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 if you grew up privileged how much do your parents help?

It’s understandable that she might not want the pressure of working full time if she’s needing to take on a much greater proportion of the parenting load (sleepless nights, sick days, drop off and pick ups). Probably not has easy for a surgeon to take time off when your child has yet another fever from nursery.

It depends on what your priorities are. Obviously if you lose £80k there are things you won't be able to do anymore, even if that thing is just saving.

Personally, I wanted to be a sahm badly enough to sacrifice a lot. But I don't feel like it's a sacrifice because I love it.

We would be very comfortably off on £110k. The minimum to still feel like it's easy for us would be about £60k but that's without a mortgage (we paid it off aggressively before having kids). We could do it on less but it would start to mean we couldn't do all the hobbies, daytrips and travelling we like and would have to lower our food quality. I'd still find that worth it. I do have friends who were sahms with an income as low as about £30k (although one was a vicar and had accommodation provided).

I work hard. Lots of cooking and cleaning - we don't have a cleaner, gardener or anything. Lots of playing. We didn't send dc to nursery to avoid the fees (dc did the free hours from aged 3).

DC is about to start school and I've started doing Airbnb with our spare room to increase our income.

IIRC, It doesn’t go up much. If he just made consultant, he’ll be paid £110k + usual yearly incremental increase until he moves up to the next stage / spinal point. Probably tops out at £130-140k? Not 100% on maximum though.

I get he is against private practice on principle but it will pay him a very good chunk of money.

Lots of women don’t want to work and bring up their children. What’s spoilt about it, if it works for them?

Why do you want to be financially dependent on someone else.

Well there is a dispute at the moment, so there’s a lot of briefing against doctors, one way or another, on social media. I think this may be one.

My friend was married to an orthopaedic doctor with a private practice and he preferred to submit his patients to unnecessary surgery than give them the cheaper treatment they needed

School fees have always been a luxury!

You can google consultant salary scales. Without private work to top it up you will have a comfortable life but not mega flashy. So nice house 2/3 holidays per year.

I think the days of doctors being top of the pile are long gone there are many more lucrative careers now. Plus life is way more expensive. I think a lot of the wealthy older doctors also had family money to help them out. The lifestyle you want - type of house, type of holiday, number of kids also has an impact.

Another point is that it is not as tax advantageous to have only one >£100,000 salary as it is to have 2x £50,000 ones. Your personal allowance gets reduced for everything you earn after £100000 leading to a 60% marginal tax rate so what you get to take home is rather less than what you were expecting. If two people earn a salary that adds up to £100,000 then for the same household income you get to keep more of it
Thus it really is a great luxury to have a SAHP.

Some of this is going to be basic maths - private schools are about £25k per year, and will likely be at least £30-35k by the time your as-yet unborn children are school age. If you have two children, his entire post-tax income will go on the school fees alone.

So if your “luxurious lifestyle” involves privately educating your children, then no that won’t be possible on his salary alone. You also presumably know how much your mortgage is, and how much your bills are currently - can you afford to pay those and still have a reasonable amount left from his salary for you both to live the lifestyle you want?

If your mortgage is £500 pcm maybe, if it is £3500pcm you probably can’t.

Me to!

It all depends on your outgoings.
How much is your mortgage?

What does a privileged lifestyle look like to you?
Housekeeper? Gardener? Live in Nanny? Luxury car? Designer clothes?
No, I wouldn't think that was sustainable.

Ordinary semi in a cheaper area of the country, doing everything yourself, driving an ordinary car, being careful with budgeting, then yes, that's doable, but that might not be what you are envisaging.

No, £110k for two people and children isn’t a lot - also depends where you live. In London it’d be a struggle, not a life of luxury as you desire. I earn £90k as one adult and half a child (she’s a full child but her dad pays half!) and certainly don’t live in luxury. Have a small 2 bed, second hand car, one holiday a year etc. You’d have less than that

Of course you can raise them! Just not “in luxury”, which is what OP is asking.

The OP said she was from a priveledged background so she probably went to private school so would more than likely want to send her children. Both myself and my husband went to private school and when discussing schools we never discussed any school that was not private - it was just an assumption we both held about our children’s education. Though her DH might not be on the same page if he didn’t. But a couple of children at private school would eat into her DH post tax salary probably making it very difficult to afford comfortably.

I wonder if you married your DH because you expected as the wife of an orthopaedic surgeon to be in clover?

£110k in the South East is absolutely not funding a lifestyle traditionally associated with a consultant surgeon. You’d struggle with skiing and summer holidays, let alone private school fees if you have normal housing costs in the SE, esp. if you have to live close to a hospital.

Orthopaedic surgeons rarely do private practice because the demand is lower than other areas of surgery and the insurance costs are much higher. What’s his orthopaedic specialism?

Truth be told, all professional wages in the uk have been massively suppressed compared with the cost of living and compared with countries like the US or Australia over the last decade or two. NHS consultants no longer earn the salaries that used to support owning a big house with a tennis court, sending three children to private schools, going skiiing every winter and having a long summer holiday in the south of France every summer. The cost of living is based in two income households. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy a good quality of life if you have children. You can without all of those things.

OP putting it bluntly if you want a ‘nice life’ you will have to work.
110k sounds huge but assuming your DH has NHS pension and higher rate tax, probably student loans etc deducted it’s probably about £4800 take home per month? Two people could live an ordinary life on that but if you are used to luxury you won’t manage it on that salary alone, and definitely no private school fees, top end cars/ holidays. My DH earns similar, we have two teenagers and a big house ( no mortgage) and I have to work to allow us to have the nice holidays, meals out etc.

That’s not a huge amount of money nowadays.My husband earns £130k and I work full time.We have a young child.

No fancy holidays for us.Children really do add a lot of expense and we only have one!

That's a very well earning and in-demand specialism :)

You have clearly had a very privilliged upbringing which is good.
However, you come across as being somewhat entitled

Ortho surgeons do tonnes of private work. Who do you think is doing all the knee and hip replacements for people who don't want to wait on the NHS list?

Nice principle I’ve seen it before. He’ll change his mind. Wait it out a few years..

Most in private do NHS too, so he can still do his bit for the greater good.

He’ll earn a Lot more.