How much personal allowance would you take to be a SAHM?

[DonutEnvy]

Assuming all bills are paid from the joint acc, you have young kids, and DH works full time and saves abit every month, how much disposable income would you want to have in order to not work and be a SAHM instead?

My DH would rather I not work as we have 2 kids under 3, but in order for me to enjoy being a SAHM and not being too frugal, I wanted around £4/500 disposable income a month which he can’t provide yet. The money would be for me and kids as fun money and so I have suggested to work part time so I can obtain that myself but he feels I will be stretching myself too thin and should be happy with a tight budget until the kids start school.

A lot more than that. I'd want to be saving for us and ds more than ' a bit', I'd also need compensating for the loss of a defined benefit pension, loss of financial independence, impact to longer term career progression and earning potential, I'd also need money to pursue interests outside of parenthood. I don't think there are many who could afford me as a SAHM tbh.

I'm a sahm and I don't have an allowance, but budget wise we have enough to pay in the max pension for me as a non-earner (£2880 per year), £20k split across ISA/LISA in my name and enough to spend on daily premium activities for dcs (baby swimming, Monkey Music, Gymboree etc), and paid morning sessions 5 days a week for my preschooler. Perhaps also consider the cost of memberships like zoo or a gym with good children's activities, soft plays and theatre/concert trips. We need much more than £500 a month but then everything is more expensive in London and there are more activities to do. I wouldn't want to be a sahm on a tight budget. For me part of the pleasure of being a sahm is going out and enjoying all the different experiences with the dcs and you have to miss out a lot on a tight budget.

You could not pay me enough to be a SAHM. I work because I like my job, it's a career not a time filler, and it's good for my DCs to see me working.

...... ok? So don't be a SAHM then. Not really relevant to the OP.

‘Allowance’ what are you… a maid?

Didn't you post the same question yesterday?

Do you want to go back to work?

Would you have full access to all joint family money?

Would dh also have £500 per month personal spending money after all the bills shopping are paid?

Would you still be able to pay into a pension?

How secure is dh job and if needs must could you easily find another job ?

I chose to work part time when my dc were young would that be an option for you

I'm a SAHM, but my personal spends each month is separate from the budget for the kids days out and the likes.

My spends are for me in the same way DH's are for him. Not to be spent on family expenses - days out, soft play, parking for said days out etc are not my expenses.

So we have all money going into the joint account. Bills come out. Savings come out (equal amounts in both names). My pension comes out. Then the shopping budget, kids budget and general budget go into another joint account which we use for day-to-day spending. Then the personal spends go into a solo account each - for me that's my ancestry memberships and weekends away with friends and for him it's magazine subs, takeaway coffees and car parts.

Too often SAHp's end up with the pot split as "working parent and non working parent plus kids" - kids are a joint expense.

It doesn't sound like you can afford it. If your DH wants you to be a SAHM, he needs to be able to fund it properly. No allowance, you are not a child. You are a grown woman and should be on an equal footing, so whatever he has, you have and that includes your pension and savings. If he can't provide that, don't give up your career.

DH and I took turns of being a SAHP when ours were younger.

we didn’t do ‘allowances’. We don’t do his and her money. It’s all joint. It’s all our money. We share as we are a family.

👏 👏 👏

I think you are the boss of you, never mind that he doesn’t want to step up - get a PT job if you want one, and he will just have to do a bit more parenting

To be fair, pp is just answering the question.

This all sounds very transactional - he wants a full time nanny, you may or may not want to do it depending on if the "wage" is right.

I suggest you sit down together and work out the realities of your joint financial situation, and whether it's affordable for one of you to stay home, and whether either of you even wants to do it.

That's the modern way to do it. Sorry, but you sound very old fashioned!

Your DH sounds like a bit of a twat. No way would I want to be a SAHP if money was tight AND he was a twat. If he was respectful, maybe you could make it work, but how dare he dictate what you do.

When I was on maternity leave, my DH transferred money from our joint account into a savings account in my name only, so that I wasn’t financially at a loss. He did the same when I was a SAHP for a while. While I wasn’t working, all of his earnings were classed as joint money, with complete transparency, but I was free to have money in my name only as a safety net.

His dad was financially abusive towards him DM and he swore he’d never be like that.

Contrary to the majority here I would be happy with a set allowance. Currently I well out earn my husband when I am not on maternity leave and what I earn is mine. He never asks and it is variable. That’s trust in a marriage. If I was a SAHM it would be because I wanted to invest the time in our children and feel I would be better equiped to do it than my husband would, Mother Nature and all that.

I would not expect a credit card to an unsubstantiated amount of money just for my pleasure. I would want it to be fair but like anything it is a limited pot and I would honour that and not demand anything that would put our family under any kind of pressure.

£500

Maybe he should be a full-time parent if he feels so strongly about it?

This “stretched too thin” comment concerns me. It implies he thinks you will be solely in charge of house and kids AND working on top if you work part time.
You need to dig into what he considers his contribution to the family is going to be beyond the financial, otherwise you will look up in a few years to find you’ve become his skivvy.

Not a SAHM, but DH and I on significantly different salaries.

We pool our earnings, and once absolutely everything is accounted for (everything - including all pension contributions, savings, holidays, trips and household and kids’ expenses etc) we see what’s left as disposable income. That we split equally so that we each have exactly the same for spends.

Same principle could apply to you, just using your DH’s earnings, if you wanted to have some certainty about what you can freely spend on yourself.

When I stayed home we both had a fun allowance of £500 a month and DH paid all the bills
Now I work part time we both still have £500 a month "fun" but chuck the additional money in our joint savings

I don't like the idea of it (and I would never be a SAHM) but I'm not you.

It depends how the allowance is defined. I would expect to have equal access to joint funds for all household and family spending. A set allowance for personal fun money could work but I would expect my husband to have the same, no more no less, and stick to it.

I definitely would think the kids spends/treats should NOT come out of my personal fun money so there would need to be a separate or enhanced allowance for that, or it should come straight from accessible joint funds.

Disclaimer: in our house we have joint household/family account and separate personal accounts, though we both work FT in professional jobs so it is fairly well balanced to start with. I know most mumsnetters are fans of the one pot method but I like having my own money to buy gifts and treats from. My husband is a fritterer and I'm a saver so it saves a lot of arguments. If our fun money was joint he would spend most of it without thinking. So some separate works when you have different financial habits.
Sorry, waffling, my point is that it's not always financial abuse to not be a one potter family, but it needs to be fair and equitable.

Why do women who 'couldn't think of anything worse than being a SAHM or housewife' ALWAYS feel the need to voice this. This thread isn't relevant to you, so walk on by.

OP it wouldn't sit right with me to be given an allowance. I'm a housewife and I have access to a joint credit card account, so I don't have to keep asking for money as I think that is degrading/controlling.

How much 'allowance' is your husband proposing to give himself?

Agree that an allowance shouldn’t be a thing but I do think 500 as a ceiling every month seems very steep to me. I saw a lady on another thread saying’so what if we want to go to soft play three times a week ‘, but I think that’s pushing it, sometimes you have to cut your cloth. Similarly I wouldn’t expect to have the same luxuries I had previously (hair cuts etc etc)

When I was a sahm. I just spent as I wished. I knew what was there and what needed to he kept in there. I'd never accept an ' allowance ' of any kind I'm not 13.

They're projecting their own insecurities