How much do you earn as a family?

[BertieBasset82]

Why I ask. I am currently pregnant - I earn £18k (dental nurse) and my partner earns £60k. We’re in Yorkshire and our mortgage is around £550 a month.
I’m wondering if we would manage if I didn’t go back once my maternity ended.

If you are living payday to payday now OP...then it will only get worse if you give up work and have another mouth to feed.

FWIW we take in 103k between us and have no mortgage but two dc.

And YES I agree with pps...there is definitely something not right about the fact that you bring in 78k together but you are in your overdraft!!!

Also are you only newly qualified? Or do you only work part time?? 18k seems very low...but then again salaries in the U.K. shock me! A dental nurse over here would earn 30k or more!!

If your partner earns more than £60 K I beleive you are not eligible to claim CB so you may need to factor this in

Mortgage £1100 a month. Salaries me: £46k ( will be £53k soon) partner £43k.

We both work full time but that's a choice.

Your partner doesn’t want you to work and rather if you stayed at home. And you? What would YOU like to do?

Would you like to be financially independent or is not a problem for your family to rely on one income and be allowed to spend as you wish : clothes / coffees / days out / just because I want to

It doesn’t matter how much I earn. It’s more if you are happy with the above scenario

Our rent is 4x your mortgage! That's a tiny mortgage and you can very easily live on your partners salary. Enjoy your baby!

That sounds perfectly doable. We had about the same mortgage and income and we're quite comfortable. Good luck xx

I know pp have said but you really need to go through bank statements (all accounts that are owned jointly or individually between you). Its loads easier now everything is online or could do via an app. For you to be in your overdraft either there must be a huge amount of debt that you may or may not know about, or some secret spending somewhere. That is a large amount to not be able to account for.

@nimbuscloud

as I would be working just to pay for childcare really.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking paying for childcare is your responsibility alone.
Do you share finances currently?

Why do people always say this on threads like this. It’s abundantly clear to me that the op means her salary will be roughly what child care costs, so as a family they won’t be better off overall and op will be “working just to pay child care”

If that’s worth to keep your hand in is another question.

We could easily live of just the 60k. We are only on 50k between us and our mortgage is the same as yours.

Our joint income is over £150k and the mortgage is affordable. Agree with PP that you really need to look at your outgoings to make any sense of it all.

Why do people always say this on threads like this. It’s abundantly clear to me that the op means her salary will be roughly what child care costs, so as a family they won’t be better off overall and op will be “working just to pay child care”

They will still be better off overall though. When you're working your employer is paying into a pension for you on top of your take-home salary. Plus tax-free childcare. Plus you generally have a lifetime significant hit to earnings from the years out - when you restart work it's usually on a lower salary than the one you left. And it's much harder to re-start working full-time when the default in your household has been you having responsibility for all childcare for years. Unless childcare is notably more than the money you would be bringing in by working and it leaves you genuinely worse off after accounting for pension payments and TFC, you are better off financially working even if salary and childcare costs are roughly the same.

Do not give up your job if you are not married 🤦‍♀️

@Lazypuppy

Do not give up your job if you are not married 🤦‍♀️

Agree100%!!

ChanklyBore Not meaning to be rude here ,but 24.5 k doesnt seem an awful lot for a family of 4!Maybe we could have some budget tips? Ours is quite a bit more income ,and smaller mortgage and we never seem to have anything left! Many thanks if you could do that .

You really do need to get married for your own protection. Otherwise you will be back on MN in 18 months asking for advice about where to even start as a single mum whose partner just left. We get an average of 3 of these threads every week. 🤦‍♀️

I'll start by saving most of your pay check. That will give you an idea of what is like to live on one income. Then you can save the money for when the baby is born.

@dottiedodah

ChanklyBore Not meaning to be rude here ,but 24.5 k doesnt seem an awful lot for a family of 4!Maybe we could have some budget tips? Ours is quite a bit more income ,and smaller mortgage and we never seem to have anything left! Many thanks if you could do that .

We are a family of six and manage on about £18k.

It can be perfectly doable

I absolutely marvel at how little people can live on, I take my hat off to you.

We are on around £70-75k a year and have a mortgage of £700. We earn fairly equally so neither could give up work and live on the others salaries.

I would definitely keep my hand in work if you can, even a couple of days a week.

It’s the biggest salary I’ve ever had dottiedodah. I’m happy with it. When I had my first DC I only earned 10.5k full time. Maybe I’m used to it.

Save your whole salary for the time you’re pregnant as PP says, this is a great idea. It will only work if your DP is totally committed to completely shared finances. This will also let you know if he’s the sort of bloke you can trust enough to give up your job and financial independence for.

DP doesn’t really want him/her to go to childcare if we can avoid it and would rather I was home, which I can see his point as I would be working just to pay for childcare really

You wouldn’t be working “just” to pay for childcare.

1. a dual income household is less vulnerable to job loss or the unexpected. It’s also more tax efficient.

2. you will keep paying into a pension and have up to date skills and training. It’s easier to get a better paid job when you already have a job.

3. it sets the dynamic that parenting is a shared responsibility. Often when SAHPs go back to work, their DPs find it difficult to adjust to being responsible for childcare arrangements, sick days and holidays etc. The former SAHP ends up doing it all and working too - a recipe for resentment.

4. and this may be my own personal issue - the person NOT giving up their job shouldn’t be the person making the decisions on this front.

Agree with PPs. Don’t give up your job!! It might seem tempting right now but further down the line, you may be very glad to have a bit of ‘you’ time and your own money coming in. Not because anything bad is necessarily going to happen, but it’s so important to have your own earning power, however small. As a PP said, it’s much harder to find a decent part time job than get your current employer to reduce your hours.

Thank you for your responses. It’s given me a lot to think about. We were due to get married in May but it was cancelled due to COVID, so the only reason we’re not married is because we weren’t allowed and had to postpone

@BertieBasset82 then have a small registry wedding as soon as possible and the wedding party later on when restrictions are lifted. However, for me marriage is still not a reason to give up my job/career. Childcare expenses are not for forever. I would see it through!

As others have said, the question about what other people have as family income is completely irrelevant here.

What you need to look at is where on earth all your money is going.

Each month, I'm guessing a £60K salary must bring best part of £3k into the bank account ??? (don't know, I'e never earned that sort of money)
Your mortgage is £550
SO you need to go through all your other bills...Council tax; water; elec / gas (or oil); broadband; mobile phones; insurances (life, buildings, contents, pets, income protection, maybe mobile phone, car) any TV packages you have.
Remember to include things that might seem 'little' amounts - Netflix / Amazon Prime etc
Then transport - train tickets or car costs - factor in depreciation and MOTs and replacing tyres or wipers occasionally and bigger repair bils if you have older cars. Car Tax. Insurance

Remember then to think about annual costs and divide them by 12. Include things like spending on Christmas presents and Birthday presents.

Then your supermarket shop
Your 'things you have to buy or spend on now and then' (replacing shoes or underwear or getting a haircut)
Then the 'things you like to treat yourself with' - be that subscriptions or memberships, or getting fancy hairdos or nails done or buying coffees out or getting yourselves takeaways or bottles of wine or whatever. Everyone need some treats in their life.

Then you have an "outgoings" column

You then need to think about holidays. About longer term savings - at some point you'll need to replace the boiler or the carpet or the fridge or the car or your Winter coat or you might want to move somewhere bigger.

Separately, think about what you want to do.
You've worked for a qualification. You are fortunate in that you can probably opt to work part time - keep your hand in, get some adult company two or three days a week.
You might prefer to keep working full time. Being at home all day long with a baby isn't for everyone.
You might prefer to stay at home - think about the long term implications of that in terms of your qualification and in terms of your pension, not just in terms of the next two years.