If you are married to an orthopaedic surgeon (not private practice), how well off do you feel as a family, if you don’t work yourself?

[Yunall]

Just wondering as DP is a surgeon (just made consultant). He doesn’t do private work and I would say we have a nice lifestyle but only because my income tops it up. I’m used to a lot of luxury and had a privileged upbringing (don’t mean to sound like a dick I’m just stating a fact) and I wonder if we had kids if I would actually have to continue working to have a decent lifestyle. Not something I talk much to DP about as he came from a less well off background and understandably I would come across ungrateful!!!

Also @user1471556443 said: “I am a dentist and am so tired of this line continuously being trotted out by ignorant people that dentists are earning a fortune? A small proportion of dentists are, but majority are not earning a fortune at all”

All I said it as good dentists are making a lot, OP should have married one.. It was a sarcastic comment lol

lol to you too! So what if a dentist earns more than a surgeon!? Thd DH could earn more if he did private work like the dentists. This is what the op thought he could do but he’s wedded to NHS. Many surgeons do both but of course many dentists do no NHS work at all. She’s married to someone who could easily earn what a private dentist does!

I literally said its good Dentists earn a lot, its a pity Doctors don't. OP's husband refuses to do private work. He needs to do private to match the income!

No hate from me whatsoever. More shocking for me was a Doctor refusing to do private work!

Just buy a calculator & work it out. 😃

You’re very brave admitting that on here where women aren’t allowed to be SAHMs 😂

I’m with you though - I do work but only very part time, thanks to my DH earning enough to pay the bills.

My friend works for a private dentist he and and a colleague work evenings doing cosmetic dentistry. She's happy with the extra money but it's a long day for all.

I don't think you get rich working shorter hours.

I'm a SAHM and have been since our kids were born. My DH earns significantly more than twice your DH's salary, we live in an expensive area but we're pretty happy. However, I'm not into a luxury lifestyle. If I wanted things like an overseas holiday or two every year, designer handbags and clothes and beauty treatments we'd have a hard time affording that sort of lifestyle with kids (we would probably have been fine before kids). We have two cars, we replaced the 16 year old one last year. Other car is 8 years old and we're hoping it will last another 8. We could afford to replace if we wanted or needed to, but it will hit the money we have saved for kids' uni.

Your DH is currently in a marginal tax bracket where take home pay is hit hard. It makes more sense to push salary above 100K into pensions until you start to hit the high 130Ks. (This assumes you're married, if not this may not be a good plan). So you shouldn't expect to see much improvement in day to day income from his career. This is pretty much it. Even as his salary goes up, it's not going to affect your immediate spending power much (could help make retirement much nicer, though).

If your priority is having a luxurious lifestyle, I don't think you have the income to do that with kids and you out of the workforce, unless you have a lot of capital/investments behind you to bolster your DH's salary.

There’s nothing at all wrong with being a SAHM, it’s just that for most people it doesn’t come with a luxuriously high standard of living.

This..what on earth am I reading? People do realise that most nurses/teachers earn nothing like these figures.

This is why nurses are coming from other countries, also teacher recruitment/retainment is another mess. But, unfortunately everyone knew what the salaries were before they trained.

Yeah, this is what I was trying to say. OP husband needs to work private, if he wants to make more money.

Bloody hell - I'd give my right arm to live of £110k and i have 2 DC! And I'm the sole earner as I'm a single parent... madness!

Surely this is a wind up thread?

Is this a joke? We earn £60k between us and have 2 kids and quite a lovely lifestyle! Bonkers thread. We don’t have really expensive holidays but do go abroad with them for city breaks etc.

Different speciality but DH is a consultant. His private practice is a very small number of hours compared to the NHS but is a significant proportion of his income. I was a SAHM for 10 years when DC were small and have never earned a substantial income (part time public sector). Our kids have been through independent secondary schools and we holiday often (though not luxuriously). This would not have been possible without the private income and we’re not what I’d call properly well off (we can’t afford a detached house where we live without cutting back unacceptably). Either he will need private practice or you will need to work for the lifestyle you are looking for. Orthopaedics is a really easy speciality to practice privately - NHS lists are long and procedures are often one-offs that people will fund even if they are uninsured. Our family has had two orthopaedic procedures in the last few years and both consultants were exclusively private.

My mortgage is 18k a year for a 3 bed semi , we couldn't live a lovely lifestyle with two children on 60k here especially if that's pre tax etc. We'd manage but it wouldn't be lovely.

To be perfectly honest, no sum would be enough to have enticed me to spend all day dealing with other people's mouths, their spit and germs, drilling, filling and what must be the boredom of root canal work. And that's without the back and shoulder problems all that bending must cause.

OP thinks she’s snagged herself a rich boyfriend, that will allow her to play with the rich set 🤣🤣 Dump the orthopaedic surgeon and find someone in private equity if that’s the lifestyle you’re after. NHS boy is not going to fund your lifestyle.

And do nurses and teachers have a SAHW living a “luxurious” lifestyle with two kids in private school, large detached house, two expensive cars, annual ski trip/long haul holidays, nanny and gardener? No, so they don’t earn enough to meet OP’s requirements either. Not many jobs do pay enough for all of that on a single salary these days.

It's completely pointless getting into this silly competitiveness over who earns what and how some posters live happily on £25K pa, because it's all relative to location and cost of living.

What is important is how @Yunall is a high earner - £80K - yet can't do some simple maths, to work out how their lifestyle would change if she stops work.

I mean, who has a job paying that and can't work out a budget?

And who can't talk to her husband about.
Begs the question if the marriage will last anyway.

@Yunall You sound incredibly young and I can't decide if your marring a surgeon is a stealth boast, or if you think you've 'married down' as he can't support your privileged background.

I think you need to work on understanding a budget and your values.

If you wanted a man to support you so you need not work maybe you should have married a footballer and been a WAG.

I don't see what is so wrong with private medical care. Middle class people with health insurance get sick too. In fact, we're taking some of the burden of the public system. My son had cancer as a teenager and I was just grateful we had the money to throw at it with private scans, appointments etc.

this is getting away from the point of the thread

He's her HUSBAND now

What??? You want the OP to try to get someone else's fiancee?

Meant fiance not fiancee