How do SAHMs manage financially?

[YogiBearcub]

Embarassed to ask my friends this as they are all working, but for those of you who either aren't or those who have a husband earning significantly more, how to you split your finances?

I've recently stopped working after 18 years in a lucrative job and am basically a student (am switching profession), SAHM and housekeeper. I used to be fiercely independent and we had a similar salary. My husband still earns a good salary but all I have is the rental income from the flat I lived in before we got together. I had to ask my husband to pay the nursery (4 days) a few months after I left work as this cost more than my flat income and it was eating into savings once everything else was paid on top. I'm now paying the groceries (about £500pm), DS' clothes and shoes, nespresso, my mobile bill, £35 for a classpass, the Internet, while my husband pays the bigger bills of nursery, council tax, electricity gas, car, his luxury gym, etc. He paid off the mortgage last year. But I constantly feel like I'm living on a shoestring compared to him.

How do others manage this? Do you get an allowance from your husband which you manage yourself? How did you negotiate the size of this? Is it a % of his income or you prepared a mini budget to demonstrate your outgoings? Or do you have a shared account only he pays into and everything comes out of that, but then he can look through every coffee you drank during the month? I'm so embarrassed to ask for money as I've been working since I was 15 and paid my own way through uni so it's just not in my dna to be someone's dependent!

I have never been a SAHP, you rely on the mercies of your man, that’s it really. Maybe he will be totally reasonable forever and love will triumph all but it’s high risk. Friend is divorcing after a 30 year marriage, she was a SAHP for 13 years of that. Even though she will get some of his very good pension, that gap in employment, she is looking at a very poor retirement and huge drop in standard of living. I adore my DH but I always liked the fact that if he pissed me off I could walk out the door and fund my own life. I am a very practical human.

Well I haven't worked for 20 years. It was a joint decision, and borne out of necessity. DH worked away from Sunday night to Friday night. With two kids under 6 I couldn't handle working and 24/7 life, especially when I only cleared a few hundred pounds after childcare, no point in being stressed, hating work, and paying someone else to look after the kids. I know many single mums live like that, and hats off to them, it's hard, but we fortunately had the option, and it worked for us as a family

We set up a separate joint account that we both put into for the month to cover all the bills, day to day expenses related to running the household and family.

We don't know that poster's circumstances. Her youngest child is 15 but we don't know about her other children. Maybe she has 10 children, the housework would probably be a full time job then. Maybe she has a 17 year old who has a toddler and the poster is looking after the toddler so her 17 year old can do her a levels. Maybe she has an elderly parent, grandparent or neighbour who she cares for. If she had her 15 year old when she was 40+ then she might be nearly retirement age anyway. Maybe she had her first baby aged 15, a baby every 2 years until she had her now 15 year old aged 44. Childcare for that many was too expensive but by the time her youngest started school her older 3 children had children of their own and she was looking after them while their parents worked. We just don't know and it's not right to just assume things and call people lazy.

My husband’s salary goes into our joint account. I can take as much as I need as he sees it as my money too. We don’t have loads of money but we have enough to get by and be reasonably comfortable. I will most likely go back to work when our children are in school. Until then it doesn’t really make financial sense for me to return to work because childcare is so expensive we would be no better off than we are now.

If you have a tight husband who controls the purse strings it's almost always bad news.
We have always had joint funds, accessible equally to either of us and with no quibbling about who spends what.
This has worked during periods when I was the lower earner, on maternity leave, or early on in my career, and as well as when DH was the lower earner as my career took off and he retrained after being made redundant.
Absolutely everything - bills, utilities, food, social activities and personal spending - comes out of our joint accounts. DH casts his eye over paper bank statements because I can't be arsed, while I sort out all internet banking, savings, paying tradesmen etc.

Neither my husband or I work anymore. I haven't worked for years and he has retired early. It's just what it is. We enjoy it.
I sometimes think I'd like to work but mostly I love having the freedom to do what I want. I'm generally busy doing things I enjoy. I don't seem to have this need to justify myself that some people have. I'm not doing any harm and I'm happy. My family is happy and I'm generally a decent member of society. I don't give a shit what other people think 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I know there are advantages to working but I don't feel less important because I don't work.
If I wanted to work I would.

I find it a little unimaginative of people not to be able to work out what someone who doesn't work does with their time. BTW I don't do housework.

Because it's good for them, regardless of what the mother is doing. Helps prepare for school, playing with other children, independence & confidence.

Mine have both gone for half days at term time nurseries, so they have regular nursery, but nowhere near full time or year round.

It seems that some posters are set on the idea that sahm's wrong to step out of the workforce but cannot land reliably on the narrative of whether that's because they then become the house skivvy or the polar opposite and are, in fact, a lazy-arsed house cat.

Although both seem resistant to the idea that it's none of their business.

Do you get an allowance from your husband which you manage yourself?

It’s not an allowance it’s joint money. But yes you need monthly “housekeeping” payments while you’re studying if you don’t already have a joint account.

They also seem to have failed to read that OP is a student studying for a new profession.

All money joint since married. We spend what we need to spend and major purchases such as holidays and cars are discussed.

When I was a SAHM, all our money (well, his money), went into one joint account.
We had a second joint account, for which money for all the utilities/mortgage and council tax was xferred each month, so we knew there would be enough for that.
We would then work things out together. Obviously we did not have a lot of money, so eating out was rare, but then I was at home and had more time to organise food, etc.
Our holidays were usually cheaper, self catering British holidays.
Major purchases were discussed together.

I thinks it’s completely mad you’d didn’t discuss this before you quit your job. In this sort of arrangement it would have been a joint decision and then household money would be the budget for us as a family. I’m genuinely baffled that you were trying to pay nursery fees from a small rental income.

We share all our income - no his and hers money. So all income into one account and all bills out of it.

This was no different when we each did a turn of being a SAHP parent when ours were little.

Sahm for 7 years here. House is jointly owned. We have a joint savings account but not current accounts as we tend to use Cc's for the perks and pay in full. We have joint credit cards and he pays the bill in full each month. We discuss big ticket items and agree the b at monthly to buy otherwise we both just spend what we want/need.

I've been a SAHM for the last 18 months. Wife pays most of her salary into our joint account, and the rest goes into investments. The money in our joint account is used for everything essential, or that benefits us both.

We both have decent savings in our own personal accounts which we use for any non-essential purchases for ourselves, e.g. books and clothes. That way, neither of us gets pissed off with the other's spending habits.

I'm a sahm although I have my own income, it's much lower than DH's salary. DD is in preschool 5 mornings for early years learning and DH pays the invoices. He pays for all major bills and mortgage, I pay for some smaller bills just because it was easier to set up the DD on my own account. He transfers money into mine and his own for spending, and I'm an additional cardholder on his credit card account - he pays the bill in full every month. I don't ask him for money and we don't owe each other money or take turns paying for anything as it's seen as one pot. We don't discuss large purchases unless we're unsure on making a decision. He doesn't really scrutinise the credit card statement and I'm not bothered about him seeing my spending.

Universal credit tops up our income.

Same.

Imo if you're married all the money should just be in one pot - no percentages or allowances. I am a sahm and have full access to- equal to dh - to OUR family money.

I try to stick to £120 a month and we discuss big purchases with each other but that's about it. It's my money just as much as it is his.

All the money goes into one pot. Unless you are well off and don't need to worry about how much you spend, you need to do a budget, including all outgoings (Inc holidays, birthday and Christmas presents, kids stuff etc) and savings and then you share what is left over.

Presumably you'll go back to paid employment at some point but right now you have responsibilities at home and your husband's responsibility is to provide the money. You should be working as a team.

Did you and your husband not talk about this before you quit your job and became a student?

Yes, the OP has been strangely silent on this.

@Itsallok I saw your first nasty and ill thought out comment earlier and chose to ignore it. I see it’s been deleted now. I didn’t report it as I prefer stupid comments to be left to stand to show a poster up for who they really are. As you have continued to comment to try to justify your first comment, I’ll respond.

My partner is happy for me to not work and that is the only persons opinion that matters.

You are clueless about our circumstances yet chose to jump to conclusions and make nasty and ill thought out comments which say more about you as a person than it does about me.

Not that I have to justify myself to a random person online, especially one capable of such nastiness, but there are reasons that I’m still a SAHM, stemming from something very personal and tragic that happened to us.

However, far from sit on my arse, I volunteer 4 days a week out of the house amongst other things. I also have an autistic child.

I never said cleaning and shopping take all week, in fact I never mentioned those things at all. We have a cleaner.

As for your faux concern about my finances in the event of a split, no need to worry as we jointly own properties and we both have savings/investments/pensions. I am financially secure.

Try to think before you type. Be a better human, you might be happier. 😉

Sorry to derail your thread OP.