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!!!

Jesus now I feel poor.
Can’t raise kids on 110k. WTAF

Some surgeons focus solely on private practice, taking on NHS patients referred to them and earning substantial amounts of money. They can perform as many surgeries as their personal capacity allows in a day, amassing a fortune in the process.

Lol this must be the most privileged comment I’ve ever seen on Mumsnet. You would be bloody lucky to live on £110k with children. That vast majority of people don’t get anywhere near that!

OP it might be that you have to decide what is more important to you: having a more luxurious lifestyle and working, or cutting back a little bit and being a SAHM. I don’t blame you for not wanting to work, lots of mothers wouldn’t go back to work unless they had to!

Are you married?

Have you talked to DP about this? If you are planning to have children together you should be having these conversations together about how you will bring children up, who will be at home to care for them, whether both of you will continue to work, what sacrifices would need to be made for one of you to stay at home, how the joint finances will work etc.

If you are not married you absolutely should not go ahead with this plan of staying at home. You need to maintain your financial independence and make sure you can support yourself should things go wrong. You don't have the same protection in the event of a split if you aren't married and you could end up up shit creek without a paddle.

If you are married and you both decide that you will stay at home this will mean that the household income is less and you will have to cut your cloth accordingly. However, 110K is a hell of a lot of money and you should be able to have a decent lifestyle but you won't be able to live a "life of luxury" on that.
Some of us have to get by on a hell of a lot less than that.

She said he doesn't want to do private work

We jointly earn more than your DH about 120k our life is fine and we don't worry about money but it's not luxurious. We have a 3 bed semi, DS in state school, one car (4 years old nothing fancy). Depending where you live what your mortgage is and how many children you want, you won't live a luxury lifestyle on your husband's salary alone, partly because your take home will be less than ours because of tax on a single income of that amount

I know.
Can't believe what I am reading.

I know everything is relatively and the CoL is much higher in certain areas, but seriously, SERIOUSLY?????

You should have married a dentist (tongue in cheek), but all over Instagram - all I see is dentists raking it in. They also have their own practice, which means they keep all profit...

Yikes @Yunall quite a lot to unpick here!

You’re right that 110k won’t get you a luxury life, especially if you live in London/ SE and you’ve got outgoings like a decent mortgage, cars etc.

But also why do you think it’s a given that if you don’t want to work you shouldn’t have to? Irrespective of the fact that you’d be entirely financially dependent on someone else (what would you do if they get sacked, struck off, have a breakdown, get ill, have an affair or just start behaving like a twat), what if he decides he doesn’t want to work either? I think it’s completely underestimated how much pressure that puts on one person and how awful it is to be that one person.

Its because I assume they want to send their kids to private school, they need more money to do this

I think you're asking the wrong question. Your motivation seems to be that you want to be a SAHM when you have kids, so you need to talk to your partner about whether he's on board with that and how to rework things if you did in order to make it manageable. What other people earn is completely irrelevant.

It certainly should be doable on £110k unless you're already locked into any financial commitments that require your salary. Be careful about stopping work if you're not married. Look into what would happen if he died or the relationship ended and you didn't have that protection.

I really hope you DH decides he'd like to be the parent at home, rather than you just deciding you don't fancy working.

Yeah, she wants to be a SAHM but have a luxury lifestyle. She asked the wrong question

Well if your assumption is correct OP will either have to continue working or get the very privileged people who brought her up to help out.

So don't work and make compromise in other areas, assuming your DH is willing to support you being a SAHM.

You cannot have it all.

Well, some people are and do. But it's pointless asking what they earn. She needs to know whether her partner is up for her being a SAHM and whether they're prepared to have whatever lifestyle that would entail.

Obviously £110k is a very high salary but these things are relative. It goes much further in, say, Swansea than London. And people have different ideas of what constitutes luxury.

It really doesn't matter what other people earn!

I think you need to calculate what outgoings would you classify as luxury

If you are used to a privileged lifestyle then it's unlikely you will be able to continue it if you sacrifice your 80k salary and add Dc into the mix

However you can probably raise a family comfortable on a consultants salary alone, bearing in mind salary does increase with experience. But you need to decide what sort of lifestyle you want

Husband is a GP, but knows and trained with medics across several disciplines, most of whom are now Consultants. All of them do some private work - I seriously can’t think of any that don’t as the pay is so much better (despite increased indemnity costs).

The big change I’m seeing now in increased opportunities for private GP work, showing that this is a growth area.

Agreed, in London £110k wouldn't be a lot - especially after tax then childcare then school fees if she wants them in private school

£110k with kids is not enough to live a luxurious lifestyle on. It's enough not to have to worry but that's it, unless you live somewhere with a very low cost of living. I would say you need to be on £400-500k to feel like you are living a notably well-off lifestyle (multiple lovely holidays, a nice car each, family membership of a good sports club, large house) if you're the only one supporting a family.

The OP has been clear she wants a luxury lifestyle, take home on a single individual earning 110k after tax NI , student loan, professional development and registration fees, probably about 5k a month, which sounds like loads, but if your mortgage is £2000+ council tax £500 , it soon disappears and yes of course you can easily raise children on it, but maybe not to the luxury standard the OP says she wants, you wouldn't be and to afford private school for example

This

Can I ask why he doesn't agree with private work?

Just sounds like a numbers question that depends on how much you need to live the lifestyle you want and you are better calibrating against your current lifestyle than against other people who all have different ideas of comfortable/luxury.

If you are happy with your current lifestyle with two incomes and no kids, then assuming you are not stashing unspent thousands away every month into savings and investments, then roughly the amount you need to live the lifestyle you want is £190k a year, maybe £200k if it's all down to one person so higher tax liability.

Add however much you want to spend on kids - say £12k on nursery or whatever, you get to a new total.

He either needs to earn that much, or you reduce your lifestyle expectations.