well paid, own flat, own car and can even wipe her own arse!!

Having been the sole earner this last year, I would never be a SAHM, because I have learnt that the pressure on the one working is huge and it’s a relationship killer. DH has been brilliant and it wasn’t his fault he hasn’t been working but the pressure on me has been too much. He found his self esteem taking a hit too which isn’t great. He’s going back to work soon, thank god.

I worked it out -DH would need to earn £250k for us to have same standard of living.
I would never quit though. I love my job and have worked so hard to be here. It benefits my daughters hugely to see me working at a v senior level job and highly fulfilled

@BunchHarman
It really does worry me. I worked in property development, project managing the services going to sites, ensuring all planning conditions were discharged and managing our contract with a social housing provider. It was a lot and I loved it. I will already be seriously out of the loop. My husband worked in mental health but is now a gas engineer.
During lockdown I started a little food side job from home and it was highly praised by several really respected food critics / journalists
I could do something like that, or re train as I had dreamed of, to study medicine.
I will have to crawl back up the ladder,
A humble choice to sacrifice my pride in order to be there at home!

I think it's really hard with this income, no matter where you live in the UK now. I'm intrigued on the other side too what lifestyle people have with 300-500k annually. I would probably run out of ideas what to do with this sort of money 😅

He'd need to earn £60k to get by. But that would just be getting by, no 'luxuries' (except maybe Netflix) and no rainy day savings for car or house maintenance. As others have said though, I could never be financially dependent on a man. Even with the 'protection' of marriage, you'd only get a lump sum on divorce. Loss of skills over xx number of years would render you either unemployable or employable only in a job with little job satisfaction, scraping by, in order to have some kind of regular income. Or else you'd soon run out of money from the divorce. As for post nups, who wants to continue being paid by their ex once they've divorced, particularly if there was abuse involved.

We live in SE and DH is self employed bringing in around £90k gross.

I am a SAHM and full time carer. We receive state benefits (DLA for child, Carers Allowance for me).

Mortgage is around £1k a mth for a 3 bed semi.

No childcare fees as both in school now.

My car loan is £250 a month but my Carers Allowance mostly covers that.

No significant debts.

Weekly shop around £125.

One UK holiday a year.

We are doing ok. We manage and can afford a few extras.

Our household income is about 65k.
We made the decision that it would be best for our family for me to be a sahm when we had our second baby in 2021.
We live in Yorkshire and are very comfortable with this.
Our mortgage is only 350 as we bought a fixer upper about 5 years ago.
So we could certainly buy a bigger house and max out a mortgage but it's not important to us.

We have enough money to cover my Vinted habit thankfully 😅

Our household income isn't as high as 300-500k but I suspect it boils down to: nice house in nice area (for a 4 bed in a nice area of London, could easily be 5k a month on mortgage alone), private school fees (30k a year per child), holidays, extras like cleaner/nanny/babysitter/gardener.

“As others have said though, I could never be financially dependent on a man. Even with the 'protection' of marriage, you'd only get a lump sum on divorce. Loss of skills over xx number of years would render you either unemployable or employable only in a job with little job satisfaction, scraping by, in order to have some kind of regular income. Or else you'd soon run out of money from the divorce.”

totally agree with this !!

this is fact, not opinion

Fair enough but sometimes life happens. I didn't intend to not work, DS who had several incidents of nearly dying in his first year, who was heavily addicted to the hospital in the first 18 months, who I couldn't predict anything for given all of that and still having minimum 4x consultants numerous times a year plus all the extra stuff like portage and physio, had different plans.

It goes on things such as:

Primary home
Vacation home
Home concierge service
Gardener
Personal trainer
Chef
Part-time babysitter
Dinners out
Theater tickets
4 x five-star vacations per year
Cars
Clothes
Children’s hobbies

I think @4thonthe4th is spot on with the fact that it's ONLY women talk about jobs like somewhere to intereract with others, it's interesting etc. No man I know says he chooses to work to meet other people of feel fulfilled.
The main thing for working is independence. Women don't seem to value financial independence and that's the sad reality. When SAHMs say it's "our" money etc. they deny life changes in 0.5 seconds. It happens to many women around them but the choose to ignore that.

The fact that the question of the OP is how much money your husband needs to make for you to give up all your independence says it all.

THIS is the only comment needed on this thread!

On the flip side, I have several divorced friends. Maybe it’s because the laws are wildly different in our US state, but each receives generous child support payments, alimony, equal share of property, and two women—because the marriages were so long—are entitled to a chunk of private pension payouts.

From experience I would say to any new mum not to be a SAHM. I did, I loved every minute of it. Went back to work when youngest went to school … just 15 hours… was earning no where near what I was before children… marriage broke down… Gone from being very well off to only just making ends meet. Ex works the system so pays no maintenance but holidays 3/4 times a year. Obviously upped my hours but still earning less than I was 15 years ago. No pension to speak of either…. Totally fucked! But happy

Why? Because we all have to agree with you and us stupid little SAHMs are too thick for a valid opinion of our own?

Not every family chooses to have a SAHP because they are rolling in money. We literally had more disposable income after I quit working and stayed home. It saved us so much money. Of course, we have special circumstances with one of our children that makes our childcare expenses way higher than others.
So, for some families it costs them more money to have both parents working. For others, it doesn't.

I was a SAHP and money was tight, but we still did things in school holidays, just find free and cheap. I think there will be a lot of non working parents at the school gate where money is tight. The catch 22, childcare too expensive, one salary not quite enough. Just have to look at outgoings and see where you can be more frugal. Kids now teenagers and glad I did, it jusrlt seems to have passed so quickly. Or get a wee weekend job or a couple evening a week. Sell outgrown toys etc on ebay and supplement your income that way. Good luck.

Your doing amazing especially as all the nurses earning that are using food banks. If they are to be believed. Is their anything you can claim ?

I’d like to have your DH job lol or my DH could have a go! Currently we both work our arses off for £35k each

See, I’m a single parent so can’t be a stay at home mum. However I do only earn £14.5-15k with additional top up from CWTC. We manage. One of my children also gets DalA which also enhances my tax credit for her. We don’t have holidays though. They do activities but DLA money pays for one child’s a a grand parent pays for the other child to do one activity. We don’t get free school meals so one takes packed lunch 3 days and gets 2 school dinners and the DLA allows that child to have school meals 4 times a week with a packed lunch one day. We don’t have spare cash. I don’t save really. I put away £25 each month onto each of the kids savings accounts that I then withdraw when they need shoes/uniform etc. I also have wrap around to pay for one child. The other is too old for wrap around. Luckily only 2 days a week though as that’s all I work. It’s not worth me working 3-4 days as I’d only lose the TCs and gain stress of work and the cost of travel and wrap around and kids wouldn’t get to their activities. I could work 5 days and be better off but totally knackered.

My husband earns 165k and I was a SAHM for years. Now I’m back to work and I’m enjoying the extra money as we can go away more easily and save more money. We have 2 little ones.

This thread is really interesting. Thanks to OP!

I would put my figure ludicrously high. Higher than we need to live on. So high that money would need to lose all meaning for me. 😂

I feel odd when I’m not earning and working outside the home. It’s just something hard wired into me. I have no judgement for women that are SAHPs. In a way, I envy them but also I know it’s not for me.